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My homebrew J-pole fed to by 80' of 20 year old RG-8;
?My HT gets a tad warm; SWR high end? No power supply, just batt from HT.
Other than that, good signal report from otherwise ziltch before.
Suggestions?
I think I'll grab another V8000 (since I have one) and feed it off my trolling motor battery.
Thoughts?
I'm in a tad remote area.

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My thoughts?

I miss the hell out of my V8000...

Why did you separate from it?
I've seen a commercial grade very similar to it.

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Check it with a SWR meter. I don't know how it was built but a J-poles SWR can move off quickly if the feedpoint isn't right on the mark.

Stupid trade.
He won.
I lost.

I would if I had one. Or could just borrow one.

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I would inspect 80ft of old coax first, obviously a SWR will tell you right out but if you cant get one you could always find another operator with time on his hands to help you plot signal reports to getto-swr-meter it.

running 5-10w of VHF thru 80ft of crappy coax however into a 3-4db gain antenna that isnt ideal, you ever notice the heat before? with a duck on the heat still there? obviously the amp will cause heat but high swr will also cause heat and damage your finals.

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If I had an antenna, I would; but I can only transmit on 160 meters.
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DE K7MHI

Outlaw, this is nothing new for handheld HTs. Some get warm and others get *hot* ... but not as hot as they use to. I remember my old DJ-580T Alinco would get REALLY hot after a long period of transmitting. The newer radios are much better. I just picked up a Yaesu FT-270R a few weeks ago and it gets a little warm after a few transmits. It's nothing to worry about.

As Spud suggested, the coax could be getting old. Water can creep into the coax and cause weird things like shorts, noise, etc. From personal experience, I've had to replace coax that was chewed on by backyard critters.

I wouldn't worry about a high SWR. Even with 5w thru 80ft of RG-8 coax @ 4:1 SWR is still 3w out. Even @ 10:1, it's still 2w out.

Remember that even a 75w mobile like the V8000 will only put out 56w @ 1:1 SWR with 80ft of RG-8 coax. This is where you'll want to make sure the SWR is < 2:1 (for best efficiency.)

Yeah I'm not going to fret over it.
Probably the resistance of the thicker RG-8.
I've had other HT's get warm.

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a.k.a. "Handwarmer"