[1000mp] Mark V Field AGC Swamping and SSB Filter Setting Fixed via Hidden Menus!

[htankin at comcast.net]

For all of those who've been reading (forced or out of curiosity) my tales of 
woe regarding my Mark V Field I have good news...well maybe good for you and great for me.

My Field was experiencing incredible AGC swamping from strong sigs as far away as 5 to 7 or more Kcs.  I could not believe this was a design fault.  There had to be another cause...either pilot error on my part with respect to menu 
settings or something else.

In addition to that problem I could not get decent SSB receive audio with menu 
5-0 SSB R set to OFF..which defaults the stock 2.4 filters to the NOR position 
and the optional 2.0 filters to the NAR1.  Received audio was severely 
constrained..as if it was being affected by a narrow CW filter.  Nothing I could 
do with the menu settings would fix this with the exception of setting menu 5-0 to 8.2-455 which puts the 2.4 kHz 8.2 IF filter in through position, and the 2.4 kHz 455 in the 6 kHz position.  The power of deduction got me to realize this setting was providing such wide bandwidth that an offending signal 5 kcs away would pose a problem.

Okay..so Einstein here figured out what was causing the AGC swamping...but how do I fix the problem with the menu 5-0 SSB R filter settings?  Contacted Yaesu tech support..they were stumped!  Chip M tried to help, but no luck.  I was depressed!

Well tonight I "Googled" Mark V Field and came across a site that had menu 
settings for the Field..Okay..no big deal, except the list included A SLEW OF HIDDEN MENU SETTINGS for menu items 9-0 through 9-9.  The site had listings of default settings.  Menu item 9-0 allows for adjustment of the offset for the stock 2.4 Collins Mechanical Filter.  Once I punched in the code to get into these menus for my Field, I discovered the receive SSB settings under 9-0 were way out of whack!  They were set at F 1.60 and I adjusted down to F 0.15 each for LSB and USB. The differnece was amazing..night and day.  The NOR/NAR1 bandwidth settings now work fine with menu 5-0 set to OFF.

Subsequently, the AGC swamping is now virtually gone as well!

For those of you interested in getting into these HIDDEN MENUS do the following:

(1) Turn off the Mark V Field
(2) Hold down the FAST and LOCK buttons and turn on the rig
(3) Then push FAST and ENT as you would to enter the menu system.  

You can then go to menu items 9-0 thrugh 9-9

By the way, I believe 9-8 displays date the radio was made at the factory.

The URL for where I found this info is   

www.otterbein-inet.de/ft1000.htm


Harry WE1X