I purchased it used for a great price and it is in pristine condition. It also seems to be built like a true brick — very solid. Testing showed it worked well with roughly 15 watts input to drive 100 watts output. The built-in preamp also appears to be working well. The noise figure is rated at 1.25 dB. So I may opt for the ARR preamp I already have with it’s noise figure of 0.55 dB. We’ll see how it works on the air.
I am considering a couple of modifications. The first would be to swap out the UHF connectors for N connectors, as those are the connectors I use at 222 MHz and up. The second would be to move to a PowerPole panel connection versus the current Cinch Jones 4-pin connector. Something to do before the January VHF Contest.
222 Fall VHF Sprint
I’ve just worked the fall sprint using a Directive Systems 10 element Rover Yagi on my push-up mast. The amplifier worked great. The preamps didn’t show much difference that I could detect. I do see that the external ARR preamp provides just a bit more gain.
The activity level in the sprint here in North Texas was low as expected. I managed to work AA5C, W5AFY, W5TTY, W5ZN, W5VY, and K5QE — six QSOs and six grids all on FT8. I also chatted with Marshall, K5QE, on SSB, which was nice.
That’s the news here. One more step in improving my VHF rover.
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