Topband: Coupla things

[Tom W8JI]

> And I DID contact each of the guys whose calls I cited during the contest. 
> In fact, I contacted  about this issue two years ago when he was making a 
> mess in the JA window during the winter Stew, and two years later his 
> signal is still trashy.

That happens sometimes. There was an east coast station that had an 
obnoxious wide buzz that took years to fix, and a Florida station still has 
a poor signal with spurious and clicks.

I think the problem is fourfold for the cases where nothing is done over a 
long period of time.

1.) they don't have money to fix it. some radios are not repairable and just 
need replaced

2.) someone tells them they are OK, maybe even the manufacturer tells them 
their radio is OK, so they run with that

3.) they don't believe it and won't check

4.) they just don't care

I don't know what the solution is, but it would be good to discuss it. 
Personally, I think they should get warnings and be DQ'ed for the same 
symptom if it repeats after a few warnings. We all make mistakes or have 
problems, but there is no excuse at all for 3 and 4.

One fellow kept turning his FT1000MP's up to 130 watts or more, and a local 
service shop in or near Atlanta also did that for people. There is also 
stuff on the Internet that is just insane. Like FET's that are 200 watts 
when at 24 volts or higher, but screwdriver happy techs think a 200W 24 volt 
FET rating means 200 watts is OK at 12 volts:

http://www.kb2ljj.com/data/icom/ic-718.htm

 200w SSB
Open the bottom and at back, there is the main board. At the right bottom is 
the option for the filters. Close to it - is R1707. This adjust the TX 
Power. Next to it is R1730. This adjusts the AM carrier.

Adjust R1707 for what you want up to about 200 watts. It will give more but 
that is at saturation point of the device. Adjust R1730 for the AM carrier 
for about 40 or 50 watts only. This mod is only in testing and I cannot 
stress more to be carefull and keep it COOL.