Quantar Deviation?

[FMROB]

Stupid question, really stupid. A continuation of a long running question

Have a 12.5khz UHF system with a spectra tac comparator. I have squeezed as much TX audio to the Quantar out of the spectra tac that I can where it keys the Quantar reliably every time. Systems sounds great, nice clean balanced audio. All lines were conditioned properly, sites vote well with very little difference in audio, etc.

My simple question, to squeeze a little extra TX volume out of the system should I raise the deviation of the repeater or the RX line level?

If I raise the RX line level will it negatively affect keying of the repeater? Or just raise the overall DEV of the repeater. If I disconnect the wireline from the repeater and it reverts to ICFBR the audio sounds much louder, again not going through the voting system??

In all honesty the repeater was set up as a stand alone, and I really didn't do much to it when setting up the voting system.

Thanks, Rob

[Batwings21]

I would make you "volume" adjustment using the wireline alignment of the quantar. If I remember correctly it asks you to inject a test tone down the wireline at a level that you want equal to a certain deviation, just decrease that level and it will end up giving you a boost.

[Bill_G]

Sounds like no one has done a full end to end level setting. If this is the system you were working on a few months ago, then we know the rx side to the voter is set reasonably well, and you just have to set the tx side. Inject 1k tone at 2k dev into the rcvr, measure what ships out to the voter, measure what ships back from the voter to the station, and measure xmit dev. It should be 2k. In a perfect world you'd get something like a -10db to the voter, a -10db from the voter, and a 2k dev with reasonable linearity. If what comes from the voter doesn't drive the station hard enough for full deviation, but it is a reasonable level - one you would expect to see - then you can fake out the station just like bw21 described. Let's say you're getting -10db from the voter but only getting 1.5k dev. Go into wireline alignment, tell it the level is -13db, and see where that lands the deviation. While you're there, you might as well do the full station alignment too if it hasn't been done in a while.

[FMROB]

Bill,

You are correct about that being the system that I did a few months back. The last piece of the puzzle was the TX side. The RX side of the system sounds great, the TX audio to the quantar only is a bit low. And yes, guilty as charged I did not check that level at the TX site, I did check the TX line level at the rear of the spectra tac, and from what I can recall, I was around -10 on the lineman. [

The "wireline" from the voter to the TX site is through the Carslon micro hop. Upon initial installation I tested to see the line loss characteristics of the carlson, as it was a first time using the device. I had less than 1/2 db loss end to end, which I equate to meter device variations, so eseentially lossless.

It is reasonable to say that I should have -10 at the punch block at the TX site. I will check into this and see what I come up with.

Thanks, Rob