Well I ruled out the type and quality of ground because the problem occurs
with every combination of ground I've tried. The nearest radio station is
about 15 miles away, WHAS 50kw at 840khz. I can put a diode across a pair of
32 ohm headphones and touch one lead to any ground in the house and hear
several stations. I have a littte FS meter from RadioShack. Nothing more
than a diode across a meter with a telescopic antenna. I can touch it's
antenna on any part of the rig, ground, coax shield, antenna switch etc.
with everything turned off and get a half scale reading!
None of this weirdness happens with other antennas. I had a Butternut
vertical here last year and with the loop unhooked and the Bnut connected I
got zilch.
It's as if the loop works as some kind of giant capacitor to in conjunction
with the ground system to produce a DECTOR. I say DECTOR because of the
mixing properties. I can hear at least 3 stations on those headphones!
Anyway, the cure for me is to:
1. Always use a tuner.
2. Use certain rigs with tight front ends.
3. Disconnect the station ground. Which btw is a 1" ground strap running
through the outside wall to 3 ground rods.
Steve
N4LQ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tommy" <aldermant@alltel.net>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> Wow, that's not good news. I plan on putting up a big horizontal loop
soon
> and never considered broad band pick. However where I live now the closest
> radio station of any kind is probably more than 8-10 miles away.
>
> When I moved here last year, I did put down three 8' copper rod in a 16'
> triangle just outside where my radios are located and interconnected them
> and the house utility service with a #2 copper wire, which I also bring
into
> the house and connect to a copper buss bar across the back of the desk.
All
> of my ham gear is grounded via heavy copper straps to the buss bar. Since
I
> do use open wire feeders, all antennas are fed to my old Johnson KW Match
> box tuner, which does provide pretty good filtering. But even when I was
> living in Vienna, where I was located in an RF swamp, so to speak, I only
> encountered RFI problem on one occasion when an 80m wire end was directly
> over the roof of my house, which really caused strange problems when I
fired
> up an amp.
>
> But the fact that you've had the problem in different locations and with
> different loops, really rules out the most common of problems, like you
say.
> I really have no clue what might cause that. However I would dig up the
> house utility ground point and check that connection out visually. When I
> dug up mine, I found the ground clamp had croded in half and the ground
wire
> was a half an inch away from the ground rod, and this house is only five
> years old.
>
> Tom - W4BQF
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steve Ellington" <N4LQ@igLou.com>
> To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 12:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
>
>
> > Well I've been using the scope to check band activity. I can estimate
the
> > frequency of the blip and usually find him when I tune. The Pro2 lets
you
> > freeze the display and tune a marker to the exact spot.
> > Yesterday I was almost finished with a qso and everything went nuts. I
had
> > to "reboot" and I was not in the split mode either. This morning I lost
> > receive audio a couple of times but it suddenly returned. I went ahead
an
> > did a full reset just to flush out any bugs.
> > Here's one for you. Maybe you can help.
> > I use an 80m horizontal loop fed with coax and a 4:1 balun. Great
antenna
> > and low swr on most bands. However it seems to love picking up AM radio
> > stations and putting them in unwanted places.
> > For example: If I use my old Triton IV on 40m at night, I get multiple
> > birdies and cross-mod from BC stations. I bought a little AM BC trap for
> it
> > and installed it at the rx input and most of that is now cured.
> > The OMNI V, TS930 and IC756proII do not have this problem. Simple rigs
> like
> > the T-kit 40m can't hack it though and they are totally swamped by these
> BC
> > stations.
> > Now here's whats weird....The Orion had AM trash all over the place. It
> was
> > almost unusable on 80m and even heard a lot of it on 40m. Of course if I
> run
> > the antenna through the tuner it clears it up but what a cumbersome way
to
> > fix it! Thinking back a few years...I remembered the external ground
> seemed
> > to affect things so I simply unhooked the ground wire from the outside
gnd
> > rod and preston, the Orion was normal. No more AM stations!
> > I'm sure someone will mention the diode effect of some solder joint etc.
> but
> > I've had this problem at 2 different locations, 3 different shacks, 4
> > different horizontal loops and several ground systems.
> > So what's the deal with loops and grounds and cerain rigs? Wouldn't you
> > think the Orion would be less likely to act up? Doesn't it have a tuned
> > front end?
> > Groundless in Louisville:
> > Steve
> > N4LQ
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Tommy" <aldermant@alltel.net>
> > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 3:37 PM
> > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> >
> >
> > > Yes, there is a 20khz filter but I have no clue why one would want to
> use
> > > that.
> > >
> > > Haven't seen the keypad problem. Normally after punching VFO A ENTER
> > > button, punching in your freq, and then pushing VFO A ENTER again,
mine
> > > always switches to the inputted frequency.
> > >
> > > Your going to run into some more anomolaties as you get familar with
it.
> > > Such as when you press B>A, you will find that VFO A changes it's mode
> to
> > > USB, no matter what mode was set in VFO B. But if you read the pdf
file
> on
> > > rfsquared.com , you will see what all they have been working in for
the
> > > v1.37 firmware update. If I recall, out of 25 changes, 14 of them
> pretain
> > to
> > > the CW mode.
> > >
> > > Just be aware that until v1.37 is released, if you work split, such as
> the
> > > tx on VFO A and the rx on VFO B, and the sweep is running, the Orion
> will
> > > randomly stop transmitting and you have to reboot (!love that term!)
the
> > > Orion to get your xmtr working again. The release of v1.37 should make
> the
> > > Orion another very good Ten Tec radio. Most folks, including me, think
> the
> > > spectrum scope is almost, but not quite useless.
> > >
> > > Tom - W4BQF
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Steve Ellington" <N4LQ@igLou.com>
> > > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 10:07 AM
> > > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> > >
> > >
> > > > I didn't even know this had a 20khz filter Tom. Am I missing
> something?
> > I
> > > > did notice that when I enter a freq. on the keypad it doesn't always
> > > > activate unless I turn the vfo knob. What's with that?
> > > > Steve
> > > > N4LQ
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Thomas Uhlman" <tuhlman@kimbanet.com>
> > > > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > > > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 12:47 PM
> > > > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Speaking of Orion irregularities, has anyone noticed this issue:
> > > > >
> > > > > Set both receivers to the same band and same antennas....
> > > > >
> > > > > Enable the 20 kHz filter...
> > > > >
> > > > > Tune in a signal on the sub-receiver....
> > > > >
> > > > > Set the main receiver 14 kHz ABOVE the subreceiver frequency.....
> > > > >
> > > > > Do you receive the same signal on both receivers??
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > From: "Tommy" <aldermant@alltel.net>
> > > > > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > > > > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 8:38 AM
> > > > > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > Yes, that seems to be a surprising 'plus' to the extra cooling
air
> > > > > movement.
> > > > > > Would be interesting to know if Jim/KH7M has noticed the same
> thing
> > > > with
> > > > > > his Orion.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Tom - W4BQF
> > > > > >
> > > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > > From: "Thomas Uhlman" <tuhlman@kimbanet.com>
> > > > > > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > > > > > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 8:15 AM
> > > > > > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Funny you mentioned the darkening of the left hand side of the
> > > > > display...
> > > > > > My
> > > > > > > Orion's display does that too after about an hour or so of
> > > power-up...
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > I'm really not 'pressurizing' anything, mearly generating a
> > slight
> > > > air
> > > > > > > flow
> > > > > > > > out of the top of the Orion through the speaker grill. The
> > intake
> > > > > ports
> > > > > > > > would be mainly the ports on the bottom of the radio,
> especially
> > > the
> > > > > > ones
> > > > > > > > under the front panel. With the fan speed cranked down so
the
> > fan
> > > > > makes
> > > > > > no
> > > > > > > > noise, there is just a gently flow of air exhausted out the
> top.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > One side benefit I have noticed: the left side of my LCD
> screen
> > > had
> > > > > > > become
> > > > > > > > slightly darker than the rest of the screen (about an inch
> wide,
> > > > > > > > vertically), now that has completely cleared up.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Tom - W4BQF
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > > TenTec mailing list
> > > > > > TenTec@contesting.com
> > > > > > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > > > TenTec@contesting.com
> > > > > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > TenTec mailing list
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> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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