[Elecraft] Yet another Alignment question

[John MacKenzie]

Hi all,

I have ran thru the alignment procedures a couple of times so far. The
reason for doing it more than once is because the 20M band has to have the
volume almost all the way clockwise to hear anything. With very strong
signals I might get away with close to half throttle. At this point I am not
sure about 15M, 12M and 10M, because I haven't heard much there. 40M and 80M
are what I would have expected from all the bands, which is somewhere around
a quarter turn on volume.

I am running a G5RV thru a MFJ-949e antenna tuner, With 17M, 20M, 30M, 40M
and 80M I am able get 1.1:1 or better, can't tell you about the others at
the moment.

Power out on these bands is functioning normally. I have made QSOs on 17M,
20M, 40M and 80M with decent reports. The necessity of cranking the volume
all the way up on 20M does not seem to affect my transmitted signal
(subjective observation). These make me feel that filtering is the problem.
On my second alignment, slow and by the book, I made some other observations
at least I think I did, it was probably late at night.

1: 20M was surprising strong when peaking L8 and L9, and again with C21 and
C23.

2: C23 seemed to be erratic. Slight pressure changes to it with the tuning
tool made wild swings in signal.

3: When I had finished up 20M is back in the dump.

I was under the impression that the order of the alignment was rigid, that
it had to be done precisely in the order listed in the alignment procedures,
but last night I noticed in the troubleshoot chart, item 120, that I should
try peaking just the affected bands.

I expect I will be able to bring 20M up, but what does these do to my
overall alignment? How do I keep from fixing one and screwing up others with
an unordered procedure such as this? I realize this is a test to be sure
alignment is the problem with 20M, but I don't want to sacrifice any others
to do it.

Thanks for your thoughts,
John n1sjz
and K2 #3596 wanting to be all it can be :)