President McKinley SWR calibration

[Austin83]

Hey everyone, I’m a new member, but I’ve been lurking the forums for quite awhile. As of last week, I’m a new owner of a President McKinley radio that’s combined with a Firestik adjustable antenna. While using the President’s internal SWR meter to calibrate my antenna, I left the radio in the SWR calibration mode while removing the antenna (quick disconnect) to make adjustments before putting the antenna back on to check my SWR. After I got everything adjusted, I noticed that TX flashes on the screen while in SWR calibration mode (no key up necessary), and I became concerned whether the radio does some form of transmitting while in this mode, and that I could have damaged the radio while removing the antenna to make tip adjustments. I’m not well versed with President radios or electronics in general so I’m unsure if these radios have any safety devices to guard against extremely high SWR values or if it’s even possible to transmit while in calibration mode. Any advice or insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Austin

 

[jassing]

Can't help with the McKinley specifics, but the radio isn't really in "swr mode"; just the meter is. It would not be transmitting until you key the mike.
Most modern radios will survive poor swr, provided you are running stock power - all bets are off if you run at higher power or with an amplifier. Most people just grab a CB, plug it in, and use it and think "I bought a CB specific antenna, it's already tuned"; so the radios need to handle it or most radios would be dead on 1st use.
That said -- getting your swr down as low as possible is your best bet for longevity & getting out ...
When you put the antenna back, be sure to put the red cap back on too; just having that on will change swr.
If you really care about getting a good swr -- do yourself a favour and get a quality external swr meter.

 

[2IR473]

The McKinley does in fact go into TX automatically ”without pressing the PTT key” when you go to the SWR function in the menu. It states that in the manual. It does not state what the output power is when doing so, but I suspect it is whatever you have the RF out set to (RF output is also adjustable on the McKinley).

When I used this feature with my McKinley, I stopped the process between each adjustment, then made the adjustment to the antenna, and then checked it again. I don’t normally want to handle an antenna that has RF going through it, even if it is relatively low power.

 

[Austin83]

Thanks for the replies, I’ll definitely be more careful next time. The radio appears to be operating fine, and with the help of mother nature, I was able to skip over several states yesterday.