Testing and Adjustment

With your preamp installed between antenna and receiver, the only adjustment needed is the obvious one: peaking L1 for maximum signal strength. This may require more patience than most of us would think, because the adjustment should be made on a weak signal transmitting long enough to permit the adjustment. Since this is a low noise preamp, don’t look for an imaginary increase in noise level or waste time trying to make a strong repeater signal seem stronger!

CAUTION

Under no circumstances should transmitter RF ever be applied to the input or output of this preamplifier. Even though this sounds like unneeded advice and common-sense knowledge, we should remember that most of today’s receivers are in transceiver configuration, and that all it takes is one accidental push of a button out of habit, or an inadvertent bump of a keyer, to destroy a preamplifier.

PR20—9