[MAMS] July MAD

[Zack Widup]

I got to the hilltop and made a few QSO's with Ron W9ZIH. The weather was
good, there was no breeze at all (the windmill generators were barely
turning) and nothing broke.

I verified my 222 MHz station is working now. I had problems with it in the
January contest; it seems the problem was due to a bad BNC connector on the
antenna cable, which I replaced. I also checked out my 3456 MHz
transverter, which suffered some damage and had some other problems when my
dish blew over in the Spring Microwave Sprint. It seems fine now.

I also worked Ron on 1296 and 10 GHz. Signals on all bands were strong
enough that we could use SSB.

Another problem arose, though; Ron said my signal was about 1.1 kHz off
frequency when I transmitted. He said it was the same on all bands 1296,
3456 and 10368, and on two different IF rigs at his end. This made me think
the trouble was in my IF radio, which was the only thing in common on those
three bands. When I got home and checked it out, I found it was indeed
transmitting 1.1 kHz up from where it was receiving, and the trouble was at
the 28 MHz level. The IF rig is an HTX-100 with a built-in 144 MHz
transverter.

So I did the alignment procedure outlined in the service manual for the
HTX-100 and it seems correct now. I'll do some tests later on to make sure.

I think someone else mentioned I had this problem; maybe W9SNR during the
microwave sprint? I'm not sure how it got out of alignment. Hopefully it
will stay fixed.

73, Zack W9SZ