Rick,
If any of your coax connectors had an open to the shield side (very common
problem),
you would have a lot of excess monitor noise because of poor shielding in
the shack.
If you then added a lot of extra grounds to the tuner, you would circumvent
the broken
shield connections. This would account for the monitor noise reduction, but
not the
huge increase in transmit and receive strength. It's an interesting
situation. I would
be tempted to disconnect the extra ground straps one at a time, and see if
the monitor
noise returns. If it does, try to figure out which coax connector is broken
to the shield
side. If all coax connectors are good, the extra grounds should not change
the noise
from the monitor or signal strength.
73,
Carl Moreschi N4PY
Franklinton, North Carolina
n4py@earthlink.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Tyler" <rp.tyler@worldnet.att.net>
To: <TenTec@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 12:17 AM
Subject: [TenTec] Don't Make No Sense
> Maybe someone on the list can help me figure this one out . . . I got a
> Pegaus this summer and have been having fun with it . . . been running it
> through an LDG Autotuner the whole time. Seemed to work fine, although I
> found the Autotuner too noisy and hated retuning with it when I was
skipping
> around during a contest. So I decided to sell it (already sold and
> delivered) and, figuring that one day I would run some Power (with a
capital
> P), and since I now insist on an "MFJ Free" shack (another story for
> another time) I figured I'd bite the bullet and buy the TenTec Model 238A
> Antenna Tuner. I ordered it Tuesday afternoon. On Thursday, I was just
> coming back from mailing off the LDG to its new owner, when the UPS truck
> pulled up in front of me with the new tuner. Typical TenTec service.
> Less than 48 hours from their door to mine, UPS ground!
>
> I hooked it up last night, ran through the list of frequencies and made up
a
> cheat sheet. The S-meter on my Pegasus shot up and signals were coming out
> of the woodwork. Okay, maybe the conditions are right and I just lucked
out
> hooking it up at just the right time . . . but the strange thing is that
> I've always been plagued with monitor noise at certain freqs in the
Pegasus
> (and I've tried a Yaesu, too, and it was the monitor, big time) and I'm
> talking MAJOR noise from the monitor. Sometimes I'd just turn off the
> monitor for a QSO on that freq, or even change the refresh rate on the fly
> so the noise would go to another frequency. Today, tuning around the
bands,
> the monitor noise is almost gone . . . if I crank up the gain and look for
> it, I can find it, but it is certainly no longer a concern. Now I can't
> imagine that this antenna tuner is a magic bullet for getting rid of
monitor
> noise . . . or even make signals jump out of the air. And when I checked
> into a usual net this morning . . . several asked me what I'd done to
> improve my signal. Now I used to have a MFJ tuner with a Yaesu before I
saw
> the TenTec light, and I had the same monitor noise with that set up . . .
> any ideas? ? ? Think the fact that when I hooked up the 238A I ran all
my
> ground straps to the back of the tuner? ? ? The LDG had no grounding
point
> . . . and I was plagued with some RF on certain freqs and it wouldn't
tune
> up on them, just kept gyrating . . .
>
> Looking for answers from the Experts . . . but happy for now . . . hmm .
.
> . can't wait to get me an amp and run some real power . . .
>
> 73 de Rick, WQ8Q
>
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