Topband: Relay bounce

[Michael Tope]

Steve,

Does the switch produce an S9 spike on any transition of the switch 
(i.e. from position N to position N+/-1) or only on a certain subset of 
switch transitions? That might provide a clue as to whether there is a 
problem with one of the relays or the power supply that energizes them. 
I am wondering if it could be a bad filter capacitor in the relay 
control circuits or a bad DC blocking cap over on the switch end.

I am not convinced that dirty relay contacts could cause the noise 
spike, but it is probably  agree to clean the relay contacts anyway just 
in case. W8JI recommended soaking a piece a paper in a liquid 
hydrocarbon (I think he used Xylene) and then passing that paper between 
the contacts of the relays in order to transfer any foreign material to 
the paper without causing undue abrasion to the relay contacts. I've 
done this and it has fixed the problem of an RCS-4 going deaf on receive 
despite still working for transmit. For receive only applications you 
might have to do it more often.

73, Mike W4EF...........

On 2/22/2022 10:04 AM, Steve London wrote:
> I am using an Ameritron RCS-4 antenna switch to select between beverage
> antennas. Recently, it has developed a bad case of relay bounce causing an
> S9 spike every time I switch between antennas. Any suggestions on how to
> improve this ? Since it's only used for RX antenna selection, I'm amenable
> to replacing the relays with something else, although I have had issues
> before with other relays due to no current going through the contacts.
>
> Thanks and 73,
> Steve, N2IC
> _____________