Amateur Radio

Full system designer

Pick a transceiver, amplifier, tuner, feedline, antenna, supply, and mic — then check the whole station for compatibility in one pass.

Full system designer
Station parts
Nine checks, all from captured profile data: connector chain, band coverage, power handling, feedline loss, amplifier keying, drive level, tuner rating, supply amperage, and microphone pairing. Anything not yet captured reads as VERIFY, never as safe. Parts lists grow as profile capture continues.

What this checks

Assembling a station means every link in the chain has to agree: connectors, bands, power ratings, keying voltages, supply amperage, and even the microphone wiring. This tool runs nine checks across your selected parts at once:

  1. Connector chain — whether one coax run can mate every jack in the path, and which ends to order it with. Mixed ends (say, PL-259 at the radio and N male at the antenna) are normal; the check tells you exactly what to ask the cable shop for.
  2. Band coverage — the bands your radio, amplifier, tuner, and antenna all share. A chain with no shared band cannot operate, no matter how good each part is.
  3. Power handling — transmit power against the feedline's rating at your highest shared band and against the antenna's published limit. Coax ratings drop as frequency rises, so the check uses the least favorable band you can actually operate.
  4. Feedline loss — how many of your watts reach the antenna over your run length, using the same manufacturer loss tables as the coax loss calculator.
  5. Amplifier keying — whether the amplifier's key line is safe for your radio's keying output. High-voltage lines on vintage amplifiers destroy solid-state keying transistors; the check follows the same captured-data rules as the amplifier keying guide.
  6. Drive level — your radio's maximum output against the amplifier's rated drive power. Overdriving an amplifier is one of the most common ways to damage one; when the rating has not been captured yet, the check says to verify it rather than staying quiet.
  7. Tuner rating — whether the tuner sits within its power rating at your operating power.
  8. Power supply — transmit current draw (radio plus any 13.8 V amplifier) against the supply's continuous rating, with headroom. Batteries pass with a reminder to size amp-hours to your session.
  9. Microphone — whether your mic brand pairs with the radio's mic connector directly, with an adapter, or not at all, from the same data as the mic adapter finder.

Where the data comes from

Every verdict is computed from equipment profiles researched against manufacturer manuals, dealer fitment data, and owner documentation — the same profiles behind the equipment pages on this site. Ratings are taken conservatively: where a maker publishes both a peak and a continuous figure, the check uses the continuous one.

When something has not been captured yet — an amplifier's key-line voltage, an antenna's power limit, a radio's transmit draw — the check says so and tells you what to verify. An unknown never reads as safe.

Reading the verdicts

A green check means the captured data says the pairing works. Amber means it works with a caveat: an adapter to order, a rating to verify, a limit you are close to. Red means the combination will not work as selected — or, in the case of keying, that connecting it directly risks real damage. The amber and red rows name the exact part and the exact fix.

Two cautions worth repeating. First, power ratings assume a matched antenna; high SWR concentrates voltage and heat, and a tuner masks the mismatch from the radio without removing it from the feedline. Second, duty cycle matters: FT8, RTTY, and other key-down modes stress every rating harder than SSB. If you run digital modes at full power, treat any amber power verdict as a red one.