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.

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

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

Howdy Eric.....what you need is a divide-and-conquer strategy there.
BDK suggests that it probably is your antenna and to stick a piece of
wire into the antenna connector to see what you get.....good idea BUT
DON'T TRANSMIT (or auto-tune) with this! My suggestions are these:
Connect your rig into your dummy load (essential piece of equip for ANY
ham!) and see if it will now auto-tune quickly and show full power out.
Next, as BDK suggests, try plugging in a random wire (can be
anything....test leads etc) to check basic receive operation - are there
significant signals now? I also noted you mentioning that you couldn't
read them.....are they distorted? What sort of signals were you
listening to - voice - morse - data? If you've got this far and things
seem ok, try another antenna OR another transmitter to see if it will
load into your antenna. I suspect that somewhere in these first few
steps you'll see where you have to make repairs.

73 - Gord VE1AJF

Howdy Eric.....what you need is a divide-and-conquer strategy there.
BDK suggests that it probably is your antenna and to stick a piece of
wire into the antenna connector to see what you get.....good idea BUT
DON'T TRANSMIT (or auto-tune) with this! My suggestions are these:
Connect your rig into your dummy load (essential piece of equip for ANY
ham!) and see if it will now auto-tune quickly and show full power out.
Next, as BDK suggests, try plugging in a random wire (can be
anything....test leads etc) to check basic receive operation - are there
significant signals now? I also noted you mentioning that you couldn't
read them.....are they distorted? What sort of signals were you
listening to - voice - morse - data? If you've got this far and things
seem ok, try another antenna OR another transmitter to see if it will
load into your antenna. I suspect that somewhere in these first few
steps you'll see where you have to make repairs.

73 - Gord VE1AJF

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 05:32:30 GMT, "Eric Patterson"
wrote:

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.


That's strange. The 102-ft. g5rv antenna is actually resonant on the
low end of 20 meters -- it's a random length dipole on all other
bands. Have you checked the swr on 20 without engaging your tuner? You
shouldn't need to tune it at all.

Otherwise, I'd check the coax, the coax connectors, the balun (if any)
beween the coax and the twinlead hanging off the antenna. And, as
another gentleman suggested, just attach any old random wire to your
transceiver to see if it's hot with received signals. If not, I'd
guess something's wrong with the 850.

Bob
k5qwg

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 05:32:30 GMT, "Eric Patterson"
wrote:

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.


That's strange. The 102-ft. g5rv antenna is actually resonant on the
low end of 20 meters -- it's a random length dipole on all other
bands. Have you checked the swr on 20 without engaging your tuner? You
shouldn't need to tune it at all.

Otherwise, I'd check the coax, the coax connectors, the balun (if any)
beween the coax and the twinlead hanging off the antenna. And, as
another gentleman suggested, just attach any old random wire to your
transceiver to see if it's hot with received signals. If not, I'd
guess something's wrong with the 850.

Bob
k5qwg