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Author Message   Forummaster Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2003 - 7:19 pm:        Magnum Omegaforce S45A Non-Technical Reviewby Scrapiron Well I just received this radio from Copper yesterday(10/10/2003). I liked it so well I decided to go ahead and give my opinion on it. Be warned this a users opinion, not a technical review. First off, it’s a nice looking rig brushed aluminum face plate with black lettering and detail. It actually has a owners operating manual. It has the regular analog meter for SWR, RF power and signal. The liquid crystal display that shows all the functions, plus the frequency readout. A bar graft meter for power out and signal. The readout is switchable for freq or channel numbers. The two meters are pretty close for tx and rx, a CB’ers dream. You can watch two meters. It has both push buttons and control knobs for the various functions. I checked the radio with a Dosy TC-4002-PSW test center, 7 digit freq counter and also a 1000 watt dummy load. For comparsions on receive I used a ranger 2950 and both my old model Rangers(3300 and 3500). In my opinion the S45 has better receive on AM and SB than the 2950, it also has better noise blankers than the 3300. It is about equal to the 3500 on AM and SSB receive, maybe a little quieter. I’ve always thought the 3500 had the best receive of the ‘export’ radios. I put the Magnum in my pickup for a few minutes and compared it to a galaxy 88 for motor and electrical noise. There was not any noticable difference in the two as I have everything filtered pretty well, hardly any noise. Features : 10 bands Frequency Range : 25.165 to 29.695. AM, FM, USB and LSB Variable power that works on all modes Split capabilites for repeater offset Note! In the Expanded mode, the RPT and SHIFT functions Will Not Operate. 5 memory channels Program mode and frequency, I mixed them up for test, AM, FM and SB on 3 different bands, worked great. 5 digit frequency display with step control for moving 1 kc or 10kc’s. Clarifier that has total of about 2 kc range, moves TX and RX, works nice and smooth, easy to tune. Switchable NB/ANL and tone. The tone is not adjustable, but works well in killing some noises, especially on skip. Control Knobs: Off - On, Volume, Squelch Mic. Gain, RF Gain Selector for tx, tx + rb, swr, cal, modulator tx + rb, modulator tx Power/Cal Echo Volume / Echo Delay Clarifier / Variable Talkback You can run the radio with or without the modulator and each way, with or without roger beep. The talkback is nice and clean and sounds the same in all modes, SSB, AM or FM. The mic. gain does not affect the talkback, you just use the variable control for loudness. For an echo fan, this radio has the best I’ve heard, it’s called the magnum turbo digital echo. Echo, Echo, Echo, Echo. For the power output, this is on my meter, I have several and believe this dosy is pretty accurate, but we know how meters are, right? The variable power will go from 1 watt to 30 watts on AM and 1 to 45 watts on FM. From 1 watt keyup, it swings a little past 40 watts on AM, it swings the same up to about 15 watts keyup. On the RMS setting on the Dosy, it has forward swing up to about 15 watts keyup. On sideband it swings to near 50 watts. The manual gives 40 watts for SSB and FM, so my readings were pretty close I guess. The 40-50 watts sideband is a little too much for some of the low drive solid state amps, but can be adjusted easily with the variable power. You don’t have to change the mike gain. I should have done that today and not blowed that resistor on my little 200. This radio doesn’t need a power mic. The mic. gain settings are 1-10 and about 8 is where I got the best reports. Past the 8 setting, I could see on my meter, the mic. picking up fan noise from a computer about 6 feet away. That’s how sensitive it is. The mic. plug has 6 pins like the other Rangers, but its wired different. It has 13 volts on one pin, so the 6 pin to 4 pin cobra adapters won’t work. Of course any mic. can be wired for it. However I believe the stock mic. is all you need on this radio, plus it has up and down channel buttons. With skip rolling like its been, I got lots of long distant checks on sideband. I went up and talked to some of the guys on the Oldtimers channel and the Sandbaggers channel, most of those guys run good radios, lots of them run HF rigs. I asked and got reports from some on the Hf rigs, as they can check your tx with their rx easier. I would find some talking, tune them with the clarifier, and asked for freq and modulation reports, all of them were good. The Magnum’s receive and transmit is together, or those guys would know, and tell you. After the skip left last night, I talked to some of my regular local bunch, and all reports were good. Overall I think the Magnum S45 is one of the best export type radios I have owned, and for its price range would be hard to beat. -Scrapiron-