[VHFcontesting] TS-2000 and rovering

[Matt Patterson]

Hi everyone,
 
The January contest will be my second serious effort at rovering.  Last
Septemeber I only had 3 bands and just barefoot power from my TS-2000.
There have been significant improvements in the months since then and now
I've added 222Mhz to my arsenal, added better yagi antennas and TE Systems
amps for each band.  Which has presented some new problems that I need to
overcome to make this a sucessfull outting in the upcomming contest.  I'm
looking for someone who uses a TS-2000 in their rover setup so I can ask a
few questions and get some opinions on what they did to solve these.   My
main isses are...
 
1.   Keying of the amps.  I want to do hard keying of the amps.   I know the
TE Systems amps have RF sensing built in BUT I just don't trust it.  I would
rather hard key.  The accessory port on the TE amp draws 1A.  The keying
circuit on the EXT.CONT port on the TS-2000 is only rated for 20mA.
Obviously there's a problem there.  I assume I need a relay of some kind
that will isolate the high current of the TE amp so that it doesn't blow the
relay in the TS-2000.
 
2.   I've gotten the opinion of one long time VHF contester that he's afraid
that since all my antennas and amps are in close proximity to one another
that when I key up on one band with the amp going while the other amps are
in RX mode that the preamps might not like and there may be a potential for
them to be damaged.  A solution to this problem was proposed that what if I
were to tie all the pins that key each individual amp together (6m, 2m and
432Mhz so that when the PTT is activated ALL the amps would key taking them
out of RX mode and essentially isolating the other preamps from the
possibility of being damaged.  Since the 222Mhz DEMI transverter I have has
an IF of 28Mhz it will be keyed by the remote jack, which controls keying
for HF.
 
Basically, I'm just looking for some guidance here on what I should do or if
I'm overreacting about the possibility of damaging the other preamps while
transmitting on one of the other amps.  I'm sure someone out there somewhere
has run into a similar situation before in their rover.  Any and all help
would be greatly appreciated!
 
73 Matt
W5LL