[NLRS] August 2007 UHF de W0JT (long)

[John P. Toscano]

Never thought I could have so many equipment failures and still have any 
enjoyment whatsoever... Murphy was not merely my co-pilot this trip, he 
threw me out of the driver's seat and took over for most of the contest.

Some things you expect to just turn on and have them work.  Not this 
weekend. Just like the saying at the swapfest, "It worked perfectly the 
last time I used it" means that it is totally broken!

Ok, I turned on the IC-706MkII and the 222 transverter. Heard nothing 
much, and when I pressed the PTT, various relays clicked but zero 
deflection on the power meter. Hmmm.  Poked around with the wiring 
behind my desk and found one PowerPole connector that didn't get 
reconnected that last time I pulled things apart and re-assembled them. 
That was the only problem that was fixed "easily".

Ready for my first 432 contact. Tried to turn on the FT-847. Power 
switch would not stay in the "on" position. If I held my thumb on the 
switch, the radio would power up, but as soon as I let go, it would shut 
off.  Tried to make a QSO with W0GHZ by holding down the button, he's so 
close and such a big station that he should have been able to hear me 
without an antenna attached.  No go.  Hard to troubleshoot a 
malfunctioning radio with only one hand. Push PTT but no power on the 
meter. Where have I seen that before? But in this case, it's just the 
FT-847, a short coax jumper, the power meter, the main feedline, and the 
antenna. No other devices in line that could have been inadvertently 
without power (PA/preamp were turned off) . No coax relays to select 
antennas that could be stuck in the wrong position, etc. I figured that 
the busted power switch might be able to pass enough current to receive, 
but not enough to transmit. (Failure of the power switch contacts is a 
known problem on this model of radio.) But as I poked and prodded with 
my one free hand (my left thumb was starting to get numb from holding 
the power button in the in position), for no known reason, I switched to 
446 FM and pushed the PTT. I was shocked when I saw the power meter went 
up to 50 watts like it should! What the F***??!! But after awhile I 
finally noticed that the microphone gain control was turned all the way 
down. What on earth it was doing in that position escapes me, but I 
turned it up to a normal setting and 432 was back on the air (for as 
long as I could spare one hand to keep the power applied!). The good 
news is that, on this radio, I have both a foot switch and a desk mic, 
so I can work the radio with *NO* hands, and type into the log 
one-handed, in a pinch...

Ok, two bands (sorta) going. I found W0GHZ again on 222, and asked him 
to try 432 one more time. Bingo, it's in the log, and I can let go of 
the power button for a few minutes.  Let's try 902 and 1296 now. Those 
transverters are connected to a different IF radio, an Icom IC-251a. 
With a lot of effort, we finally managed to grind out one QSO on each of 
those two bands, but Gary should have been able to hear me with no 
trouble from less than 17 miles away. Hmmmm... have to figure that out 
later.

So I go back to concentrating on 222, tuning around, swinging the 
antennas around. I notice that the rotator seems to be very sluggish 
when turning clockwise, and normal speed or even faster than normal when 
turning counter-clockwise. What's up with that, I wonder?  Another thing 
to ponder while looking for QSO's.

I bump into K0CJ for the second time, and decide to get him in the log 
on 432 by holding the power button again. No problem whatsoever, but 
what do you expect over a 4.1 mile path?  So, let's try 1296 again, this 
should be easy.  Nope, no go at all.  That's really weird.

At one point, I hear KB9TLV and rush to get him into the log. Funny 
thing, he should be at a bearing of 53 degrees (slightly east of NE), 
but my antennas are pointed south. Well, we work on 222 and 432, but 
nothing higher works. Then I hear K9CVC who should be at a bearing of 91 
degrees, but when I swing the antennas towards east, he disappears. 
Swing them back to the south and beyond, and there he is again!  We work 
on 222, but he is not able to try 432 at that point, so we make a note 
to try again later. (And we did eventually work on 432.) But something 
seems badly wrong about the antenna pointing.

Climb up from the basement, walk out into the driveway in the light 
rain, and look up. Antennas are pointed about 90 degrees off from the 
correct position.  What???  So I climb back down the stairs, turn the 
rotator some more, climb back upstairs, look again, and now the pointing 
angle is off by more than 90 degrees.  After about 20 trips up and down 
the stairs I was able to crudely "map out", over the 450 degrees of 
rotation of this rotator, the correspondence between actual heading and 
indicated heading. Had to put it into an Excel spreadsheet and graph it 
to make sense of it. So now I had a "cheat sheet" to estimate the 
correct pointing direction.  It's really weird, because with the Yaesu 
G-1000 SDX, the pointing adjustments are limited - start with the 
rotator fully clockwise, match the indicator to the true direction, 
rotate fully counter-clockwise, and turn a control pot to make the "full 
scale" reading correct.  Well, this can't be the solution, as the 
indicator reads correctly when either fully clockwise or fully 
counterclockwise, it's everything in between that is dorked up. Sounds 
like maybe a new indicator pot inside the rotor housing is going to be 
needed, obviously not a job for this weekend.

Needless to say, this was not going to be a high-scoring weekend, so I 
decide to take a more laid-back approach. I didn't CQ my lungs out, 
didn't work real hard at seeking out all the rovers, didn't stay up for 
the whole 24 hours, etc.  The final results show all of this.

Oh yeah, I had plenty of time to surf the net and find details on how to 
replace the power switch on my FT-847 complete with photos, and how to 
insert a relay so that the switch doesn't burn out from the current load 
(one of the reported problems, though not my problem this time.)

And when I got up on Sunday morning and resumed radio operation after 
breakfast, I was discouraged to find that my "pointing cheat sheet" 
wasn't working any more... it took me awhile to figure out that the 
rotator seems to have "healed" itself without further intervention on my 
part overnight, the indicator now points where the antennas do. Well, I 
guess that's nothing to complain about, is it? I guess it just figures 
that Murphy would rub my nose in it by making me lose contacts by taking 
away one malfunction!

Band    QSO's    Grids    QSO Points
  222      12       8         36
  432      15       9         45
  902       1       1          6
1296       1       1          6
TOTALS    29      19    x    93  = 1,767 points

So much to do, so little time to do it... Here I thought I'd be spending 
prep time getting 2304 and 3456 on the air, and instead I had to deal 
with malfunctions in all of the "known good" stuff.

Thanks to everyone who put up with all my stumbling around with failing 
equipment. Thanks to the rovers, even though I missed most of you.

Don't forget to send in those logs, and indicate your club affiliation 
if appropriate.

73 de WØJT, EN34js