Cobra 29 LX and an RM Italy KL 200P

Danger,

Check out this web site, http://www.k0bg.com

It will keep you busy for DAYS.

One of the things he stresses is be sure to run our NEG back to the battery.

It all depends on how much time and effort you put into this hobby as to how much work you do to your vehicle. I will say that I spent weeks reading his web site and then went to work on my '10 Chevy truck. Grounding and bonding is worth every minute that you spend on the truck.

And as everyone that is worth listening to will tell you, your setup starts and ends with your antenna. Crap antenna = crap equiptment. All the power in the world, "peak n tune" and all the bells and wistles will be worthless without a good antenna.

I'm running a Ranger 2970N2 with a Wilson 5K. mobile to mobile is good for 15-20 miles, mobile to base about 50 miles and of course skip is where the fun is, especially on LSB

Good luck

 

Hey Danger07,
I bought my first radio back in 1987 from Dick "Gadgetman" Can you please help me by letting me know how I can get in contact with him. I always loved the way my radio worked and sounded and would love to get my current radio worked up by the man himself. Anything you can do to help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Jon "HAMMY"

 

Thank you Danger! I am going to call him today. I havent seen him since Continental Communications (his old storefront if you remember) closed.
I was and am very happy to hear that he is still kicking and still working on rigs. Never steered me wrong and never sold me anything I didnt need. Honestly My wife didnt much care for him (Actually met my wife 28 years ago, on the CB I bought from Dick) But I refused to take any of my rigs anywhere else. Back when there were a few games in town.
Thanks Again,
JON

 

Hi Handlebar -

I recently bought the same amp, the KL 200p, and I'm seeing maybe 30w out of it -- not close the 200W everyone else seems to be. I'm driving it with a Cobra 29LTD out of the box (4W) which I think is the same radio as Danger is using (see above) and the wattmeter is a DOSY 1kW meter.

Someone mentioned there may be a jumper inside of these 200p amps that needs to be moved to another set of pins -- is there any truth to that? Is there maybe something wrong with this amp? What do you think?

There should be a CarTalk for this subject, too!

Thx. 73s.

 

Very old thread.

But if you're driving it with a stock 4w radio, it's my understanding that it's not likely to last very long.

Need to have your radio turned down to 1w deadkey.

 

I'm running a Cobra 29 LTD with a Palomar Elite 250 and a Wilson 5000 Magmount. My Radio Dead key output has been lowered to 1W with a 6-8 W swing so how much power output should I be getting out of My Elite 250???

 

Hard to tell, since your radio is running out of its linear performance curve. When fully modulated, each of the two sidebands (upper and lower) each possess 25% of the power of the carrier. So add 100% for the carrier, 25% for the LSB, and 25% for the USB, and you come up with 150% of the carrier's power at full modulation. Anything more than that (think "swing") is non-linear, so it's not within the channel bandwidth you're dialed up on. Meaning it's either splattering noise onto the channels above and below where you're dialed up, or it may be putting out signal on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on harmonics. A harmonic is a multiple of a fundamental frequency; the fundamental is called, somewhat confusingly, the first harmonic. The second harmonic of 27 MHz is 54 MHz, right at the top of the 6 meter ham band. Third harmonic is 81 MHz, in the range assigned to the "lower VHF" TV channels. Fourth harmonic is 108 MHz, top of the FM broadcast band and bottom of the frequency range for Radio Aids to Navigation (for aircraft).

Someone (I hope it was in this thread) asked what happens when the SWR goes up when an amp gets turned on. Simple: what used to be a pretty clean signal was being efficiently transferred to the antenna system and radiated out into, as we old timers called it, "the ether". As soon as you either crank every possible adjustment inside the radio, OR put a broadbanded (untuned input and/or output) RF amplifier (I refuse to refer to most of them as a "linear") and now your signal has, likely, either harmonics or so many spurious frequency emissions that your antenna does its job by allowing only the frequencies for which it was designed to pass, and reflects the rest down the coax to show up as "reflected RF energy".
In fact, that's a good, fast, cheap test to see if your amp has been carefully tuned or just adjusted for "maximum smoke". Unless you have a very, very good wattmeter, or are watching the frequency distribution of your amp's output on a spectrum analyzer, your best indication of an amp that's "flying", as it's called in the commercial field, is a higher SWR with the amp on than when it's off.

Guvhog, unless you want to be interfering with aircraft in flight trying to listen to a VOR site, I suggest you have your Cobra re-adjusted so that its deadkey is 1.0 watts and at full modulation it's 1.5 watts. THEN see how much power you get out of your Palomar and just make a note of it, rather than using it for bragging rights. Make sure you have a decent counterpoise ("ground plane") when you adjust your Wilson (nice antenna, BTW), and THEN go ahead and stuff some watts into it.

And recall, if you've got a clean signal, you'll probably get more QSOs than the guy who's got so much garbage running that he sounds like an auctioneer inside the prison industries department at an insane asylum. I try to make sure that everyone who leaves here has a radio that sounds like a professional radio, rather than a Speak 'n' Spell running through an Emulator into a megaphone.

I get many more referrals that go something like, "I heard Ernie's radio a couple of hours ago, and he sounded like he was in the next lane from me. Can you make my radio sound clean & clear like that?"

Word-of-mouth advertising is the very best kind, and I *love* to hear happy folks come in because of other happy folks.
73

 

I will settle for a Dave Made,Xforce,Palomar,Fat Boy,and on it goes for all the WIMPS that did not back away.....ooohhh,Texas Star. I always seen these RM ITALY amps as,Who,What Why,Where,When and How. Do not get them and maybe that is the trouble? JUNK! If Walmart sells them,UUUMMM!!!!! Trash.!!!! Troy.

 

I'm sure that was supposed to convey a message. Want to try again?