As you may know I've been running a Procaster for over 7 years with zero issues. Perfect performance 24-7 since firing it up.
This weekend I've discovered a limitation. Ambient temperature. At -37 degrees below zero F it goes a little bonkers and over modulates. It may have been colder than that. it was -37 on the ground on the north side of the house. 30+ feet in the air it may have been colder. But at that temperature there was excessive over modulation and distortion. Once the temperature managed to come up to about -30 it cleared up. I believe this is the coldest it's been here since I put up the transmitter. So, I've finally discovered a limitation of the Procaster. Probably not a widespread issue, LOL.
TIB
-37 F Wow! Fortunately that is not for more than a few days a year.
This transmitter is quite good if it has to get that cold for it to malfunction and then be fine when it goes back "normal".
Although -30 wouldn't be normal. Must be a fine line where performance degrades.
Found it surprising that with wide temperature changes summer and winter etc. you once said that you needed no retuning the antenna.
Yes. I was expecting to tweak the tuning a bit in the weather extremes but my attempts to tweak didn't find any better match/output. And I do field strength readings every now and then - probably a couple ties a year now - used to do it more often - at about 20 spots around the area and signal remains pretty darn constant. I use a calibrated Potomac FIM, the same one i use for monitor point readings for commercial directional AM stations. Mighty solid transmitter!
TIB