Hi all,
I spent a little time this weekend finishing up the 38S. I am happy to
report that even with installing the 5 watt mod and the TiCK mod, there
was no smoke the the radio came to life on power up. When first powered
up, I heard the dit dit of the TiCK chip, so I knew that I had a chance!
I pushed the button on the TiCK keyer again to make sure I heard what I
heard, and yes, I did hear the TiCK chip!
I moved the tuning pot aroound and even heard some signals! I did take
the time to hook up the tuner and make sure that the antenna was tuned
for perfect match with another rig first. I listended around, found a
good signal and peaked up TC1. The first thing that I noticed was that
the receive signals were down pretty far. Thought it might be the
headphones, so I swapped them for another set and same thing. I tried,
the RS Comm headset, a pair of Sony ear buds, another pair of generics
and the WGA headset ( the best I have ) and all had the same result. I
can hear receiver hiss with the pot up all the way, but the signals
sound kind of muffled or muted.
On to tune up. Kicked the TiCK into tune mode on the dummy load, very
touchy. 4.5 watts of clean output, if I get even just a bit off, I get a
harsh note out. Hooked it up to the antenna and same deal, except that
when TC2 is not adjusted right, I get all kinds of reflected power from
the junk. Tweaked it a bit and get just about 4.5-5 watts out and
sounded good. I did not sum the sidetones, just using the sidetone from
the TiCK, figured I would not complicate things. I did notice that the
TiCK chip sidetone is kinda raspy, but I can live with it.
So heres the questions ( you knew that was coming!):
1. Why is the TiCK side tone when in programming mode so much lower than
the regular sidetone from the chip when transmitting? The programming
tones have to bee less than half the volume. Yes I did play with the
value of R 17? and it made not difference in the sidetone volume. (My
first clue?).
2. I wonder if the receiver is giving me all it should be. I can hear
stuff and get white noise and hiss and yes the noise goes up when that
antenna is attached, but it still seems kinda muted or deaf according to
the other reports that I have heard. I did jump R 24 and the audio out
did increase a little, but not by much.
3. Thump thump. Yes mine does thump a LOT. I would like to kill some of
this, bu the receiver is the first order of business.
I wound most of the coils with what I thoought was #26 wire and L 1 with
what appeared to be #24, all junk box wire as the kit I got was missing
the wire. I am using a 5K linear taper pot for the AF gain and a 100K
linear for the tuning. My tuning range is about 10.102 to 10.120. Not
too bad for a start.
Great kit and stupendous effort by Norcal. I was only missing a few
minor parts and I had to get others for the other mods anyway. I am
happy that the rig fired on the get go and look forward to some help
getting the receiver peaked up.
Best
Jess N0TFI
http://www.concentric.net/~jessqrp
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