Hi Gerrit
I hope you do not mind me saying, but you can be a lot more "reckless" with the HL2 settings. I think I mentioned before. There is very little that you can do to the built-in 5W PA to damage it. I have abused mine hugely, full power into mismatched loads. IMO there just is not the power to do any damage. Into a matched antenna or dummy load, you will DEFINITELY NOT damage it, even if full power for long periods. The only issue is overheating, but even then HL2 will shutdown TX if the PA gets over 50C. Even this is no temperature at all. Nothing to worry about. You will NOT damage it!
So, as I mentioned several times before, when in TUNE mode, the applied audio from the TUNE feature is not at 100% audio level, so OP Power and DRIVE (TUNE) can be at MAX otherwise you will
definitely not see 5W out of the HL2. In fact, as you can see from the spectrum scope, the audio applied in TUNE mode is about -3dB from peak. You will be able to see more power using TONE mode, and adjust the audio output using Audio Input GAIN control. On my Issue 9 HL2 build I only ever see about 4W out max.
Regarding Mic input, SDRC needs a LOT of drive at the input, hence I have Mic Boost in SDRC set to +20dB! So long as you do not overdrive your audio card input, and you do not overdrive the Audio Spectrum scope in SDRC you will have a clean signal. So (in my opinion) you need MUCH MORE mic boost than +2dB if you want to see anywhere near 4-5W output!
You also did not do what I asked and show screenshot of the "Audio In" panel that I requested, because I do believe you have Master Gain turned down in here on at least some bands? It's the only way I could emulate your low output levels in TUNE mode. One thing is sure and that is that your HL2 is perfectly OK otherwise you would not see 5W in CW mode.
I have said these things many times now, so I will not repeat them again. Please be more bold in your application of gains as described above or you simply will NOT see anywhere near 5W out of the HL2 with SDRC.
The ONLY thing you need to make sure is not to allow audio on the TX DSP spectrum scope to greatly exceed 100%. Even then, Simon has superb compression algorithm in the TX DSP chain and also a very effective PROC feature so you will need to try very hard to produce a poor quality signal! Please stop worrying so much about overdriving the HL2. You will not break it!
Regarding amplifiers, I too had an RM Italy HLA150 Plus. Yes, it;s a very good companion for HL2. I can confirm it works nicely. Just do not overdrive, but you cannot do that with HL2 anyway so you will get a nice clean 80W output. See notes here:
https://www.w8ji.com/rm_hla-150_test.htm
I now have one of these and it works very nicely for easy 400W out using HL2 (UK legal limit):
https://www.dxworld-e.com/product-page/ ... ifier-500w
Good luck and have fun.
73
Max