I thought now would be a good time to test out both my handheld CBs ahead of time, the Midland 42 held charge nicely and transmits in both power settings no problem whatsoever, the radio with the power problem is, of course, the Intek H-520 Plus.
Firstly when I found the Intek it was pretty much dead, connecting the charger was the only way to get it working, removing the charger and keying up at 4 watts immediately after plugging the charger in resulted in the inevitable low battery alert and the TX cut out, same at 1 watt, however it lasted about a minute longer at 100mW, to be expected as the batteries were very low charge and are well due a replacement, and I suspect the charger supplied with the radio is absolutely dire and once I replace the batteries I will be charging them out of the radio with a charger rather than in the radio, I initially was going to swap the batteries out with Eneloop batteries however after doing some digging I found 7DayShop do 2900mAh AA batteries for a good price (Eneloop batteries only go up to 2500mAh, same as the Energizer batteries already in the radio), the good thing is that both radios key up fine.
The Grant II is subject to tests next and these handhelds will be used as part of those tests as well, for both AM and FM modulation, for SSB I will have to tune my RTL-SDR to the appropriate frequency I use to do the test as my handheld CBs can only demodulate AM and FM, however I am satisfied the CB HTs are both working as they ought to be.
These tests are required as a prerequisite of setting up internal comms for myself and guest(s) at the National Hamfest, once the H-520 batteries are replaced then I can focus on running more tests.
73 de 26CT730/2E0EIJ
