[Boatanchors] Receiver Muting

[John Lawson]

  In addition to the 'muting' contacts on the back of most BA comm 
recievers - I also like to use a separate Dow-Key or similar relay to 
actually disconnect the radio's antenna and short it during transmit.... 
especially if using higher power - there is always some "bleed" from the 
RF in the shack - plus, if the radio input is shorted and Something Bad 
happens whilst switching between TX and RX - you have an extra layer of 
protection. If you really want to get fancy, you can put a 100 millisecond 
or so delay on the RX ant switch - to make sure the TX cycle is 'cold' 
before applying the RX to the Antenna Farm.

  Dumping a few hundred watts into your beloved reciever's front end is not 
the most fun way to end a QSO - ask me how I know this...   ;}


  In my shack when using the R-388 and a broadcast transmitter - even 
though I "mute" the radio with the relay contacts on the main Dow-Key - 
enough signal gets into the the inputs so as to require turning the AF 
gain down, otherwise it tends to feed back into the mike.



   Cheers and Best of the Season!


John KB6SCO
DM09fg