Topband: TX3A

[Dennis OConnor]

To my fellow hams working TX3A this morning, I am not the lid I appeared to be...  
The radio got a bug in the CPU and kept jumping back to 1830.2 every time it was keyed... 
My apologies... 
Details below..
 
I staggered out to the shack quite early as my body has not yet adjusted to that &^*%$(! time change...  Turned on the radio and amp and found a big pile up at 1825... A couple minutes of tuning while the amp went through its warm up and I found TX3A, qrg UP at 1830.2, but too weak to work at the moment...
I set up the A and B memories for split operation on him, and then did a tune of the band to see if any thing else was going on... 
Some of the regulars were grinding out cq dx - the loudest (as usual) was Jon, AA1K...
A few very weak JA's was all I found - the best one was JA7NI down at 17.5... He has been on every morning this past week or so, I'll come back and say HI a bit later...  I popped him in a memory and went back to TX3A via memory recall...
By this time TX3A had peaked up in QSB strength to where I judged him to be workable, so I went for it and after a couple of tries I made the Q...
I then tuned back down to NI, changed to the VFO simplex, not memories split...  Dropped my call on NI and when I let up I had 16 guys calling me a lid - whut the hey?  
I look at the computer screen and I am back on 30.2... 
I look at the radio and I am back on 30.2...  
Ah jeez, how did I do that? I look closely and I am still in VFO mode, not memory mode, and the VFO is saying 30.2...  "A mind is a terrible thing to lose."
 
I grab the dial and crank back down to 17.2, mumbling under my breath, I'm the guy who is fanatical about being courteous, jeez... 
lIsten for NI and he is still there but water weak...  
So, I drop my call twice and guess what - I am back on 30.2  and the snarling pack is now ready to lynch me (can't say I blame them)...
SO - I go off to a safe frequency, put the amp in stand by, crank the RF drive to zero, hit the paddles for one lousy DIT and I am back on 30.2...  Several minutes of button pushing and knob twisting does not change the situation... 
FInally I am forced to do a hard reboot on the CPU - and all is good again...  Computer driven radios are a marvel, until they get confused...

denny / k8do