[Milsurplus] RS-6 on the air

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

> Just put my RS-6 set on the air, on 40 meters and worked the LA area from
> Reno, on a dipole. Good sigs both ways, the other gent was running 100w
> to my 10w out.

I have noticed that the 10 - 15 watts from the GRC-109 seems to 
make contacts as easily as my 100 watts. Interesting.

> 
> Couple of observations and questions.
> 
> I found the internal CW key kind of hard to use, and wound up plugging in the
> regular station CW key. 

On the GRC-109, the front-mounted key is hard to use since your 
hand is up so high and has nothing on which to rest your wrist. I 
use an external MacKey (bug) or hand key. Much easier.

> 
> The dual section oil cap in the RA-6 only lasted about 30 minutes and then
> spilled its guts, I had to replace it with an electrolytic.  The 5 uf single
> section cap seems perfectly happy though. The original 6X4 in the power supply
> could have shorted and taken the cap out, or the other way around. But either
> way, with a new cap and 6X4 it seems OK now. 

I replaced the single section 8 mfd 600 V electrolytic in my power 
supply before ever firing it up. Have had no problems. 

> 
> The pops in the headphones on key up were pretty annoying and tended
> to confuse me when sending, especially on a series of dits(like 7s, Vs and Hs)
> Do other RR-6 receivers sound this way? I had to disconnect the headphones while
> transmitting.

The entire system is at fault here. If I use the internal (transmitter) 
antenna switching for QSK, the signal into the receiver is so darned 
loud it is painful. I built an external "switch box" which, a) 
eliminates the "suck out" caused by having the transmitters output 
tuned circuit in parallel with the receiver's, and b)cuts the level of 
the signal from the transmitter which gets into the receiver by a 
consideable amount so that I can use the receiver as my sidetone 
source. Otherwise, like you, I have trouble timing my CW by the 
clicks. Also, it hurts my ears and gets very tiring.

I don't have a schematic on the external switch box, but it consists 
of a couple of RS DPDT relays, a small power supply, a key jack, a 
headphone jack, and three SO-239s. One relay keys the other so 
that I get a sort of differential effect. The first relay switches the 
antenna from transmitter to receiver AND then keys the second 
relay which keys the transmitter and mutes the receiver, or at least 
lowers its RF gain a lot so I don't get my ears creamed.
> 
> My BFO injection seems light, I had to run the gain down quite a bit for a 
> clean sounding note. Anyone else notice this on an RR-6?. 

Not a problem in the R-1004 for me. I have plenty of BFO injection.

> 
> I think my receiver does need some workbench TLC, there were some significant
> gain variations, gain would drop slowly over a 15 to 20 second period and then
> rise back to normal, almost like a tube filament that had opened, but never
> quite actually quitting.

Hmmmm....sounds like a component going bad on you to me...

> 
> But all in all, quite fun. Anyone for a sked?  But I might have to cheat and use
> the R-390A as a receiver till I figure out the RR-6 problems.

Sure. When? Where? :-)

Ken Gordon W7EKB