[TenTec] [orion565] Orion 1 2.055 in the VA QSo party

[K4IA at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/20/2006 7:33:24 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
k4qo at earthlink.net writes:

Any  chance this is rf in the shack? (or at least in the  radio?)




I appreciate the suggestion and I have considered it.  There is always  a 
chance of RF in the shack either from unbalanced antenna loads, bad grounding  or 
the radiated power from the antenna.  We ran about 700 watts to a  tribander 
on the roof, and wire antennas in the back yard.  All antennas  were about 50 
feet away.  In this case, I am well grounded and have no  other evidence of RF 
in the shack: no biting metal, no interference on the  monitor, no erratic 
behavior from the computer, no distorted audio on the  transmit side.  A Yaesu 
FT100D was used on 6 meters and above and it never  hiccuped once.
 
A small yard means we must operate pretty close to our antennas. If  radiated 
RF from the antennas caused the lost receive audio and the erratic  volume 
levels on the monitor, that would be nice to know.  It means (to me)  the 
computer components in the radio need better shielding at the factory.  
 
Today I turned the radio on and playing 40 watts into a dummy load, the  
Monitor level was still way overdriven (setting of 2 would blow you away with  the 
AF Gain 1/4 the way up).  I performed a Master Reset and the  Monitor and 
Sidetone levels are back under control.  
 
The crackly distorted receive audio has happened when just listening and it  
was a common complaint about two years ago with whatever software was coming  
with the radios then.  I described this sound before as sounding like  the DSP 
was eating the signal.  I don't think RF has anything to do with  that.
 
The ineffective NR speaks (or doesn't speak) for itself.  Bring back  1.371!  

K4ia  "Buck"
Fredericksburg, Virginia  USA