Well, the rover is up and running. There have been a number of gremlins
that have tried to sabotage the plan, but I think I have things mostly under
control. As I stated before, I'll be on the air for the first hour of the
contest from the parking lot at work in FM18gg. Saturday evening, I'll be
at Louisa County VA near the intersection of FM07 08 17 and 18. Sunday
afternoon and evening will be spent near Skyline Drive in FM08 with a trip
to Winchester in FM09 and 19. I'll probably not be operating until the last
minute.
Now about those gremlins... The first problem is that I have a new
transverter for 222 that I had planned on running off my IC7000. I also run
that radio for 50, 144 and 432. The station has brick amps for the later
two bands. I wanted to set it up so all three devices (2 amps and the
transverter) were keyed into the transmit mode whenever the mic was used. I
was referred to a guy who it was said could make the correct set of wires
out of the Icom accessory plug to handle this.
Well, it seems I was not clear enough with the guy or didn't explain it
right. I thought I was getting a relay that would key all three devices,
but what I got was three cords coming out of the accessory plug. They were
all run off the #7 pin which is the VSEND pin. It keys only when
transmitting on a VHF/UHF frequency. That would not work for the
transverter on 28.100, nor would it get them out of receive mode when
working on 50.
Still though, I plugged it in to test things. That's when I discovered that
the 432 amp was not keying at all and the 144 wasn't staying keyed. The 144
cut in and out very rapidly. On the plug side, the transverter seemed to
key just perfectly.
Back to the drawing board. I had an accessory plub and cable for the 7000
so I looked up the correct pin for HSEND. Its the #3 pin. I also noted in
the manual that a menu setting could make that pin ground on any band. Deep
in the menu, if you turn off the VSEND pin, the HSEND should key when you
hit the PTT on any band. That seemed like the way to go.
I set about making the cord. I am 100% sure that I have isolated and used
the #3 HSEND pin. However, when I plug it into the transverter, it keys up
immediately. I wasn't hitting the PTT button. I switched bands. I changed
menu settings. I even turned the radio off and the thing is still keyed. I
tried the same thing with the 144 amp with the same result. It appears that
the pin is always grounded and therefore, any device attached to it is
keyed.
So the short term solution was to get my old IC746 Pro out and mount it in
the back seat to run the 222 transverter. That seems to work. I can RF key
the 144 amp since it seems so squirrley with the hard key. The 432 will not
key at all. I'm trying to decide whether I take it completely off liine or
if I should leave it hooked up with the pre-amp on (it works) and just keep
the amp portion off.
Its not perfect, but its what I can put together for this weekend.
73 and good luck.
Steve
K4GUN/R
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