[TowerTalk] ARR Preamp Failures

[Jim Brown]

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 11:18:48 -0500, W0UN -- John Brosnahan wrote:

>TOWER-mounted (there, I said it) RF-switched preamps are
>usually designed to work with a continuous carrier like FM.
>When used with SSB they can "chatter" with the RF amplitude
>variations--depending on the relay "hang time".

Any good switching system, including ARR's, is designed with hang time to 
accomodate SSB and even CW.  When it works, it works very well, and the 
last time it was fixed it ran well for 3 months and a lot of 6 meter activity. 

I also talked to Jay this morning, and he agreed that I appeared to be 
applying the preamp correctly and in a manner that should work well. His 
response was quite positive and professional, so we're really talking about 
some sort of failure mode in this particular preamp that shouldn't be 
happening.  

Jim