Thread: beginner installation of GME TX 3540

I doubt the unit has been damaged unless you tried transmitting a lot with the dead short but usually the units get a bit quieter with blown output trannies.

You may just be in a dead zone as UHF is a line of sight medium.

The quiet may also be due to CTCSS (Selcall) being enabled but as im not familiar with the unit its a guess at best.

What sort of aerial, where is it mounted and do you have any pictures of the aerial installed?

sorry..should have mentioned the antenna is a GME AE4703 and is mounted to ARB bar. The disco 3 bar antenna mounts on the main bar next to the headlight assembly...so quite low.

the car was outside when I was testing..in a semi enclosed car port...but I would have thought I would have heard something at least?

Good to hear I have not fried the unit!

Would be great if GME had some hand hints in their manual for first time users/testers of their radio.

Looks like a half decent GID aerial, so long as you dont tighten them using brute force and get the plug termination correct it should all be fine.

PL259 plugs can be a bit of a bugger and you need to solder them quickly to keep the heat from soaking down the plug and melting the center wire insulation and you need to be fairly precise paring back the outer sheath and folding the braid back over it for the eath component too.

Get the plug too hot and you get gremlins.

its been a long time since I did this for a living but when i last played with CB's the length of coax on the aerials was crucial as it was a tuned length so if my info is still valid (it should be) then chopping off spare or left over cable may also cause issues.

But UHF is line of sight so if you cant see it then you cant hear or talk to it as a rule of thumb so id be tuning to one of the repeaters depending on where in Melb you are but 1, 3 or 7 were always noisy and id go for a quick drive to somewhere open and elevated to see what you can hear.

I must say that the unit you have is a very high spec unit and probably a bit too techy for a first time user and that too may present some hiccups, I grabbed the PDF of the manual and its a fair old read.

Hope this helped,

Tony

BTW Channel 40 is the Truckies channel and good for a radio check, just sing out "Can anybody give me a radio check" and you will hopefully get a reply.