INSTALLATION

ANTENNA CONSIDERATIONS

The FT-8800Ris designed for use with antennas presenting an impedance of near 50 Ohms at all operating frequencies. The antenna (or a 50 Ohm dummy load) should be connected whenever the transceiver is turned on, to avoid damage that could otherwise result if transmission occurs accidentally without an antenna.

Ensure that your antenna is designed to handle 50 Watts of transmitter power. Some magnetic -mount mobile antennas, designed for use with hand-held transceivers, may not be capable of withstanding this power level. Consult the antenna manufacturer’s specification sheet for details.

Most all FM work is performed using vertical polarization. When installing a directional antenna such as a Yagi or Cubical Quad, be certain to orient it so as to produce vertical polarization, unless you are engaged in a special operating situation where horizontal polarization is used. In the case of a Yagi antenna, orient the elements vertically for vertical polarization; for a Cubical Quad, the feedpoint should be at the center of one of the vertical sides of the driven element (or at a side corner, in the case of a diamond-shaped Cubical Quad).

Note that this transceiver is designed with wide frequency coverage in the VHF/UHF spec- trum. For general listening, you may wish to have a broadband antenna such as a discone available, as a directional antenna such as a Yagi will have degraded performance outside the Amateur band for which it is designed.

Excellent reference texts and computer software are available for the design and optimization of VHF and UHF antennas. Your dealer should be able to assist you with all aspects of your antenna installation requirements.

Use high-quality 50 Ohm coaxial cable for the lead-in to your FT-8800Rtransceiver. All efforts at providing an efficient antenna system will be wasted if poor quality, lossy coaxial cable is used. Losses in coaxial lines increase as the frequency increases, so an 8-meter-long (25’) coaxial line with 1/2 dB of loss at 29 MHz may have a loss of 6 dB or more at 446 MHz; choose your coaxial cable carefully based on the installation location (mobile vs. base) and the overall length of the cable required (for very short runs of cable in a mobile installation, the smaller, more flexible cable types may be acceptable).

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FT-8800R Operating Manual