Hi all,
First of all thanks to all of the folkds that responded to my plea and
post. I have tried the following and will give a brief rundown....
I had some extra time this afternoon (miracles do happen!;-) and tried a
couple of things. One of the suggestions was to take 1 or 2 turns off of
the T1 winding. I tried one turn and then 2. With one turn off I did
notice a more distintive 2 peak peak. With two tuens off, it did not
make that much of a difference on the recive audio but I did notice a
lot more BC crud in the radio. I will rewind the whole thing minus 1
turn and start over. I THINK that it worked better with 1 turn removed
but the band was fading and it was hard to tell. I can tell you that I
was listerning to a QRO op in Texas and had to tyrn the AF gain down, so
that was a good sign!
I have made a couple of QSO's with the rig and the good news is that I
get a nice clean 5 watts out. Not 4.8, not 5.2, but 5 watts on the nose.
I have a very distinct and abrupt sidtone change when out of tune and
the reflected power goes way up. The sweet spot on the tuning cap is
very narrow. I did go back and add the ferrite bead to R 10 and guess
what? I never had a problem with the tuning of the output, BUT all of
the harshness of the side tone is gone! It really sounds nice and smooth
now except for the THUMP THUMP. All those that have not add this bead,
you might want to go back and add it. I did put in the short and left
out the resistor and did install the 330 pf silver mica caps. I did not
try it without, so I cannot tell you how much better it is. I do know
that in the 3 QSO's that I have had, that I have asked specifically if
the rig clicks or chirps and all 3 said not one bit, so the transmit sid
of things is a done deal. As I posted before, the toroid wire was not in
my kit and I just used what scraps I had. I had enuff to wrap all of the
toroids except L 3 with #26. I used #24 on L 3 and it seems just happy.
Now for the next problem. I have not ever used a DC or Xtal receiver
that much and I am confused by the two sided note in the receiver on
strong signals. I am not sure which side of the note is the right one. I
had a QSO with NF0Z Larry in AZ this afternoon and he said that I was
400 HZ out on his rit. Now, does this mean that I was on the wrong side
of his signal, or that the transmit offset is way out? I do notice that
on the other QSO's that I have had when I was calling CQ, the person
that answered me sounded at least 200 HZ out of the sweet spot in the
passband. I hooked up the SCAF and that just made it worse. When I
retuned for max signal, they would be move off about 100 or 200 HZ low
out from where they were. Is there something that I have out of whack on
the rig, am I just mis-tuning, or is the sweet spot that low in pitch?
It appears that the loudest signals are heard to my ear at about 500-600
HZ.
As far as the level of the tick sidetone is concerned, I think that I am
straight on that now, although I missed the corrected post on how to fix
this and the one on the Norcal site seems incomplete, or I am just real
tired! If someone has an easier to understand version, please forward
it. I got some really nice information from Mike K1MG on this, but just
curious if there is a step by step.
That's all the poop form here for now. I have worked GA, TX, CA, AZ and
CO and MI with the rig, so I know it works, just frustrated by the
tuning/transmit offset as I like to be dead zero beat and just might be
too picky. And no I DO NOT have the RIT installed :-)
Best for now
Jess N0TFI
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