Good evening to all. I just received a ten tec scout 555 and hooked it up to
my 58 foot attic dipole through an MFJ 901b and RS swr/pwr meter. On the rs
meter I am reading infinity for swr at roughly 30 watts on cw (really only mode
I use) on 40 meters. On the scout meter, I am reading at most, 2:0. Now the
scout has an adjustment on the bottom for power. With the radio on, into a
dummy load, as I increase wattage, swr goes up and the ALC light goes out. I
am not sure how to explain this but . . . when I try to tune the rig through
the tuner, the meter light dims and a lot of humming is heard through the
phones. The cw tone is purest when I am running about 8 watts. There is no
hum, no dimming light, and the ALC light remains lit. Basically, do I need to
get a better tuner, power supply(rs 3A ps in currently in use), or something
else. Thanks for any opinions.


73
Greg

I suggest you obtain a manual on the rig to begin with. You can obtain
one from TenTec. That said, the Scout 555 draws 10 amps on transmit.
So, yes you definitely need a bigger power supply.

Danny, K6MHE

On 19 Jun 2004 02:33:12 GMT, ojunk (Greg Doughty)
wrote:

Good evening to all. I just received a ten tec scout 555 and hooked it up to
my 58 foot attic dipole through an MFJ 901b and RS swr/pwr meter. On the rs
meter I am reading infinity for swr at roughly 30 watts on cw (really only mode
I use) on 40 meters. On the scout meter, I am reading at most, 2:0. Now the
scout has an adjustment on the bottom for power. With the radio on, into a
dummy load, as I increase wattage, swr goes up and the ALC light goes out. I
am not sure how to explain this but . . . when I try to tune the rig through
the tuner, the meter light dims and a lot of humming is heard through the
phones. The cw tone is purest when I am running about 8 watts. There is no
hum, no dimming light, and the ALC light remains lit. Basically, do I need to
get a better tuner, power supply(rs 3A ps in currently in use), or something
else. Thanks for any opinions.


73
Greg

Greg Doughty wrote:
Good evening to all. I just received a ten tec scout 555 and hooked it up to
my 58 foot attic dipole through an MFJ 901b and RS swr/pwr meter. On the rs
meter I am reading infinity for swr at roughly 30 watts on cw (really only mode
I use) on 40 meters. On the scout meter, I am reading at most, 2:0. Now the
scout has an adjustment on the bottom for power. With the radio on, into a
dummy load, as I increase wattage, swr goes up and the ALC light goes out. I
am not sure how to explain this but . . . when I try to tune the rig through
the tuner, the meter light dims and a lot of humming is heard through the
phones. The cw tone is purest when I am running about 8 watts. There is no
hum, no dimming light, and the ALC light remains lit. Basically, do I need to
get a better tuner, power supply(rs 3A ps in currently in use), or something
else. Thanks for any opinions.


73
Greg


Hi Greg,

The Scout is very fussy about it's power supply you need one capable of
at least 10 amps. Also it very fussy about the voltage underload it
will act up whenever the voltage drops to about 11 or 12 volts. This
would be my first step. Get a better power supply I used a scout for
many years it's a great little rig. And the folks at Ten Tec are supper
at helping you out. So if the problem persists after you've upgrade the
power source give them a call.

73 Dave

On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 06:30:51 -0400, KC1DI wrote:

Greg Doughty wrote:
Good evening to all. I just received a ten tec scout 555 and hooked it up to
my 58 foot attic dipole through an MFJ 901b and RS swr/pwr meter. On the rs
meter I am reading infinity for swr at roughly 30 watts on cw (really only mode
I use) on 40 meters. On the scout meter, I am reading at most, 2:0. Now the
scout has an adjustment on the bottom for power. With the radio on, into a
dummy load, as I increase wattage, swr goes up and the ALC light goes out. I
am not sure how to explain this but . . . when I try to tune the rig through
the tuner, the meter light dims and a lot of humming is heard through the
phones. The cw tone is purest when I am running about 8 watts. There is no
hum, no dimming light, and the ALC light remains lit. Basically, do I need to
get a better tuner, power supply(rs 3A ps in currently in use), or something
else. Thanks for any opinions.


73
Greg


Hi Greg,

The Scout is very fussy about it's power supply you need one capable of
at least 10 amps. Also it very fussy about the voltage underload it
will act up whenever the voltage drops to about 11 or 12 volts. This
would be my first step. Get a better power supply I used a scout for
many years it's a great little rig. And the folks at Ten Tec are supper
at helping you out. So if the problem persists after you've upgrade the
power source give them a call.

73 Dave

Also, try someone other than RS for your supply :-) You want one
that's filtered against hash -- a quiet supply appropos for
communications gear. See your local ham dealer or places like AES or
HRO.

Bob
k5qwg

On the rs
meter I am reading infinity for swr at roughly 30 watts on cw (really only mode
I use) on 40 meters. On the scout meter, I am reading at most, 2:0. Now the
scout has an adjustment on the bottom for power. With the radio on, into a
dummy load, as I increase wattage, swr goes up and the ALC light goes out.

Hmmm...using the old "50% efficient" rule of thumb gives around a 5 amp draw at
30W out. Think the first thing I'd do is read the manual to see what the
current needs are...replace the RS meter with a decent one (the RS meter will
work, but not a "good" meter) and get a decent (Astron, etc) power supply in
the 12A and up range (I recommend the RS20 or RS35...good units).

Greg, one thing you may be able to do immediately is to get a gelcell of some
sort and trickle charge it...I use a 17aH cell to run my FT857 at 50W (w/solar
charger). What you are seeing, in part, is current limiting and loss of
regulation on the power supply. The antenna matcher probably is fine, the RS
meter will give a fair indication of what's going on. On the power supply
side, you may want to review some of the ARRL handbooks which cover P/S
information. This will give you a good start in understanding the amount of
current needed for a particular application. The fine folks at Ten Tec can
provide the manual (which may also be online somewhere for download).

Watch out as regards Polarity....tough to get the smoke back in those little
black cases.....

Hope this helps!
A