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Amp Suggestion
- Thread starter Melhager
- Start date
sure if you can feed it then that would work fine and if you plan on using it in ssb mode get something with at least b biasing.
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
your best bang for the buck is within the first 250 watts after that it takes more money than what its worth to get to the point where people are going to see a noticable diffrence.
Amplifier cost wiring and setting up a charging sytem that will handle feeding that size of amplifier without eating alternators up. i tell people not to stay within the 250-350 watt range your safe there and theres nice amplifiers available at that rating and price range like Cobra 350, texas star 350 and texas star 400. The problem is you CANNOT drive any of these with all that 2970 has to offer.
That radio should be doing 200 watts buy itself which is plenty. I run 100 watts out of our vehicles using HF radios Im going to hookup my 2970 in one of the vehicles one of these days just to try it. If I want more power Ill hook up 1 of my 2950 or 2510 and one of several amplifiers I have but would lean towards the Texas Star DX400.
We talk allover on 100 watts 0 meters is a blast when were out tooling around in the vehicle and the band is open. I will definitely try a 2970DX or 2970DXN2 one of these days seeings how I have an older 2970 which will do 10-11 meters unlike my 2950DX that covers 10 11 and 12 meters.
I personally would rather run just a radio that did 200 - 250 watts I often think of selling things here to try a N2 model but cannot justify myself spending the kind of money the N2 goes far when I can buy another HF rig for the same price and have 4 times the radio.
Just keep in mind that it takes 4 times the power to see a difference worth cheering about and I have seen a few articles stating your first 250 watts is where your money was well spent and a 350 watt amplifier is managable for the vehicles electrical system when its dark and all lights are also running. I say it makes sense because even the Texas Star DX400 does not have to be run at full throttle so at 250 - 300 it would not be being beat to hell and would idle along or operate allday there and if you wanted that little extra its at the push of a button or turn of a variable power or drive knob.
Amplifier cost wiring and setting up a charging sytem that will handle feeding that size of amplifier without eating alternators up. i tell people not to stay within the 250-350 watt range your safe there and theres nice amplifiers available at that rating and price range like Cobra 350, texas star 350 and texas star 400. The problem is you CANNOT drive any of these with all that 2970 has to offer.
That radio should be doing 200 watts buy itself which is plenty. I run 100 watts out of our vehicles using HF radios Im going to hookup my 2970 in one of the vehicles one of these days just to try it. If I want more power Ill hook up 1 of my 2950 or 2510 and one of several amplifiers I have but would lean towards the Texas Star DX400.
We talk allover on 100 watts 0 meters is a blast when were out tooling around in the vehicle and the band is open. I will definitely try a 2970DX or 2970DXN2 one of these days seeings how I have an older 2970 which will do 10-11 meters unlike my 2950DX that covers 10 11 and 12 meters.
I personally would rather run just a radio that did 200 - 250 watts I often think of selling things here to try a N2 model but cannot justify myself spending the kind of money the N2 goes far when I can buy another HF rig for the same price and have 4 times the radio.
Just keep in mind that it takes 4 times the power to see a difference worth cheering about and I have seen a few articles stating your first 250 watts is where your money was well spent and a 350 watt amplifier is managable for the vehicles electrical system when its dark and all lights are also running. I say it makes sense because even the Texas Star DX400 does not have to be run at full throttle so at 250 - 300 it would not be being beat to hell and would idle along or operate allday there and if you wanted that little extra its at the push of a button or turn of a variable power or drive knob.
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
RatsoW8
Supporting Member, W9WDX ARC Member - WD8T
Your MUCH better off investing your money into a good mobile antenna (screwdriver type) than adding an amp and using a poor mobile antenna. Most of your power is lost anyway.
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
i don't know what antenna the OP is gonna use , but using the best antenna you can is always the best idea . wouldn't a screwdriver antenna be over kill bandwidth wise for a 2970 ? would it perform better than a 108 inch whip on 11 meters ?
yes alot more to it than just a radio,,,the system definitely has to be installed properly with a good antenna system, coax, vehicle bonding, connections done right, proper power supply. it really just depends on the level of expertise the op has as to whether he can get this all to work properly.
without more info, i would be guessing he is staying on 11 meters. You can run a single antenna like the wilson 5000 hard mounted for that much power easy. If 10 and 12 meters are to be used mobile, then op can have stingers pretuned to those bandwidths and just change them out as needed. Keep the other 2 stingers in the trunk.
without more info, i would be guessing he is staying on 11 meters. You can run a single antenna like the wilson 5000 hard mounted for that much power easy. If 10 and 12 meters are to be used mobile, then op can have stingers pretuned to those bandwidths and just change them out as needed. Keep the other 2 stingers in the trunk.
I'm using a Predator 10K with a 27" lower shaft.It is tuned at 1.1swr on my MFJ.Also using RG 213 coax.Truck is well grounded and bonded.I was planning on using 1/0 wire for power and ground on the amp. Radio is wired to battery with 4 ga.
if you can afford it go with an 8 pill
I wouldn't run it into anything less than 8, but I bought the N2 so I didn't need an amp at all
It's a great radio IMO. I can be driving down the road and make a SSB DX contact basically at will. I haven't tried DX on AM much, but the locals have commented on how clean and clear it is on several occasions.
It's actually detuned a little, with absolutely no mods ...... what is there to mod? We pretty much let it hang out on AM doing slightly over 200pep, but we stopped at around 175pep on SSB. Not so much for the SSB DX, but local SSB. It started to get a little scratchy around 185pep and the local SSB'ers would have picked it out. For most people, 200-225pep SSB would be no problem though.
Other then a correct tune and alignment that radio needs no secret mods. There is no point trying to wrangle every last watt out of it either.