[TenTec] TenTec Argonaut V 516 Questions

[joemarie aliling]

Hi all,

So I just bought a used Argonaut V 516 and I've tested it initially using a
dummy load and across the bands it can output 20W on CW. The next day, I
went somewhere and tested it in my car and when I tried keying in CW, there
was some weird sound from the speaker like it's cutting off the output. If
I bump the ALC/Power adjustment to about 1/4, it's like the output is
suppressed with the popping sound from the speaker. But when I tried to put
the ALC/Power to the minimum I could hear the sidetone and this is only
outputting about roughly 1W.

Later on, I tested the 2 Finals, I observed it was a different pair, 1
2SC3133 and the other is a 2SC2509. I checked both with diode test and I am
not sure with the Collector to Emitter as with one side, there's 0.56V
reading and 0V at the opposite.Then I also tested both hFEs and 2SC3133 has
110 and 2SC2509 has 80. I am not sure if this is good or not.

I then check some voltage readings around the board and one thing I noticed
is that, the VCC is only about 11+ Volts (Those labeled with 13.6 Volts had
this reading) Then I tried to increase the voltage of my variable power
supply to make this into 13.8V and max current to around 7Amps. I was able
to see an improvement in my TX and I was able to push the output level to 2
Watts. Pushing the output beyond that however would make the sidetone
wobbly and cutting off - seems like the power is being cut when it goes
beyond 2W. Could this be an issue with the power supply lines/regulator?
Could this be a sign of blown finals? I would appreciate anyone with a
working Argo V if they could measure the voltage on those 13.6V points and
probably share it with me.

I hope you could share some ideas on this as I am so in love with this rig
that I have spent so many sleepless nights figuring out what happened to
this awesome little guy.

Thank you all in advanced.

Best regards,
Joe, DV6XCY