On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 23:09:29 GMT, Dave Bushong
wrote:

Hi Ed,

If it's rated for 50 watts, your 55-watt transmitter will work just
fine. You will lose 3dB in your cable and connectors, and only deliver
30-40 watts to the antenna.

snip

All the best,
Dave


How do you figure a 3 dB loss? A mobile installation 'typically' uses
RG-58 which at 2 meters has about 4.5 dB loss per 100 feet and most
mobile antenna's come with 15 - 20 feet of cable. As I see it, that's
about 1 dB loss (or thereabouts) for the cable and I've seen connector
loss figures hover around 0.5 dB. At a 1.5 dB loss roughly 1/4 of the
signal is not unreasonable which would put it at the 40 watts you
mention. I don't [totally] aruge your conclusion - just your 3 dB
assertion.

Am I missing something?
Howard