[TenTec] Foot in my mouth...

[wade staggs]

Rick, you are 100% absolutely correct on all counts. I have been calling
the Tennessee Phone Net for about 2 years on Wednesday nights. Some really
good radios have sounded lousy for a long time, the folks running them have
the Mic Gain and Processor Gain set for Maximum Smoke. Then there are the
stations who are doing things correctly even with the Economy Rigs. Just
because a fellow can afford to own a radio, the price of which would buy me
a decent car. That does not mean that he knows how to operate it correctly.
You are looking at a Poor Man here, 585 Paragon and a Heathkit SB-200 Amp.
My settings for calling the net are as follows .... Input power to the Amp
is between 35 and 40 watts on peaks. Of course the Plate Current of the Amp
is dipped at minimum and hopefully loaded correctly. The Heathkit SB-200 is
about the same as a Collins 30l1 in design ( or so I have been told ) The
Mic Gain is set with the scope on the Dummy Load so that with a really loud
HELLO into the Mic there is no flat topping and then the gain is reduced
until the Wattage/Waveform is reduced by about 20 to 25% overall. This give
me about 300 to 325 watts from the Amp and never any complaints. Should or
is there a better way to do this? The processor button on my radio has
enough dust on it to plant a garden. Every time it gets turned on people go
ballistic on me! .................... Paragon or Corsair is about the best
my budget can muster, I would love to own one of the new 200 watt radios
with 48 volt finals and Class A capabilities but, I don't see that
happening in my life time. Don't get upset over thinking out loud as your
thoughts and opinion are yours for the saying. My belief is that some of
the old elmers need to speak out when an overly wide/loud station comes on
the air. If, you ever hear my station sounding Nasty? Please tell me. Now
if I could just get checked in to the 20 meter Ten Tec Net some Sunday, my
world would be much happier. Maybe, tuning for Maximum Smoke would help?
>From our apartment the only antenna allowed is a Multi band Doublet cut for
80 with ladder line feed. A good Yagi would help.
                          73 de KJ4WS

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:36 AM, Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP <Rick at dj0ip.de> wrote:

> What was I thinking? (!)
>
>
>
> No, I do not want government regulating our transmitter technology.
>
> I've had worse ideas, but this one was right up there!
>
> I guess I was just thinking out loud and got carried away in the wrong
> direction.  Sorry.
>
>
>
> The fact is,  the current TX rules were written in another age, when we
> were
> all using a different technology.
>
> They are no longer sufficient.
>
> The ARRL and Rob Sherwood are testing this stuff, but most of us (including
> me, until recently), just look to see that it meets the legal specs, and
> tick the box.
>
>
>
> I think we (the ham community) should determine what we need and perhaps
> the
> ARRL, DARC, etc. should drive suggestions to local legislators to get a new
> definition that would help clean up the bands.  It would be better if the
> manufactures would just do it without legislation.  I bet they would if
> they
> thought it would sell more radios.
>
> Hey, we got them to give us better receivers.  So why can't we get them to
> give us better transmitters?
>
> Well we can.
>
>
>
> Two tone testing (alone) is inadequate.
>
> Rob Sherwood has been doing some white noise testing of the transmitters.
>
> Transmitters previously thought to be good, suddenly are no longer looking
> so good.
>
> Jim has mentioned pink noise.
>
> Whatever it takes, but we need to improve our methodology for testing our
> transmitters.
>
> The ARRL has a committee for determining what and how they should test
> transceivers.
>
> These are the guys who can help drive the change.
>
>
>
> The fact is, there are SIGNIFICANT differences in the noise and in the
> width
> of the signals of transmitters currently on the market.
>
> When using a bad transmitter together with a 1.5KW amp, even though using
> good adjustments, it  has the same effect as when some  LID  turns up his
> mic gain and compression gain on a good radio to an excessive level and
> drives an amp.
>
>
>
> It is within our power to improve the knowledge level of our fellow hams,
> but even a good op will have a bad signal with some of the radios on the
> market today.
>
> How many hams know this?  I didn't know it until I began looking in detail
> to Rob Sherwood's recent work.  (don't just look at the receivers)
>
> IMHO, far too few hams know this.
>
> Most still think it's the bad hams causing the bad signals on our bands.
> It's BOTH.
>
>
>
> When we have a technical discussion about this TX problem, we need to STAY
> FOCUSED and give specific facts.  They are available.  The manufacturers
> follow these discussions too.
>
> If everyone jumps into the discussion and starts blaming the  LID
>  operator,
> *this dilutes the message to the vendors*.   They can simply point their
> fingers at the LID.
>
>
>
> All of us agree that poor operators are causing problems.
>
> Some of us still need to acknowledge that at least a part of the problem is
> coming from poorly designed transmitters that are being sold to everyone,
> whether a good or a bad operator.  Once we have done that, then we can get
> focused on the problem, just as we focused on Receiver Problems over the
> past two decades.
>
> THEN we can finally hope to see some improvements on our bands.
>
>
>
> As a side effect, maybe some of the poor operators will start to think
> about
> the problem too and learn how to clean up their act.
>
>
>
> 73
>
> Rick, DJ0IP
>
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