Microwave Guy

seen this exact thing on a buddys 7300 last year. turned out to be one of the final transistors (RD100HHF1) had partially failed — not fully dead but limping along. what gave it away was the drain current was uneven between the two devices when measured individually. if you have a way to do RF power measurements on each side of the push-pull output you might find one is pulling more than the other. that said before you go digging into the finals its worth checking the PA bias voltage. there's an adjustment trimmer for it and sometimes they drift, especially if the radio has seen any heat stress. get into the service manual and find the bias adjustment procedure — its not hard and if the bias is low that would absolutely explain reduced output without any fault codes. try that first before assuming its a blown transistor because replacing those finals is doable but kind of a pain with all the thermal compound and torque specs.

yeah what he said basically. i got tripped up on the same thing when i upgraded. the ARRL band plan is just kind of a gentlemans agreement about like where CW ops hang out vs where phone is, its not actually law. the FCC part is the legal stuff you have to follow. took me a while to get that straight in my head too honestly just go listen on 40m for a while before you transmit and youll get a feel for where things are happening. most of the SSB action is up around 7.150-7.250 during the day at least here in the midwest

so ive been trying to figure out if its worth the drive this year, last time i went i picked up a barely used HF rig for way less than i expected but also spent like 3 hours in the flea market area just wandering around not buying anything lol. anybody from this area planning to go or know if theres any club stuff happening around the same weekend, my local club mentioned something about a carpool but nobody has confirmed anything yet

this is making me think i should actually push our club to do something like this. we talk about being prepared but i dont think weve ever actually simulated anything beyond like a basic net check-in. how did you get people motivated to show up on a saturday for a drill? thats always the hard part around here, everyone says theyre interested but then something comes up.

so ive been sitting on doing this for like two years now because i was always nervous about voiding the warranty (which is already long gone lol) and also just the general fear of bricking a radio i rely on for portable ops. but i finally sat down last weekend and did the mars/cap mod plus the extended receive on my FT-857D and honestly it went smoother than i expected. the mod itself is pretty straightforward once you find the right diode matrix — theres a lot of conflicting info online about which pads to bridge depending on the firmware version so just make sure youre looking at the right diagram for your specific unit. mine is an older one so the pad layout matched the older docs. took maybe 20 minutes total including pulling the bottom cover off. extended rx is working great now, been listening around on some frequencies i couldnt touch before. the transmit unlock i honestly probably wont use but it was part of the same mod so whatever. what i actually want to do next is look into improving the audio on rx, the stock filtering always felt a little mushy to me especially on crowded ssb. anyone done anything with the IF filtering on these? i know you can drop in a Collins mechanical filter but im not sure if thats actually worth the cost vs just using DSP filtering in the radio or an external audio filter downstream.

There are two approaches for handling connectivity: Radio Only mode (checking "Radio only, local message hub" and "Forward messages via HF to another RMS") or Hybrid mode with simulated internet outage. I'm configuring our club's RMS Relay for emergency exercises and need to understand the practical differences in message handling delays. Configuration question: For a true internet-down scenario lasting 48+ hours, which approach provides more reliable message forwarding? Documentation emphasizes setting local message retention longer than exercise duration and enabling automatic operation. Currently running Windows 10 with RMS Relay 1.0.8.0, Pactor 3 on 40/80M.