[50mhz] Newbie Question

[Ray Brown]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony" <w4foa at comcast.net>


> Well, I'm not exactly a newbie (55 years a ham) but I am a relative newbie
> to 6 meters.

  Wow, you got me beat by a long shot. I'm almost 55 but I've been licensed
for only 13 years. :-)

> I will soon receive a Ten Tec 6 meter transverter to use with my Ten Tec Omni 6+.

  Okay... I presume you're getting the 1208? That's the one from 20m to 6m.

> What is the standard procedure to insure that I don't forget (I have
> "sometimers" sometimes) and blow up the front end of the transverter.  I am
> primarily a CW op and I think I will be fairly safe while using CW (I often
> work QRP with my 6+) but I'm not sure how to handle the SSB input.
>
> Do I need an RF Attenuator, or ?

  It depends. I'll admit that I know very little about the Omni 6+. What is the
maximum power output on CW and on SSB? And, can you turn the RF down
to QRP levels? Then I can answer your question.

> I'd sure appreciate any kind and informative suggestions.  It would be
> really special to hear from someone using the Omni 6+/Transverter setup.

  I don't have any experience with the Omni, but I did, once upon a time,
buy a 1209 kit (which transverts from 2m to 6m) and I had pretty good luck
running a 2m all-mode into the 1209. The only problem that I had turned out
to be a lossy coax switch, because when I was talking simplex on 52.525
thru the transverter, I was "leaking" enough RF thru the switch that I was
being picked up 15 miles away on 146.525, and causing a bit of "interference"
there... actually, he thought it amusing for awhile until he discovered that I was,
in fact, on 52.525, and he couldn't hear me. :-)

  But, I imagine you'll be using this outside the FM portion of the band, right?

  Anyway, if you limit yourself to no more than 10w CW or 15w SSB,
you should be okay, but if you can feed it less, it'll make it last longer.
It has 4 220 ohm 2W resistors in parallel to make the internal dummy load,
so it can dissipate only 8w of solid RF.


                Ray        KBØSTN