/Hi Sebastian,

I planning to work at 5W for now. I will use my 2 FT-817.... one for RX and the other one for TX.... both controlled by SatPC32. I bought 2 premamps RF switch at 25W maximum from Advanced Research.

J-F VA2SS

From/: Sebastian <w4as@xxxxxxxxxxxxx mailto:w4as@DOMAIN.HIDDEN>/ Date/: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:12:06 -0400

I'll add a thought here that I haven't seen anyone reply about. As everyone mentioned, definitely go with a preamp - but think for the future. How much transmitter output power do you have? If you have relatively low power, say 5 watts, you can get an inexpensive preamp. However, if you plan to use higher power in the future, perhaps for meteor scatter; that low power preamp may no longer be useful.

Again, you've received several responses, but one thing hasn't been mentioned. What is your output power? If you have an HT with a couple of watts, that RG-8 may 'eat up' a lot of your power, especially if you are going to transmit on 440 Mhz. Without knowing how much power you have, and which birds you plan to use, it's difficult to give you a good answer.

"you can't work 'em if you can't hear them"; also don't forget that you need to hear yourself FIRST. Work on hearing your downlink if possible before you start to call other stations. If you can't hear yourself, then post about it so we can help you out. I think it would be helpful if you told us which type(s) of rig(s) you will be using.

When you find a fellow ham who has all the money that's necessary to build a perfect station, please let me know!

73 de W4AS Sebastian