Many of the HVAC manufacturers produce units that have terrible RFI.  They chose to save money by not including any filtering.  If a new owner complains then they typically provide the filter kit at no cost.   

Call your installer and give them holy heck.

Here are some starting points....

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php
http://amfone.net/ECSound/
http://www.amwindow.org/index.htm
http://www.ami-west.com/

Gratuitous radio porn:
http://www.radioblvd.com/

http://snebulos.mit.edu/projects/reference/NASA-Generic/NASA-STD-8739-3-2.pdf

NASA soldering standards, 1997

And yes, liquid flux is allowed.

In  my experience the Nasa/military standard is 700F.

Liquid solder flux can make a big difference in ease and quality of soldering, particularly if you are doing rework on old components.

There are 'cheap' and even 'bad' solders out their.  I was given a kit to build which came with solder and so help me, I couldn't get it to stick for love nor money.  Radio Shack solder has always been at least decent, but I got a roll that had some punky rosin.  Ick.   Kester 44 is pretty much the gold standard for solder.

Keep your tip clean.  Have either a wet sponge or a brass scrubber beside your stand and use them regularly.  Wipe clean before going to the work, and put a little solder on before setting the iron down in the stand to keep it covered against oxidation.  

bill

Facts just don't seem to matter here....

SS Cola is based on the CPI-W
The CPI-W includes gas and food.
Nothing is left out.

Re; Quantitative Easing, they create the value out of the air by crediting it to the banks in exchange for bonds/commercial assets, in essence buying them. As the bonds mature the Fed redeems them, or may choose to sell them early, recouping most or all of the expanded value.  Pretty close to a zero sum game hopefully.

Does printing money and putting it on the street, and QE both expand the money market?  Yes, in different ways.  But QE is not "printing money'.  

Regardless of the bitter accusations of printing money, the effect of QE is readily apparent: Inflation has risen no more than modestly, and is down over the last year, and the economy continues slow but steady improvement.  Things could be a lot worse.

No.  The Ether doesn't know the difference between what RF is noise and what is desirable signal.  Improve reception and it all increases.   An Inverted L is a omnidirectional antenna.  If you want to eliminate noise you need to use a directional antenna that receives less well in the direction of noise sources.

Yes.

the radials vs. gain curve is relatively straight from the mid twenties on up to 120
radials.  So, it becomes a matter of effort/sweat and dollars.  IMO, 36 radials is about my upper limit of effort. 

Tests by N6LF pretty well confirm that it is better to have have More but Shorter radials, vs. Fewer Long radials.   This makes sense when you consider that the density of the RF flux lines a greater the closer to the antenna.
   
Some observations
-Radials longer than 1/2 wl, have very little return for the effort
-Radials on or under the ground do not be tuned/cut for a precise lengths for each band, but for the longest band.  Elevated radials do.
-Radials lengths between 0.2-0.3wl (or approx 0.25wl) give the most bang for the buck.  If nothing else, try to make them equal in length to the height of the antenna.

I too highly recommend the N6LF studies.  Buckets of diamonds there.  Ed LaPorte's antenna engineering book is excellent as well.  It is available in re-print for about $15.

     

[/quote]

Stamp your feet and cry 'wee, wee, wee all the way home'.  Your ignorance is incredible.
-Regardless of the actual number of the CPI for Jan 2012, you forget some basics.  There are 49 other states and 6 Territories that are factored in.  Gas is only one small part of the 'Market Basket' representing typical family consumption.

-Printing cash is a crude method and hasn't been done in decades.  The Fed's Quantitative Easing is how money was injected into the economy from the top. Again, the measure of the result is the inflation rate.  Again, it has not exceeded 4% in the last ten years, and has average less than 3%

-If you believe in conspiracies, then there is no hope for you.  Go live in your fantasy land and count your enemies.

-There isn't enough gold in the world to represent the world's economy. There isn't enough available gold to represent the US's economy.  If you think money is tight now, imagine the government having to beg to buy gold from other countries in order to allow expansion of our economy!  You would really be up in arms.

-Re; exchange rates:  While it is nice to buy a cheap beer while traveling in the Far East, most of those countries have a minimal amount of trade (less than 1.4%) of the US total and thus their exchange rate has little or no direct effect on the US dollar.  In any case, the world changed in 2008, and much more weight must be given to trends since than, rather than strictly comparing to 2003.

Sigh.

A long term decline is not 'plunging'.  Look it up.

BTW, the Consumer Price Index, 'Market Basket' does include food and gasoline.  http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifaq.htm#Question_7

In the larger picture, the US is still recovering from a near depression, and the Far East countries are still enjoying rapid growth as they mature into modern economic societies.  That strengthens their currencies. 

But realize that the US can't go back 50 years.  These new countries are now equal competitors. We can't assume that we are technologically superior, nor that other countries must buy our goods.  It's a different world.  Compete or lose.

Well, since the original statement was that the Dollar was losing value against all the worlds currency, we have to start somewhere.  The Euro represents a major chunk of the world countries, as well as the country of origin, Italy, of the amplifier in question.   

Again, we see that the Dollar is NOT plunging and this cannot be blamed for the price of the amplifier.

You cannot claim buying power is being lost without comparing it against something.

The US consumer price index represents the a consistent and well documented method of comparing prices in the US going back into the 19th century.   Piss and moan all you want, but you will have to argue with government and private economists about the composition. 

Again, it represents a consistent and well documented resource going back over 100 years.   And it shows that US inflation has not been above 4% in the last ten years, and has declined for the last year. 

Sure, you use a signal generator to inject a signal into the antenna port.  Then you measure the voltage level, and adjust the metering circuit.   You need to decide what signal level you want to be represented on the meter.  Each manufacturer decides what level they use.  One level that has often been used in the industry is 50mv = S9.

Actually you are wrong. The inflation rate has been falling over the last year from 4% to under 2% for Feb 2013.  Inflation is lower than it was ten years ago, and lower than average before the 2008 crash.  You just don't know what you are talking about.

The Dollar = 0.75 Euro, today.  In 2009, it was THE SAME.  So, again, you are wrong.

Go peddle your panics and gloom and doom elsewhere, please.

BTW, For what it is I think the price of the RM amplifier is reasonable.  But is still an illegal CB amp.

Are you wanting to do measurements out of curiosity?  Or are you planning to only do a minimum of bonding...just enough to improve one or more bands a sufficient amount?

Unless you have a truly atrocious antenna installation I don't think you are going to see dramatic shifts.   You will generally see the impedance come down a bit, and see more consistent broader swr curves.  The gravy is that reception will improve and noise level decrease.

I plan for a basic installation to be:  1 strap per door, two straps per hood/trunk/bonnet/boot, 1 on tail pipe

Do the basic install, then you can step back, measure and admire the improvements.  You can then explore additional bonding, such as more exhaust system strapping, second door straps, and finding any particular offending systems.

Alan K0BG has an excellent discussions and examples:  www.k0bg.com

That's better, seeing some variation, though again high.

Given all that, there is obviously a problem with the antenna mounting and grounding.

-Try moving the antenna to a different pocket.  You may want to experiment with some different locations and configurations temporarily.

good luck, bill

Aw heck, just build a Beverage and point it downwards!

*I'm out of this discussion.

Tossing out ideas and questions....

-Is the meter a VHF/UHF meter?
-If it is an Power/SWR meter, does the power reading agree with the radio power output setting?
-Confirm you are using one of these modes: FM, AM, CW to take your measurements and not SSB (no carrier)

-How good is the 'ground' connection between the mount bracket and the wall pocket?  Have you Ohmed out between the coax shield and some point nearby on the bed wall?

-Have you put some sort of compound on the mounting bracket bolt to exclude moisture and maintain low resistance?  e.g.  GB Oxigard, Penetrox, Noalox, Vaseline?

-Consider adding bonding strap(s) between the bracket and the bed wall.

-Is the antenna length adjustable?  Have you tried adjusting it?  (although the flat SWR is very suspicious, that something else is the culprit)

-Can you borrow an antenna analyzer or bridge from someone?  Note, ensure that it has fresh, fresh batteries, as the MFJ devices tend to give flakey readings when battery voltage drops much at all.

bill