[TenTec] Re: Paragon II

[Ken Brown]

Hi all,

I have recently purchased a Paragon II and have been doing some basic 
checks to see whether is fully functional. It is not putting out a full 
100 watts in CW mode on the higher bands. I wonder if this is typical. 
Would an adjustment to the ALC on the second mixer board give me full 
power on 15 meters and up without causing trouble on the other bands 
where it already puts out 100 watts CW?

The measurements below were made using a Bird 43 wattmeter with a 100H 
(100 watt 2-30 MHz) element, into a 50 ohm termination that is good well 
into the UHF range.

Of course the AM carrier output should be controlled to less than 50% so 
that DSB voice peaks do not go nonlinear. It almost seems like the CW 
power is also being held  down to the AM carrier level on 15, 12, and 10 
meters.


    Band     /     Frequency   /   FM power out max  /  CW power out 
with FM adj for 100 watts  / CW power out max /  AM power out with FM 
adj for 100

160 meters / 1840.00 kHz/               >100              /             
                 70                                      /               
   78             /                   42
80 meters   /  3550.00 kHz/              >100              /             
                 78                                      /             
 >100             /                   42
40 meters   /  7050.00 kHz/              >100              /             
                 78                                      /              
  100             /                   46
30 meters   / 10110.00 kHz/             >100              /             
                 75                                      /               
   96             /                   43
20 meters   / 14050.00 kHz/             >100              /             
                 80                                      /               
 100             /                   44
17 meters   / 18080.00 kHz/             >100              /             
                 80                                      /               
   95             /                   44
15 meters   / 21050.00 kHz/                98                /          
  NA (cannot get 100 W FM)              /                  58           
  /                   52 Maximum (FM at 98 W)
12 meters   / 24930.00 kHz/             >100               /             
                44                                       /               
  44             /                   44
10 meters   / 28500.00 kHz              >100               /             
                50                                       /               
  50             /                   44

As you can see from the data, the radio CAN produce close enough to 100 
watts on every band. However something is limiting the CW power output 
to significantly less than 100 watts on 15 meters and up. I wonder if 
this is "normal".

I would appreciate hearing from owners of Paragon II. Have you observed 
similar behavior? Is this a common problem? Is there an easy fix? By 
easy I mean other than sending it to Ten-Tec.

Ken N6KB


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