Wow, that's not good news. I plan on putting up a big horizontal loop soon
and never considered broad band pick. However where I live now the closest
radio station of any kind is probably more than 8-10 miles away.
When I moved here last year, I did put down three 8' copper rod in a 16'
triangle just outside where my radios are located and interconnected them
and the house utility service with a #2 copper wire, which I also bring into
the house and connect to a copper buss bar across the back of the desk. All
of my ham gear is grounded via heavy copper straps to the buss bar. Since I
do use open wire feeders, all antennas are fed to my old Johnson KW Match
box tuner, which does provide pretty good filtering. But even when I was
living in Vienna, where I was located in an RF swamp, so to speak, I only
encountered RFI problem on one occasion when an 80m wire end was directly
over the roof of my house, which really caused strange problems when I fired
up an amp.
But the fact that you've had the problem in different locations and with
different loops, really rules out the most common of problems, like you say.
I really have no clue what might cause that. However I would dig up the
house utility ground point and check that connection out visually. When I
dug up mine, I found the ground clamp had croded in half and the ground wire
was a half an inch away from the ground rod, and this house is only five
years old.
Tom - W4BQF
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Ellington" <N4LQ@igLou.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> Well I've been using the scope to check band activity. I can estimate the
> frequency of the blip and usually find him when I tune. The Pro2 lets you
> freeze the display and tune a marker to the exact spot.
> Yesterday I was almost finished with a qso and everything went nuts. I had
> to "reboot" and I was not in the split mode either. This morning I lost
> receive audio a couple of times but it suddenly returned. I went ahead an
> did a full reset just to flush out any bugs.
> Here's one for you. Maybe you can help.
> I use an 80m horizontal loop fed with coax and a 4:1 balun. Great antenna
> and low swr on most bands. However it seems to love picking up AM radio
> stations and putting them in unwanted places.
> For example: If I use my old Triton IV on 40m at night, I get multiple
> birdies and cross-mod from BC stations. I bought a little AM BC trap for
it
> and installed it at the rx input and most of that is now cured.
> The OMNI V, TS930 and IC756proII do not have this problem. Simple rigs
like
> the T-kit 40m can't hack it though and they are totally swamped by these
BC
> stations.
> Now here's whats weird....The Orion had AM trash all over the place. It
was
> almost unusable on 80m and even heard a lot of it on 40m. Of course if I
run
> the antenna through the tuner it clears it up but what a cumbersome way to
> fix it! Thinking back a few years...I remembered the external ground
seemed
> to affect things so I simply unhooked the ground wire from the outside gnd
> rod and preston, the Orion was normal. No more AM stations!
> I'm sure someone will mention the diode effect of some solder joint etc.
but
> I've had this problem at 2 different locations, 3 different shacks, 4
> different horizontal loops and several ground systems.
> So what's the deal with loops and grounds and cerain rigs? Wouldn't you
> think the Orion would be less likely to act up? Doesn't it have a tuned
> front end?
> Groundless in Louisville:
> Steve
> N4LQ
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tommy" <aldermant@alltel.net>
> To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 3:37 PM
> Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
>
>
> > Yes, there is a 20khz filter but I have no clue why one would want to
use
> > that.
> >
> > Haven't seen the keypad problem. Normally after punching VFO A ENTER
> > button, punching in your freq, and then pushing VFO A ENTER again, mine
> > always switches to the inputted frequency.
> >
> > Your going to run into some more anomolaties as you get familar with it.
> > Such as when you press B>A, you will find that VFO A changes it's mode
to
> > USB, no matter what mode was set in VFO B. But if you read the pdf file
on
> > rfsquared.com , you will see what all they have been working in for the
> > v1.37 firmware update. If I recall, out of 25 changes, 14 of them
pretain
> to
> > the CW mode.
> >
> > Just be aware that until v1.37 is released, if you work split, such as
the
> > tx on VFO A and the rx on VFO B, and the sweep is running, the Orion
will
> > randomly stop transmitting and you have to reboot (!love that term!) the
> > Orion to get your xmtr working again. The release of v1.37 should make
the
> > Orion another very good Ten Tec radio. Most folks, including me, think
the
> > spectrum scope is almost, but not quite useless.
> >
> > Tom - W4BQF
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Steve Ellington" <N4LQ@igLou.com>
> > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 10:07 AM
> > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> >
> >
> > > I didn't even know this had a 20khz filter Tom. Am I missing
something?
> I
> > > did notice that when I enter a freq. on the keypad it doesn't always
> > > activate unless I turn the vfo knob. What's with that?
> > > Steve
> > > N4LQ
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Thomas Uhlman" <tuhlman@kimbanet.com>
> > > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 12:47 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> > >
> > >
> > > > Speaking of Orion irregularities, has anyone noticed this issue:
> > > >
> > > > Set both receivers to the same band and same antennas....
> > > >
> > > > Enable the 20 kHz filter...
> > > >
> > > > Tune in a signal on the sub-receiver....
> > > >
> > > > Set the main receiver 14 kHz ABOVE the subreceiver frequency.....
> > > >
> > > > Do you receive the same signal on both receivers??
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Tommy" <aldermant@alltel.net>
> > > > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > > > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 8:38 AM
> > > > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Yes, that seems to be a surprising 'plus' to the extra cooling air
> > > > movement.
> > > > > Would be interesting to know if Jim/KH7M has noticed the same
thing
> > > with
> > > > > his Orion.
> > > > >
> > > > > Tom - W4BQF
> > > > >
> > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > From: "Thomas Uhlman" <tuhlman@kimbanet.com>
> > > > > To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> > > > > Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 8:15 AM
> > > > > Subject: Re: [TenTec] Cooling the Orion
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > Funny you mentioned the darkening of the left hand side of the
> > > > display...
> > > > > My
> > > > > > Orion's display does that too after about an hour or so of
> > power-up...
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > I'm really not 'pressurizing' anything, mearly generating a
> slight
> > > air
> > > > > > flow
> > > > > > > out of the top of the Orion through the speaker grill. The
> intake
> > > > ports
> > > > > > > would be mainly the ports on the bottom of the radio,
especially
> > the
> > > > > ones
> > > > > > > under the front panel. With the fan speed cranked down so the
> fan
> > > > makes
> > > > > no
> > > > > > > noise, there is just a gently flow of air exhausted out the
top.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > One side benefit I have noticed: the left side of my LCD
screen
> > had
> > > > > > become
> > > > > > > slightly darker than the rest of the screen (about an inch
wide,
> > > > > > > vertically), now that has completely cleared up.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Tom - W4BQF
> > > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > TenTec mailing list
> > > > > TenTec@contesting.com
> > > > > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > TenTec mailing list
> > > > TenTec@contesting.com
> > > > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > TenTec@contesting.com
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> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
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