My misunderstanding, I thought you were referring to Bob's Top Gun quad five, it's actually called the quad 5 and it's his version made by anytone.
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Anytone at-5555n II (version 2)
- Thread starter Eldorado828
- Start date
Easy enough mistake to make and I kind of figured it was just that. I like the thought I could walk out his door and be assured it was aligned proper. After receiving 2 new President radios delivered to my door and both were misaligned I have a bad taste in my mouth. And after sending the Lincoln II+ back to President Radio because Bob identified a bad part in the SSB circuit they just replaced the bad part and still sent it back to me Misaligned, or it got banged around in shipment. I pay hard earned money for new product and get Crap & headaches, Who needs it ! Sorry for the Rant. LOL
Found time this morning to hook up my new 5555Nii.
First impressions: It worked perfectly right out of the box. Mod for 11 meters took about 5 minutes of time. Frequency is bang on. I changed a couple settings in the menu including increasing mic gain to 30. I have no intention of going anywhere near the service menu.
The receive audio is very very good. On an external speaker it's even better than the sound of my Kenwood and Icom ham radios.
The noise reduction really does work. Signals which are buried in my very low noise floor pop right out with NR on step 1 or 2. Levels higher than that tend to make people sound robotic and clarity does not get any better.
I love the option to use 5 KHz steps ! So much easier to scan through the band than on my 6666. Still not as easy as the Kenwood though.
I got radio checks, the first call I made, on 27.445 LSB, 26.915 AM, and 26.805 FM
Delaware, Hawaii, and Mississippi..... All reported excellent transmit audio from the stock mic and good signal strength.
There are no problems with the meter reading, noise blanker, or low FM audio, so these issues must have been fixed in firmware somewhere along the way.
Dislike: The display is too bright and there is no dimmer. Same issue as my 6666. What gives with that Anytone ? It seems like with all the options in the menu, they could at least have a display dimmer.
It remains to be seen if it will play well with my Palomar 200, I know some folks have had issues running these radios with older amps.
First impressions: It worked perfectly right out of the box. Mod for 11 meters took about 5 minutes of time. Frequency is bang on. I changed a couple settings in the menu including increasing mic gain to 30. I have no intention of going anywhere near the service menu.
The receive audio is very very good. On an external speaker it's even better than the sound of my Kenwood and Icom ham radios.
The noise reduction really does work. Signals which are buried in my very low noise floor pop right out with NR on step 1 or 2. Levels higher than that tend to make people sound robotic and clarity does not get any better.
I love the option to use 5 KHz steps ! So much easier to scan through the band than on my 6666. Still not as easy as the Kenwood though.
I got radio checks, the first call I made, on 27.445 LSB, 26.915 AM, and 26.805 FM
Delaware, Hawaii, and Mississippi..... All reported excellent transmit audio from the stock mic and good signal strength.
There are no problems with the meter reading, noise blanker, or low FM audio, so these issues must have been fixed in firmware somewhere along the way.
Dislike: The display is too bright and there is no dimmer. Same issue as my 6666. What gives with that Anytone ? It seems like with all the options in the menu, they could at least have a display dimmer.
It remains to be seen if it will play well with my Palomar 200, I know some folks have had issues running these radios with older amps.
Update to add: It works fine with the Palomar. AM swing isn't as much as I might like.........the minimum 1.8 watt deadkey from the radio gives about 75 watts DK from the amp swinging to about 130 watts. I did make some AM contacts just to check it out, and audio reports were positive....I very rarely use AM so a little less swing is not a big deal for me.
With the same amp, I get 150 watts output on FM (with radio output around 5 watts), and about 180 PEP on SSB (with radio PEP around 8 watts).
My locals all say the 5555Nii & Palomar combo is louder than my Kenwood, which runs only a little less power, so that loudness is mostly coming from the surprisingly good stock mic.
I made tons of contacts today, and netted one new country; division 194 Dominica.
So far I'm very happy with this radio !
With the same amp, I get 150 watts output on FM (with radio output around 5 watts), and about 180 PEP on SSB (with radio PEP around 8 watts).
My locals all say the 5555Nii & Palomar combo is louder than my Kenwood, which runs only a little less power, so that loudness is mostly coming from the surprisingly good stock mic.
I made tons of contacts today, and netted one new country; division 194 Dominica.
So far I'm very happy with this radio !
I had a slightly odd thing happen with the AM deadkey on my 5555Nii. When I got the radio it measured 1.8 watts DK, then a couple days later it was 1.3 watts.
So yesterday I went to talk AM and had no swing running the amp. Checked and the radio DK is now 2.2 watts !! Not sure why it keeps changing ! FM and SSB power levels are all the same, and AM full power hasn't changed. Just the AM deadkey wattage keeps changing. Weird.
So yesterday I went to talk AM and had no swing running the amp. Checked and the radio DK is now 2.2 watts !! Not sure why it keeps changing ! FM and SSB power levels are all the same, and AM full power hasn't changed. Just the AM deadkey wattage keeps changing. Weird.
If you get a answer on why it is happening, Please share because that would frustrate me also !
That's unusual. Slight changes can happen, but 1.3 to 2.2w is big delta for this radio. A couple of things to check to rule out the radio:
-Are you testing this into a dummy load, or an antenna?
-What power meter are you using?
-Does the result change with temperature?
-Are power supply voltages stable?
-Any AC hum (or ground loops) on your audio setup will add some unwanted modulation to your carrier, so check that too (look on a scope if you can).
73
Hi Pez ! Thanks for dropping in !
- I'm testing into a 50 ohm dummy load. Same results happen on my A-99 antenna.
- Meter is a Daiwa CN-101L. The meter in my Kenwood AT-230 tuner/switcher agrees within 100 mW
- Good question about the temperature. Shop temperature varies between about 10 and 15 celsius at this time of year, so not a huge temp range.
- Power supply is a Megawatt 36 amp on a big UPS. Voltage is dead stable at 14.1 volts.
-Everything is properly grounded to a ground bus. I listened on my Icom 735 through headphones and the carrier is dead quiet....no hum.
Love the radio otherwise... nothing but good reports on audio etc. from folks I talk to. I'm not a huge AM talker, so it's more of a curiosity problem than anything else!
- I'm testing into a 50 ohm dummy load. Same results happen on my A-99 antenna.
- Meter is a Daiwa CN-101L. The meter in my Kenwood AT-230 tuner/switcher agrees within 100 mW
- Good question about the temperature. Shop temperature varies between about 10 and 15 celsius at this time of year, so not a huge temp range.
- Power supply is a Megawatt 36 amp on a big UPS. Voltage is dead stable at 14.1 volts.
-Everything is properly grounded to a ground bus. I listened on my Icom 735 through headphones and the carrier is dead quiet....no hum.
Love the radio otherwise... nothing but good reports on audio etc. from folks I talk to. I'm not a huge AM talker, so it's more of a curiosity problem than anything else!
I do know on my Lincoln II+ I had to change my power supply output voltage because when I keyed the mic the voltage dropped at the radio dropped to under 12 volts so instead of a output of 13.8 at the power supply I had to bump it up to 14.25 volts. Then I just change my radio over to my larger power supply and the voltage stayed above 12 volts when I keyed the mic. Just food for thought ! PS. and my first power supply was a pyramid 36 amp but boosting the output voltage to 14.25 did keep the voltage at the radio above 12 volt when the mic was keyed but figured that power supply must be border line for that kind of radio.
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Your setup sounds good to me. It's a strange issue, and I have not seen this on any of mine before. Sorry I don't know what else to suggest. Maybe your radio has a component that is out of tolerance, which would be bad luck more than anything else. Good luck with it, I hope you can work it out!
73
I figured it out ! And it wasn't the radio after all ! 
I had an amp inline and even though it was switched off, the signal of course still passes through the relays in the amp. I noticed that by tapping the lid of the amp when it was off, I could make the deadkey from the radio go up and down between 1 and 2 watts. The culprit was a dirty relay in the amp ! Not sure why it only acts up on very low power, but there you have it......
With the amp out of the circuit, just the radio into the meter into the dummy load I am getting a very stable 1.2 watts deadkey.
I had an amp inline and even though it was switched off, the signal of course still passes through the relays in the amp. I noticed that by tapping the lid of the amp when it was off, I could make the deadkey from the radio go up and down between 1 and 2 watts. The culprit was a dirty relay in the amp ! Not sure why it only acts up on very low power, but there you have it......
With the amp out of the circuit, just the radio into the meter into the dummy load I am getting a very stable 1.2 watts deadkey.
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Great success!I figured it out ! And it wasn't the radio after all !
I had an amp inline and even though it was switched off, the signal of course still passes through the relays in the amp. I noticed that by tapping the lid of the amp when it was off, I could make the deadkey from the radio go up and down between 1 and 2 watts. The culprit was a dirty relay in the amp ! Not sure why it only acts up on very low power, but there you have it......
With the amp out of the circuit, just the radio into the meter into the dummy load I am getting a very stable 1.2 watts deadkey.
How's that going to affect your output power at the antenna ? Can you clean that dirty relay ?I figured it out ! And it wasn't the radio after all !
I had an amp inline and even though it was switched off, the signal of course still passes through the relays in the amp. I noticed that by tapping the lid of the amp when it was off, I could make the deadkey from the radio go up and down between 1 and 2 watts. The culprit was a dirty relay in the amp ! Not sure why it only acts up on very low power, but there you have it......
With the amp out of the circuit, just the radio into the meter into the dummy load I am getting a very stable 1.2 watts deadkey.