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Reviews For: Hustler Super Resonators RM-80S for BTV antennas

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Hustler Super Resonators RM-80S for BTV antennas
Reviews: 3MSRP: $89
Description:
add-on for Hustler’s BTV4 and BTV6 antennas to add the 80m band
Product is in production
More Info: https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/hsr-rm-80s
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0031.7
WC4R Rating: 2022-02-05
Very good but needs improvement Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have used many of the 'super' resonators over the decades. I presently use this 75/80m unit on my 6BTV vertical. It works very well with reasonable (narrow) bandwidth. I also run 1000w PEP regularly without issues. On FT8 I only run 50-100w max. After all, it is only rated for PEP. Full carrier (AM or FT8) must be kept very low. That is where it needs improvement. A super-duper resonator? Just larger wire for the winding is all. You will know if you abused the resonator if you exceed the specs. Keep that FT8/AM power low!
AK9DX Rating: 2022-02-04
Hustler RM-80S is Garbage Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
As others have said, it does not handle advertised power.

Hustler RM-80S is absolute garbage! Can not even handle half the power that it is rated for. 500 watts and it is toast.

Overheats and detunes and finally just breaks.

The bigger problem is that Hustler and the major ham radio dealers know this and they keep on selling this defective product.

Hustler (New-Tronics.com) advertises "Power rating full legal limit" as of 2-4-2022.

DX engineering advertises "1000 watts PEP" as of 2-4-2022.

HRO advertises "Full Legal Limit" as of 2-4-2022.

GigaParts advertises "1500" watts as of 2-4-2022.

If Hustler would only use a larger gauge wire, and beef it up a bit....but they won't.
K7TAR Rating: 2021-10-19
Good product idea, poor manufacturing quality Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I added RM-80-S to my BTV5 with very little adjustments using antenna tuner, and it worked fine. Bandwidth is a little narrow, but according to advertising the “super” model RM-80-S is better and can handle 1000W PEP (DXE) or even the full legal limit 1500W (Hustler). I ended up burning my first one with only 600W after about 4-5 months… I could literally watch it heating up during transmissions with SWR drifting away every second on my Palstar HF-Auto antenna tuner screen. So I contacted Hustler and was assured this wasn’t supposed to happen, ordered a new one and replaced it, which was easy with just minor whip adjustments. I haven’t really used 80m band much during summer, and finally got to use it recently chasing DXpeditions in Africa - this time pumping 900-1000W into it with my new ACOM1200S…Well - it worked, but I saw SWR drifting very fast during FT8 transmissions, and voila! Today I can see that nice white sleeve peeling off again - so another $80 damage done to my BTV6 regardless of all the advertised specs and assurances by Support. Bottom line — it can only withstand 400-500W without overheating and finally melting that plastic housing, after which moisture gets in and it’s only good for a trash can. Not sure why is it so hard to produce a resonator (thicker wire? Better materials?) that actually lives up to the advertised specifications?
Good news is - this problem is specific to 80m band, where the super-resonator is used… the other (5) bands using standard BTV traps are working fine with 900-1000W input…

Update 10/18/2021: I got the following response from DXE: “ For the Resonator: HSR-RM-80S Hustler confirms the design is not meant for anything but sideband or low wattage FT8. Unfortunately, the melting issue would not be covered under warranty. Please call Hustler for further technical information”. So there you have it, and beware - the published specs are misleading at best, so I’m changing my rating to “poor”.