Batboard

Hello,

Could anyone please advise if the maxtrac supposed to get warm just monitoring? They are putting off quite a bit of heat just sitting there? These radios are for monitoring only, all the TX have been taken out of the radios. I am monitoring in the lower portion of the 2 meter band.

The only thing I can think of for the heat culprit is the vco. Would the vco create more heat even monitoring in the 145.xxx area of the 2 meter band? If so, what are the procedures to align is lower to not have so much heat.

I could not figure out how to post a picture of the radios. They are stacked 3 high on a shelf for monitoring only.

Thank you in advance for any advice you can give.

Mike

They should get warm.

A Maxtrac will draw around half an amp in standby, and up to an amp and a half when receiving at full volume.
With a typical power supply voltage of around 13.5V that's between 7 and 20 watts heating up the radio, depending on how much it receives and how loud the volume is.

The VCO isn't going to create much heat at all, the main things would be the audio amplifier, voltage regulators, and microprocessor. If they're getting really hot there's either something wrong causing them to draw too much current, or they don't have enough airflow around them.

One thing that could cause excess power draw might be if you have too many speakers connected or speakers with too low of an impedance.

Having three of them stacked on a shelf the heat is going to add up, and if they're right on top of each other they're not going to have as much surface area to dissipate the heat. You'd be better with a bit of space between them.

eagle844 wrote: They are stacked 3 high on a shelf for monitoring only.
Mike

That's the problem. No air flow. Spend $3 & buy a cooling fan. End of problem. GARY

The 1" square sticky rubber feet you can get at the hardware store do a nice job at introducing some airflow between stacked units, as well as making the stack a little more stable.