Thanks for the replies. I don't have the high end equipment to do some of the testing mentioned. I do have a service monitor and a dummy load, along with numerous receivers. The dummy load is kind of suspect (old and not really liking the strange signals I get from it at times) but it is all we can find around here right now. That is how I was setting it up first.
I have tried the dummy load but me and friend were playing with the repeater with the load installed and got all sorts of noise and things. So we thought putting it on an antenna would be a better test. I did do some cable swapping and fed the signal from the TX to the service monitor (connected on the RX port of the Duplexer) with the antenna connected. The cables I had hooked to the Tee were the 1/2 wavelength rg-142. I replaced them, for testing purposes, with shorter runs of rg-213, approx. 1/4 wavelength. The signal on the service monitor, went away completely. No power or signal on the meter. With the longer cables I had no power but a jumping signal on the service monitor. I have some 214 I will be making the inter connect cables out of when I get things nailed down a bit more. Someone asked the freq. and spacing earlier, it is 145.340 TX and 144.74 RX (Typical 600KHz split). My friend had talked to some radio shop around here and they said RG-8 and LMR-400 were fine just keep them from moving around. I do plan on using 1/2" hardline and some superflex jumpers out at the site. Thanks for the help so far. Any other suggestions now? Wade KC0MLT --- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, wd8chl <wd8...@...> wrote: > > On 5/21/2010 10:28 AM, kc0mlt wrote: > > Hello all. > > > > I am trying to figure out if the duplexer we have put together is up > > to the task or not. Here is the situation. We have four cavities 6.5" > > dia. one is a vari-notch the others are simple reject cans. Two > > rejects are on the TX side and one reject and the vari-notch are on > > the RX side. All set and tuned with rg-213 jumpers between cans and > > RG-142 from the cans to the Tee connector. We are doing some light > > testing with a cheap dual ban antenna on the garage. It is feed with > > RG-8 about 70 feet. We are having some issues with receive. It kind > > of sounds like desense but I think it is something wrong with the > > receiver. I was just wondering if the cobbeled together cans sound > > like thay are doing a good enough job as a duplexer or if we do have > > something to change on it. The repeater is only putting out 2 watts > > for testing. I would think I have enough separation for that power > > level. Any suggestions or thoughts woyuld be greatly appreciated. > > > > Thanks Wade KC0MLT > > Dump the RG-213 and RG-8 and use at least RG-214 between cavities, or > 1/2" hardline on the run up to the antenna. > RG-8 and -213 are single shielded and do not provide adequate isolation. > You need 100% shielding. > Also find a GOOD dummy load, and substitute that in place of the > antenna. If you still have the problem, there is an antenna issue. >
