Having a coffee table analyzer is a nice touch, have you taught the cat to use it yet???
She's only interested in it if the antenna wire is wiggling.
![Smiley :)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
Funny story - I was helping a new ham troubleshoot his radio a while back (with that very analyzer), with some other hams. He said he lived in somewhat of a hole and had a lot of power lines around, and was having trouble getting out on 2m. I was looking at his signal on that HP, and was wondering if changing to the high power setting would help, even though he didn't live a very long distance away from the repeater. I told him to change to a higher power. He said OK and did, but I had the peak of his spectrum marked with a line, and it didn't change at all.
I think he would have gone from 5W (+37 dBm) to 25W (+44 dBm) if I remember correctly, but the level did not change. I told him that, and he insisted he did change the power. I said - no, you didn't because it didn't change at all, you need to make sure you understand the radio.
He then said "Well you won't see the change because of the fact I'm in a hole and there are a lot of trees and power lines here and that will prevent you from seeing it change."
![WTF? :wtf:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/wtf2.gif)
I tried to explain to him that there is nothing that is going to "mask" a power change, given the same essential static parameters. Whatever is between us is just an attenuation factor X, and yea maybe a tree will sway or a bird will fly, but the loss is not going to change in any gross manner. No matter what is between us, if you increase your power by 7 dB (or any amount) then I will see that. I don't think to this day he really understands that. But as some of my other friends have gathered, he is somewhat of a hard-headed man anyway.
![Smiley :)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)