RadioBanter - View Single Post

December 30th 03, 12:15 PM

In article ,
says...
I have a Kenwood TS850 that seems to be experiencing more technical issues
than usual. Currently, it is down in Southern Oregon where I used it during
high school. However, I am having two issues:
1. When using the automatic antenna tuner, it will not tune up. It tries
to tune, but gives me a series of beeps after about 20 seconds. Those beeps
indicate that the tuner can't tune to the right SWR. This problem only
occurs on 20 meters and no other bands.
2. I am not picking up very good signals. No matter which band I try, I
can't pick up anything except for a few weak signals and I can't understand
what anyone is saying. Are all the issues described related to my antenna?
Could it have something to do with the band conditions? My antenna is a
g5rv, which has worked really well before. Thanks in advance for any
recommendations.

Eric Patterson,
Kb7vfr
Beaverton, Oregon.

You have an antenna problem, if you aren't hearing much, and the radio
is ok (stick a hunk of wire in the coax connector, and see what you
get), I would bet the coax has water in it, or something else is going
on. The tuner will tune up on about anything, as long as RF isn't
getting into it, and making it unable to tune. I had a tuner that tuned
everything, except my back up dipole in the attic. When you say you
can't understand anyone, is it because they are so weak? Or is it
because they are garbled??

The actual SWR on my dipole was only about 2:1, but RF getting into the
radio (The antenna was about 6 feet above it seemed to confuse it), and
making the tuner crank and crank and crank, and then give up. Tuning it
manually was nothing but a minor turn of both controls.

Good luck.

BDK