A quiet week - and then...

Busy Busy Busy

I had a busy week since last weekend.  With a shortened work week, I had lots to do in three days - so I worked a little extra and left the radio off during the mornings (instead of listening to the MidCARS net on 7.258).  Then, the family spent most of the Thanksgiving holiday at my mother-in-law's house.

I did have to do some water heater maintenance at home on Friday and Saturday, so I did have a little excuse to play with the radio (since I was home and all).

Friday

While waiting for the water heater to drain (which took hours, thanks to the 2 inches of lime sludge in the bottom of the tank), I tuned up on 15 and listened around the band.  I heard EA8YB call CQ from the Canary Islands, so I answered his call.  He said that I was very faint, and he kept asking me to repeat my call suffix.  He never could pick out the "Alpha" at the end.  On one hand, it was a little disheartening because I never completed the contact.  On the other hand, though, I was being heard at 4,000 miles away.

I spent a little time on 10 meters as well; I heard PU2YZP and PP5EI from Brasil, but neither of them could hear me as I replied to their CQ calls.

Listening Up 5

I heard several people Friday on 10 meters calling CQ and "Listening Up 5".  This was my first experience with this type of operation; I had read about it, but had not experienced it yet.  So, when I heard one particular station coming in at S9 and Listening Up 5, I decided to give it a shot.

First, I spun my VFO knob up 5 KHz and listened to all the people trying to answer his CQ calls.  Then I spun back and forth between his transmitting and listening frequencies.  This proved to be error prone and somewhat annoying.

Then I remembered the RIT (Receiver Incremental Tuning) feature.  So, I played with the RIT control until I figured out how it works.

By turning it all the way to the left, the receiver was listening 3KHz below the VFO frequency.  This wasn't quite enough to cover the 5KHz split between his transmit and receive.  However, it was much easier to move the VFO only 2KHz than to try to manage a 5KHz swing without using RIT.

So, I practiced a few times:  Spin the VFO knob about an inch to the left (2KHz down) while pressing the RIT button to turn it on, and I could hear him calling CQ; spin the knob back about an inch to the right and turn off RIT, and I could hear all the responses.

I tried answering a couple times, but to no avail.  But at least I was transmitting on the right frequency.  Several times, I heard a distant station ending in "Sugar David" trying to answer on his calling frequency instead of answering up 5KHz.  After about the 4th instance of this, someone else replied quickly "Sugar David, you're stupid!"  That's not particularly helpful, is it?  I would have answered "Sugar David, he is listening up 5 kilohertz.  Please move up 5 kilohertz to transmit and then listen on this frequency."

Saturday

I only really had a little time to listen.  I heard OD5ZZ from Lebanon booming in at 59+10 on 21.335.  But, once again, no contacts.  I started to wonder if I still had my audio problems on 15 meters.  So, late Saturday evening, I posted a question to the Kenwood Hybrid Yahoo group about how to track down this issue.

Sunday

In the morning, I got a response in the Yahoo group from K9TW, who worried about the driver tube and suggested checking the RF drive - providing steps for doing that:

Can also test the RF drive level on all the bands by turning off  the SG switch and with rig in CW mode flip to send and adjust Car Level for max ALC and watch the key down level to see if it holds where you set it. Do this on all bands and let it rest a little between bands. 12BY7A cathode emission begins to fall off on the higher bands as the tube ages.

So, this evening I performed those checks; all bands held the meter steady for 10 seconds.  It even held steady on 10 meters, which is the first band to go "soft" when the driver tube starts to wear out.  I hope that 10 seconds was a reasonable duration for each test; I was driving the 12BY7A at full output each time, and I didn't want to overheat it.

I haven't seemed to have much luck on 15 meters except in the early afternoon, but I decided to give it a shot anyway in the evening.  I spun around the band, and I heard PY2VI (Brasil) calling CQ on 21.318.  I tuned about 8 Khz away, tuned up the transmitter and the antenna tuner, came back to his frequency, and waited for him to call.  I answered him.

And he heard me.  He kept thinking that my "Juliet" was an "India" (the same problem that EA8YB had on Friday).  I think I might have to substitute "Japan" into my call when repeating it, or maybe I was overdriving the audio a little bit.  But, he gave me a 58 report once he got my call right; I gave him a 57 and thanked him for the DX contact.  He is 17 miles shy of being 5,000 miles away from me - my farthest contact so far.

I jumped up, ran into the bedroom, and told my wife and my daughter that I just talked to Brasil.  They looked at me kinda funny.  (This would be a good time to point out that I live just outside of the town of Brazil, Indiana).

So, I spun around the band some more.  It seemed like the band was closing, but I heard KB7MBI near Seattle calling CQ on 21.285, so I answered him.  We chatted for a bit and then I described the problems I had been having and asked him for an audio report.  He said that I was coming though with a strong 58, with no audio issues at all.  And he remarked that my D-104 and the TS-520 were remarkably well matched and that my audio was very strong and clear.  I thanked him, chatted for about 20 seconds, and waited for him to respond.  But the band had faded away, just that quick.  I threw him a 73 without knowing if he could hear me or not; then I spun around the band for a couple minutes.  Where I had previously heard a reasonable amount of chatter, now I heard nothing.

But the good news is that it seems that I actually did fix my audio issues when I fixed the two bad solder joints last weekend.  I'm going to keep an eye on it, but the big picture is that my sub-$300 eBay special is actually in pretty good shape and working pretty darn well.

73 de Mike, K9MJA