Non-functional leads

M0RVB

I had a patch lead, about 1m long, PL259 to BNC from the tuner to the patch panel. It's been fine since I made the thing weeks ago. Today, halfway through an FT8 exchange it decided it no longer wanted to be at all functional. I wondered why the ALC on the FT450D had suddenly gone to max then I noticed the flashing antenna symbol! Fortunately the rig reduces power if the SWR goes mad.

Typical.

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M0RVB

Darned RF and cheap USB leads

Well that's a fail. I tried a dry run today for when I hopefully go portable. Whip on the car on a magmount, tuned nicely for 7.074MHz for FT8, but the rig manages about a second of tx and then straight back to rx. I've had similar before with RF getting into the USB leads. The setup is pretty standard, FT818, Signalink, Z817 tuner, lead from rig to Signalink, lead from rig to tuner, lead from Signalink to USB hub for audio, lead from tuner to USB hub for CAT. First off, the tuner refused to tune. One ferrite cured that and it was happy with a match (of course I forgot to try a 1:1 unun here). But lots of ferrites later and still no go on tx. The trouble is likely to be the long USB lead to USB dongle for CAT control, or the USB hub. Actually I can do without the hub as the MacBook has two USB ports and I only need two for this. In fact, for FT8, which is my aim here, I can do without the tuner too. But now the sun has moved round onto the car and it's too hot…

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