All noted, thank's for the input.
I will have a look at some controllers.

As i mentioned, a fellow ham has one working. has had for a while. He
said they ran it at 30w and blew it up, it's now at 10 and seems to be
doing a good job. We both have DR-610 radio. as for "local" hams to chip
in, they are 100+km away from me so i would be the only one using it here.


The other part of the story with the DR600, it had multiple problems from
day 1 and I dropped it off several times at the depot and they could never
fix it under warranty even when I told the tech what was wrong with it.
Can't blame the tech, because the salesman in charge of the operation told
me "I should have bought a new one". I took his advice and took it back to
HRO for a refund and bought a Yaesu (built in fan). The main problem was
bad RX vco that would run amok when it got warm. It seemed there were no
repair parts, just abandoned radios that the tech would swap boards with.
The last straw was when I got it home and put it on a spectrum analyzer and
it was severely spurious - Not the original problem. I have a photo of
that, and I should put it up and send a link. Looked like a comb across 10
MHz.

All I can tell you is Use CTCSS on both bands and use the lowest power
setting especially on the UHF link tx because it will play all the time if
you are in a roundtable or net and it wont allow the chassis to cool down
even at low power. Use a FAN and cross your fingers. The fins can be COLD
and the power block is too hot because the chassis cant get the heat out to
the fins fast enough. Setting the TOT to 30 sec. will help save the radio
but it will be a big nuisance. About all you can do is save it for check
ins and short contacts.

This is a regular problem with mobile die-cast chassis from all
manufacturers. Customers would take low bid for Motorola Maxtrac or Radius
repeaters after seeing them in brochures saying "50 watts", so we would have
to give them "50 watts" even though 10 was more reasonable. We would see
them back in within a month for a $500 rebuild. Icoms, Vertex, Kenwoods...
All the same problems. If the customer says anything more than "10-4" or
"2150 bye" the transmitter goes up in smoke. Then we remind them of the
specification in the fine print that says 15% duty cycle rated and inform
them if someone talks on the radio for 1 minute they have to wait 5 minutes
to cool down and if they use it more often than that - they need to upgrade.
Tough luck for the other brands because they couldn't upgrade, only turn the
power down. If you did that they could sue for false advertising or go buy
a cell phone instead.

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