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need some input from the experts

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hal0persin

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I have a uniden bearcat 980ssb and i just ordered a rm italy kl203p amplifier for it. i have a 3 foot firestik antenna and its as long as i can get it and the swr's are about 1.45 on channel 40 and 1.00 on channel 1. im worried that with this amp i may raise my swr's to much. What do you guys think? should i upgrade my antenna to a longer one?
 

prcguy

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SWR is a measurement of your antenna system and has nothing to do with power. Sounds like your antenna is a bit too long and shortening it may give you a perfect match on ch19 and a little higher on ch 1 and 40 but lower than 40 is now.
prcguy
 

hal0persin

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So my antenna is to long? That's helpful to know. I was worried about not being able to tune it with the amplifier. I was scared I would run out of length. Thanks man!
 

milkman21218

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Your SWR is fine. You show less than 1:5 it's perfect. It won't hurt anything running it the way it is. A 4-5ft antenna performs better than a 3ft. If you don't know how to trim the antenna don't try it. And the 203 amp will serve you very well if you don't abuse it.
 

prcguy

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I would not tune the antenna with the amplifier inline, just use the radio and an SWR meter right to the antenna since during normal operation the amp will be directly feeding the antenna. The amplifier will have a through path that includes bare wires or circuit board traces, relay contacts and short lengths of coax that are probably not terminated very well and that can skew the SWR reading.
prcguy


So my antenna is to long? That's helpful to know. I was worried about not being able to tune it with the amplifier. I was scared I would run out of length. Thanks man!
 

k8krh

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I have that amp, I run it at 1watt into the amp works well.
I would get a longer antenna if I was you. You can adjust those radios for lower wattage.
DOCTOR/795
 

ChetsJug

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Just a couple fillers in information.

Some people think the antenna is tuned to the radio or something. The antenna is tuned to the vehicle as it's ground plane. Then you can run any radio at any power a particular antenna can handle. You do not change antenna tuning for each radio.

The longer the antenna the better. A longer antenna will "penatrate" the air better and also give it natural height. A longer antenna has a tip that's higher in the air. you will see the comment "Height is everything" posted in more than one place on the forums. Each length antenna is tunable to match 27 MHz, be it 3 feet long or 8 feet long. So when prcguy said to cut, he just meant the 2 or 3 inches of extra coiled up wire every antenna comes with. ALL antennas come a tad too long for the CB band so you can snip until you have matched it to the ground plane.

"Back in the day" you had to "Detune" a CB down to one watt so you didn't over drive the kicker. Today there are kickers that use 5 watts input. Check with a radio shop if you cant find it in the instructions.

Thank you and Good Night
 

hal0persin

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Thanks for all the input and advice. I could be more appreciative. You guys made it so simple to understand and didn't give me any grief. Thanks again to all of you.
 

hal0persin

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So update on the amp. I got it and hooked it up and it raised my swr's to like 2.3 and it bounced when I talked from about 2.8 down to like 1.8. What is going on?
 

N8IAA

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You probably are using cheap coax between the amp, the radio, and the antenna. It's called feedback. Check your ground for the antenna.
Larry
 

prcguy

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Did you recalibrate the meter at high power? If not it will read high SWR and whatever level you calibrated it at should stay the same during the SWR measurement. If you whistle or talk the SWR reading will not be accurate.

There should be absolutely no difference in an antenna SWR at any power to the point of parts of the antenna heating and changing dimension or arcing due to high power. It could be the amp has lots of harmonic content and that will reflect back to the amp because your antenna is tuned to the fundamental 27MHz frequency and not 54MHz or 81MHz, etc.
prcguy

So update on the amp. I got it and hooked it up and it raised my swr's to like 2.3 and it bounced when I talked from about 2.8 down to like 1.8. What is going on?
 
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