[Ham-Mac] Mac crashes on transmit or tune... any ideas?

[Mike Murphree]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 09:58:00AM -0500, Walter O'Brien/W2WJO wrote:
> All,
> 
> My Power Mac G4 (quicksilver?) tower goes into sleep, or shuts down, or 
> restarts nearly every time I transmit on my Yaesu FT-897. For that 
> matter, even when I hit tune on the AT-897 tuner in full power the 
> first seconds of High VSWR can blow out the mac.
> 
> The rig is about 5 feet from the CPU and monitor. I have a zap checker, 
> it does show some RF in the room on transmit, but judging by the 
> sensitivity on the zapchecker, not really much. I traced the leads, no 
> obvious leaks... just the rig itself and the mic light the meter.
> 
> Needless to say, this makes it difficult to use MacLoggerDX if the Mac 
> crashes everytime I transmit! Hate to say this but my Windows laptop 
> doesn't have this affect, neither does my Mac laptop, but the tower is 
> really what I'd much rather use if I can work out this problem.
> 
> Is this a normal happening with an 897 and a computer? Any suggestion 
> or ideas on shielding the Mac, or any other solution at all?

You don't say how far the antenna is from the computer, but 20 feet
or more should be good. Usually the easiest fix (besides checking
the match or your antenna) is to snap ferrite beads around the coax
near the antenna.

73
Mike W4LNA