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I need a lower deadkey Grantxl

Fdtrucker

W9WDX Amateur Radio Club Member
Apr 5, 2005
184
0
26
Southern Shore Of Lake Ontario
I was in the amp section and From what I can gather I need to bring my deadkey down on my Grant XL. What can I do? It dead keys around 8 watts. If I bring the power down on the radio I loose wattage. The Amp will do 450+ with 20 watts swing from the radio, less than that it goes down dramaticly.. It is hooked to a palomar 450HD Elite. I want to deadkey 4 watts or less and swing to full power... I am pulling my hair out :!:
 

If your getting 450 real watts with only 20 watts drive PEP then your very lucky. Usually a dual final radio is needed to get the full output from a Palomar 450.

That said VR-10 is your AM dead key on that radio. You might consider having some form of the NPC mod done to that radio. The problem you will have is when you drop the dead key to say 2 watts the signal on the scope will begin to suffer and your AUDIO will not be where it should be without the NPC.

You might just set the dead key at 3-4 watts and go with it. With that radio you will never drive a radio to peak output but thats ok. 375 watts of nice audio is just fine. Should sound real good.
 
only one that will more then likely notice a differents is you, You got a meter ? Just drop it down to 2 watts and adjust your modulation to 100% ....it's a Grant XL !!! You will have plenty of audio !! .....chance are you will swing about 8 watts pep .....just let your box take care of the rest !!
 
Put 8 watts into that palomar and it won't last too long. Better lower that dead like they said.
 
If everything is running correctly, no-one should notice a different sound when you run the amp. All the amp is supposed to do is put your signal out further, which is what you said you are seeing. i agree with the poster who said put it at 2 watts and let the amp do its thing. I'm not a big NPC fan, but used conservatively, it won't distort your audio very much.
 
Mine is at 2 watts swining 10. Using it with a texas star 350 and it does a great job. Doing 70 watts swinging 200 or so
 
Damn !! pep watts are like drugs around here with folks !! (-: ....I suppose IM the same way ? I like cap/resistor mods and NPC'ers .....the more I read the more i learn over the years that those really big pepper numbers are really a falacy all the same )-: isn't really what I think it is rather then splatter and bleed (power going else where) ....I totally understand this but my thick brain just likes those false readings I suppose ? .....really doesn't make much sence to me when I think about it ? like cutting a audio limiter ....in reality I lose power !! ......Now why in the hell would I want to lose power in the first place ? ......that's kind of stupid I would think ......OK ....I don't cut or clip or remove limiters ........but the cap/resistor mod's and NPC's basically do the same damned thing !! ......I guess I really like those false readings and loud ass audio those suckers give..........If I could only get it through my think head I could more then likely even talk farther and cleaner and more then likely take it a little easier on my gear............well ....you can turn the audio down a bit to clean it up to others ears .....but when you do that you lose the falacy of your pepper upper numbers ......Hmmmm ? ....so maybe the 4 times the carrier theroy makes more sence to me ? .....2 WT DK x 4 = 8 at 100% modulation ......no lose /clean audio ....waste not want not ? Very interesting to say the least. (-:
 
bulldog369, when a factory produced amplifier is stamped HD this is supposed to mean it can handle the higher swing from say a dual final radio. It does not mean you can dead key 8-10 watts into it. Whats funny is some of these amps are HD amps by sticker only.
 
Switch Kit, I agree with you 100 percent. Set the thing to 2 watt D/Key, adjust AMC for 100 percent modulation (like you said, about 8 watts pep), and be done with it. Radios set up this way sound much better than swing-modded crap!
 

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