[NLRS] More on sequencers (L O N G)

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

On Tue, 2006-03-28 at 09:43 -0600, Chris Elmquist wrote:
> On Tuesday (03/28/2006 at 09:05AM -0600), Dr. Gerald N. Johnson wrote:
> > The rub is that unless you go into the radio and disable the front panel
> > call and CW KOX and SSB/FM VOX circuits this scheme of sending mic and
> > key through the sequencer fail to protect if the front panel call button
> > is pushed. I gave up running an ARR preamp on 2m because I got tired of
> > replacing the GaAsFETs when I forgot to take it out of the circuit
> > before going to FM or CW because with the FT-726 RF appears BEFORE the
> > control signal.
> 
> Right... and newer rigs have other features such as automatic antenna
> tuning which will initiate RF without ever hitting the mic PTT input.
> 
> And so this was my concern-- looking for a good solution that covers
> all of these cases so that I can protect my stuff from me!  :-)
> 
> I guess my fundamental complaint is that few rigs are built with these
> external interfaces in mind.  This is really no surprise to me but again,
> I was looking for the methods folks are using to work around some of
> these limitations without setting ourselves up for going broke buying
> replacement FETs.

This is something we can discuss and determine what rigs are easily
adjusted and what ones are obstinate. The variety is far greater now
that it was when the 726 and 736 were the prime VHF and IF radios. The
817 being an example with a bit of planning for transverter. The 857 has
some of that planning, at least it has a transverter mode where you can
select the dial offset for the transverter and in that mode it
automatically cuts the power back to 4 watts. I've not yet looked for
the transmitter inhibit line. I suppose there is a chance that HF radios
with three VHF/UHF bands like the Icom 746 might have some less well
known features. I know the 726 and 736 from Yaesu had some unwelcome
features of shifting the receiver without changing the display when
going from SSB to CW and that costs me QSOs far too often. The 857
changes the display, not the actual zero beat frequency which is a great
deal better. I only keep the 736 for 220 and 1296 and probably will
retire the 726 from 2m and 432 though it hears better than the 736, its
not better than the 857.

Anyway if we identify the rigs that get along with sequencers (and put
that summary in things like the CSVHF proceedings) we may get lots of
VHF/UHF and microwave hams to vote with their checkbooks to encourage
those models and discourage the models that destroy the preamps.
> 
> Chris NØJCF
> 
-- 
73, Jerry, K0CQ,
All content copyright Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer