Topband: Re: UCW+LCW

[Bill Tippett]

G3XAQ wrote:

>I'm following the debate on receviers on the topband reflector with 
>interest. If I understand your complaint about the MP correctly, it seems 
>not to be present on my MkV. I can push the A->B button and then the 
>SUB+CW buttons to switch sidebands on the sub VFO. Then you need to tune 
>the sub RX over to the other side of the TX freq. Doesn't your MP offer 
>this? Or is it the multiple button pushes and retuning the sub RX that you 
>find unacceptable in a contest?

         Since others have asked me about this, I obviously was not
clear and will post my response publicly.  Here's the problem (if you
are not a contester you can skip this message now):

1.  As K6SE suggested, when running stations I set the MP's Sub-VFO
to TX and Main to RX.  Then I can use the big Main knob to tune.  So
far, no problem.

2.  I decide I want to tune on 2 different VFO's, either using Sub to tune
to a different part of the band for stations not worked, or set it to the
opposite CW sideband and listen to both sides of my TX frequency.
Problem:  Since TX is assigned to Sub, I cannot move the Sub-VFO
without moving my TX frequency which obviously I don't want to do.

3.  Current Solution:  Set TX to Main, and use the RIT to tune stations
on the Main VFO while also using Sub to tune to a different frequency.
This works fine, but isn't it ridiculous to be using that tiny RIT knob
while the big fat Main VFO knob is sitting idle?

4.  Proposed firmware solution:  Lock the TX frequency (doesn't matter
to me if it's in Main or Sub) so I can use both Main and Sub RX
independently of the TX frequency.  Then I can use BOTH big VFO
knobs instead of that dinky RIT knob.

5.  I have never been able to penetrate Yaesu's stonewall with this
suggestion but am frankly not surprised due to their total silence
about other issues (clicks, IF-hiss, AGC, etc.)

6.  Orion does have a solution to this problem although it requires the
$139 302R remote encoder knob/keypad.  You can assign RIT to this
knob and accomplish what I described in 4 above.  I feel the preferable
solution to me would be to simply find a way to lock the TX frequency
and use both big VFO's for RX independently.  I'll continue lobbying
TenTec for this, since I feel it would be a fairly simple firmware change
which could be included in a future update.

         Hopefully Yaesu has solved this issue on later models of the
MP, but I will be surprised if they have.  Hopefully this is a better
explanation than I did previously.

                                         73,  Bill  W4ZV