Aloha, you asked:
>Jim, does it work?
Hi, Oh my yes, it works very well. In fact so well, that before
I realized it, I had zapped two Alpha-Delta coax switches and
burned out the directional coupler of my P-3000 vswr/watt meter!!
I have no idea how much power actually did the damage described, but
I was just learning how to tune up the 8K when it occurred. Nothing
was coming out of the 8K, and I was fiddling with the Tune and
Load knobs trying to get things to happen, at the same time I
was turning up the output of the FT: I also had the Henry SS amp
in series as a driver!! ( Will NOT do that again!) Was cautioned
by the engineer at Henry about that, and thought I was being
careful; I wanted everything to be running way below rated
power limits for long, conservative life.
Well, suddenly bam and ..zzzap! The meters of the 8K came
immediately to life, I saw the P-3000 read 2.95 for a moment or
two, then back to zero!! Also heard a disturbing zazz and pop!!
Anyway, never again!
I have 11 of the 24 presets set up now. Will do the others at dead
band times.
Now have two for 160 meters; five set up on 40 meters, three out
of a planned eight on 20 meters, and the remaining 8 will be divided
between 15 and 10 meters, maybe one on 12 meters.
Also learned that you have to really have everything well grounded,
else problems occur.
Also, I use 450 ohm windowed twin line to feed my 160/80 meter
600 ft/leg wire V-antenna. The balun from coax to twin line is only about
a foot from one of the preset pot boxes. Sure enough, I got RF
messing up things on 80 meters, so for the moment have
not set up any 75/80 presets. Will after I relocate the balun to
outdoors so that I don't transition to the twin lead, and the resulting
exposed RF fields until well away from the rig and amplifier. Use
the same balun on 160 but guess it is closer to a current peak
on that band, while at a voltage peak on 80 here in the shack,
so assume that is the problem.
Anyway, have only had the 8K on the air for tune up and practice
so far, no QSO's. Have done the 160 up to 40 set up during
the middle of the day hours, so no propagation of my test/tune
signals should have escaped the area of our islands. Very
early this morning, before sunrise, and while 20 sounded
essentially dead here on Kauai, I was fooling around with
the 8K on 20 meters; that is when I set up the three CW
sub band presets. Actually heard someone in Alaska call
me; and I thought the band was closed, and I also had
the beam turned away from the daylight area, away from
the US mainland. Alaska must have still been in gray
line conditions; that was around 6AM Hawaii time, nearly
an hour before sunup this morning. Turns out from Kauai,
Alaska is just about 90 deg. azimuth from the US mainland.
Well, that's the status so far, Lem. It was a big job uncrating
the unit last Monday. Took me most of my spare time the
next couple of days getting things set up in the adjoining room
to my "shack" room. The 8K is actually rather quiet while operating,
certainly much less noisy than many appliances, though not as
quiet as our refrigerator. And not as noisy as my 87A was with
the external fan mounted on the back of that desk top box.
The remote 8K Controller Unit here on the shack operating table
emits no sound at all, except for an occasional relay clunk as
commands are sent to the pedestal unit to adjust the tune or load
settings. It is a very fine appearing unit. My Controller unit is
also set up to control one of Henry's lower power solid state
amplifier units should I choose to use it. I could even put the
SS amp in series to the 8K as a preamp/driver, but with
the FT-1000, there is no reason to even consider doing that
again, hi. If I did, the 8K would probably go ahead and melt
my coax line, or whatever, as well as being well beyond our
amateur authorized output power limits! However, the SS amp
can be very handy for use when only 3 or 400 watts of power
is needed for a reliable comm link; and as you well know, from
here in the islands, the most isolated on the globe, we often
need a bit more than barefoot power. (Anyway, I am not into
QRP, hi).
I did try the special 8K QSK features I had added; again on dead
bands. Certainly works just great; easily hear band or rcvr noise
between dits.
However, the 8K does throw out a lot of heat; the tube filament
alone consumes some 300+ watts of power! So for heat build
up alone, am pleased it is in the next room! Reason I ordered
the Ultra unit was the remote control capability feature. The reason
I ordered the 8K rather than the 3K Ultra; guess as is Mt. Everest;
it was there, I wanted it, no need, obviously! It is also very
strong, and will run legal limit forever with the tube really only
coasting along and comparatively cool. Tube, transformers
and all should last decades when operated so far below rated
limits.
For a unit that can run a cool 1500 all day and night on RTTY or
PSK should I choose to, this unit is going to be just great. Will
last the rest of my life, and my son's, probably, who will be
the recipient of all my stuff when I check out!!
73, Jim, KH7M
On the Garden Island of Kauai
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