In reply to 2E0YYY:
Several years ago I had the same problem on 2 metres (suddenly deaf and low output) with my 817 which is in many ways a similar rig. All other bands were OK. I sent it back to the supplier who fixed it and said that a “transformer” had gone open circuit. Passed on for what it is worth!
73
Brian G8ADD
PS The gain of the receiver on 70 cms can be adjusted using the “hidden menu”, perhaps the setting has moved.
In reply to G4BLH:
In reply to 2E0YYY:
Was it a power meter and dummy load designed to work at UHF Mike ? If
not, the readings could be very misleading.
Hi Mike,
Watson W-620 Meter, Covers 1.6 - 530 MHZ.
BTW, many thanks for the contact and all the info on Sunday, great to work you from G/SP-004.
73
Mike 2E0YYY
In reply to 2E0YYY:
Mike,
I was about to reply when I read Matt’s response and he wrote virtually what I was going to say… even down to recommending the GW/MW summits as an excuse to take the rig in to Castle Electronics!!!
I wonder whether the 70cms issue is something to do with RF switching diodes. If so you’ll probably need to get it fixed professionally as without proper visual aids the SMDs will be a pain to deal with.
Hope you get it sorted as 70cms is a superb band.
73, Gerald G4OIG
In reply to G4OIG:
In reply to 2E0YYY:
I wonder whether the 70cms issue is something to do with RF switching
diodes. If so you’ll probably need to get it fixed professionally as
without proper visual aids the SMDs will be a pain to deal with.Hope you get it sorted as 70cms is a superb band.
Hi Gerald,
Yep, I’ve spoken to someone this evening, who immediately identified the problem as a protection diode.
Looks like a trip to Castle Electronics. However, if this means incorporating a summit using the H/H, it’s not all bad news 
Many thanks…
Mike 2E0YYY
In reply to G4OIG:
Hi Gerald
Great Minds think a like HI!! I think that Geoff is also used by most of the main dealers when it comes to rig repairs so you cant really go wrong with him!
My 910 gave up the ghost on 23cm, however a week with Geoff soon rectified that and now it is performing excellently, mainly in the UKAC on 23cm! Never been a big contester, however if you want to work anybody on 23cm SSB it seems the main way to do it. Having said that though if you live in Bolton then 23cm is almost as popular as 2m. In addition the 23cm contests mean that you work (on average 20 people) this is great as it means you can have a bit of a QSO with them! I know alot of the 23cm contesters hoem town and name! A rare thing on most contests HI!
In terms of 70cm, I have no beams up for the band at home and have a 10 ele diamond sat in the shed. I would like to put it up at some point maybe with a waterproof duplexer near the rotator so that only one feed of Coax is required to be run up the mast. At present my 2m beam is fed with LRM (Andrew??? maybe) and it would be nice to just keep one piece of Coax going up the 6m alu pole and hthen have some URM near the rotator.
(Only annoying issue is that all Diamond Beams come with S)239 - Really!!! SO239 on 70cms = a disgrace)
Anyone got any thoughts on which way to go? Horizontal for SSB or Vertical for FM. I love SSB but have heard that 70cm activity is awful in terms of numbers of people on. Whereas vertical on FM would open up many more local repeaters!
I realise this is a hijack of the original thread but would appreciate people’s thoughts on which mode is generally more busy both locally and SOTA wise???
Many thanks
73
Matt G8XYJ
In reply to G8XYJ:
In reply to G4OIG:
I realise this is a hijack of the original thread but would appreciate
people’s thoughts on which mode is generally more busy both locally
and SOTA wise???
Tee hee. Don’t worry Matt, a very interesting topic you’ve raised. Thanks to you and Gerald for the info regarding Castle Electronics. I’ll make the journey as soon as possible and hope to catch you for a chat from a summit.
Best 73
Mike 2E0YYY
In reply to G8XYJ:
(Only annoying issue is that all Diamond Beams come with S)239 -
Really!!! SO239 on 70cms = a disgrace)Anyone got any thoughts on which way to go? Horizontal for SSB or
Vertical for FM. I love SSB but have heard that 70cm activity is awful
in terms of numbers of people on. Whereas vertical on FM would open up
many more local repeaters!
Golly, how spoiled people are now!
My first 70 cm rig, a QQVO2-6 tripler/amp, had a TV socket cannibalised from an old goggle-box, yet it worked. SO-239s were not easy to get in 1964, they were considered a luxury rather than a necessity, and in all honesty they are not all that lossy if you don’t shop for the cheapest! When I went “QRO” with a QQVO6-40A I was happy to have an SO-239 cannibalised from an anonymous bit of exWD gear, but in view of its source it was probably as good as they came!
With regard to polarisation, why not put the beam up polarised at 45 degrees, this will give you 3 dB loss in both vertical and horizontal, but after a while you will know whether you get more action out of one or the other and can change the beam polarisation to suit.
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to 2E0YYY:
Stingwern Hill, Y Golfa, Long Mountain, Corndon Hill
All good hills in the Mid Wales area, however I think Y Golfa is NW!
Worth a look, Stingwern was interesting, I walked up the hill to find a herd of cattle! They seemed fine at first, however they did move to the other end of the field! I proceeded to set up the fishing pole and then heard rumbling…not my stomach HI. The 30ish cattle were charging my way! Luckily they bypassed me, however they did take out a 5 bar gate, 3 20cm diameter wooden posts and a shed load of pig wire and barbed wire!!!
One of the scariest summits I have done HI!!! Geoff 2E0BTR has had similar expierences on GW/MW-004!
Anyway any ideas from anybody on 70cms SSB/FM?
Matt G8XYJ
In reply to G8ADD:
they are not all that lossy if
It’s a recurrent theme. Proponents say they are not that “lossy if” and nay-sayers laugh at the thought of using them for anything above DC. The truth is in between.
A quality PL259/SO239 correctly fitted is not terrible at modest powers up to 1.3GHz. Yes you can see it’s effects on a network analyser but it wont mean the end of the world is nigh.
There are 2 real issues though. One is the use of components, most likely from BY-land made from soft cheese and monkey droppings. The other is the sheer difficulty of fitting them correctly. The design of the braid connection is something that the world’s worst blacksmith would admit to being very iffy and you need blacksmith’s tools to fit them. For this reason and no other they should be banished.
Now, someone will be along to tell you they don’t have problems soldering to the 259 family but do have issues with BNC/N plugs. Ignore them for they are agents of Satan sent to confuse and cause strife amongst us. Seriously, ignore them. My father would never wear a seatbelt because a friend survived a car crash when not wearing one where he would have died otherwise. My father ignored the countless lives saved by seatbelts for this one anecdotal piece of evidence. Likewise the N/BNC anecdotes (for that is what they are). Look at professional use and emulate.
We should always strive for the best and that rules out the 259 family all the time. If you can’t fit BNC/N connectors then get some surplus connectors and some pieces of coax and practice. I can guarantee you will be able to do a better job, on average, fitting them than 259s.
It’s hard to advise on the beam if you don’t know what you really want to achieve. The trite answer is do both but that may not be feasible for many real reasons. But if you want to play UHF DXing then the biggest horizontal beam, low noise masthead preamp and lowest loss cable you can afford is the ONLY solution. Otherwise a vertical beam is needed. You should decide what you want to do and try to achieve that. Which is, of course, very difficult when you don’t know what you realy, really want.
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to MM0FMF:
There are 2 real issues though. One is the use of components, most
likely from BY-land made from soft cheese and monkey droppings. The
other is the sheer difficulty of fitting them correctly. The design of
the braid connection is something that the world’s worst blacksmith
would admit to being very iffy and you need blacksmith’s tools to fit
them. For this reason and no other they should be banished.Now, someone will be along to tell you they don’t have problems
soldering to the 259 family but do have issues with BNC/N plugs.
Ignore them for they are agents of Satan sent to confuse and cause
strife amongst us.
I’ve never been able to work out how you are “supposed” to fit a 239, but I just make a pigtail of the braid, tin it, push the inner conductor into the pin and solder, then use needle pliers to pull the end of the pigtail through one of the side holes and solder it to the outside with a hot iron, it works for me and is more resistant to a pull than either a BNC or an N…which is a consideration for portable. If that makes me an agent of Lucifer then I wear my horns with quiet satisfaction!
Back to 70 cms: in an ideal world you have both polarisations available, if either are missing you lose out on some good stuff - but if I had to choose, I would go with horizontal and pray for lifts to the continent!
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to G8XYJ:
Stingwern was interesting, I walked up the hill to find
a herd of cattle! They seemed fine at first, however they did move to
the other end of the field! I proceeded to set up the fishing pole and
then heard rumbling…not my stomach HI. The 30ish cattle were
charging my way! Luckily they bypassed me, however they did take out a
5 bar gate, 3 20cm diameter wooden posts and a shed load of pig wire
and barbed wire!!!
LOL! On both occasions when I did Stingwern, the field was full of sheep. The cows (or bulls) were in the field across the road, where the Water Board installation is.
One of the scariest summits I have done HI!!!
There are nice, friendly pigs on Long Mountain Beacon Ring (GW/MW-026), in the field just by the TV transmitter. They are the happiest pigs I have ever seen!
Anyway any ideas from anybody on 70cms SSB/FM?
Both are equally dead around here. Similar to 23cm, really. At least on 70cm FM I can access a couple of repeaters. I have never heard a station - ever - on 433 MHz FM simplex from my home QTH.
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
In reply to G8ADD:
I’ve never been able to work out how you are “supposed” to
fit a 239, but I just make a pigtail of the braid, tin it, push the
inner conductor into the pin and solder, then use needle pliers to
pull the end of the pigtail through one of the side holes and solder
it to the outside with a hot iron, it works for me and is more
resistant to a pull than either a BNC or an N…which is a
consideration for portable.
That’s how I do it, too. I have never had any trouble with PL259’s, so long as one steers clear of the cheapo type with the paxolin insulation!
I have never been able to fit a BNC plug to coax. My eyesight is just not good enough to poke the inner conductor into the tiny hole in the centre pin … and even if I eventually succeed, I’m never happy that the soldered connection will be durable enough to withstand “normal” /P operations.
N types are almost as difficult to fit, for the same reason.
I do not understand why a PL259 should be noticeably more “lossy” than an N-type or BNC connector, assuming the insulation is made of the same material (Teflon).
P.S. BNC stands for Bayonet Neill-Concelman and is named after Amphenol engineers Paul Neill and Carl Concelman … and not many people know that! Also, the N connector was invented by Paul Neill and the C connector by Carl Concelman, the two inventors of the BNC.
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
In reply to G3NYY:
I do not understand why a PL259 should be noticeably more
“lossy” than an N-type or BNC connector, assuming the
insulation is made of the same material (Teflon).
Transmission lines, Walt! At really high frequencies (and even UHF is affected if the power is high enough), the physical transition at the connector (shape and size of the bits), if not at the proper impedance, reflects some of the power. The higher the frequency, the worse these effects are, since the transition is a bigger fraction of a wavelength. PL259 are, I understand, not the same impedance all the way through.
That’s why these things are fine at DC, and fine at HF for me (since I only use low powers on the infrequent occasions I’m on HF), and I could probably get away with it on 2m, but once up to UHF and above the little power I have is obtained with such effort that I don’t want to waste any of it!
So on 23cm I use BNC a bit, but mainly N amd SMA; now I’ve reached 13cm it’s just N and SMA. (Though TNC would probably be OK.)
73
John GM8OTI
In reply to GM8OTI:
Hello All,
Many thanks for all the replies, Walt’s answer confirmed what I thought about 70cm SSB from Home! My heart tells me that I should go Horizontal and shout CQ till my head falls off! However my head tells me to go Vertical and use it reguarly on both simplex and repeaters!
Main reason for this straw poll is that at present my SOTA activities have been restricted to some of the V/UHF bands. In 2010 i concentrated on 2m SSB and 4m FM, for 2011 I added 23cm FM! However I would like to make a concerted effort on 70cm in 2012 so this will evidently effect the way i put the beam at home, as my father will be chasing me HI! I think vertical is the best system for myself and the old man!
Anyone thought about waterproof Duplexers? I dont think the losses will be drastic?
Finally I see my slanderous comment about 259’s has once agin brought up the battle between N, BNC and my own personal fav - TNC (note how i did not say 259 I dont class them as a plug)!!! I did not mean to stir it up on here, however reading all the comments is quite interesting!
73 all
Matt G8XYJ
In reply to G8XYJ:
TNC and BNC are electrically the same. The only difference is the TNC having a screw thread locking mechanism vs. the BNC over-centre lock.
My Marconi sig-gen uses TNC for the frequency meter output and my previous contest group used TNCs for the HT connections on a few big (small by contesting standards) PAs. Easy to spot what the lead is for when you see the TNC.
They were common on 1st and 2nd gen analogue car mobile phone systems but are much less common than the BNC. Only reason not to use them is they are less common so you don’t find bags of quality used connectors at rallies for silly money.
Andy
MM0FMF
I have never been able to fit a BNC plug to coax. My eyesight is just
not good enough to poke the inner conductor into the tiny hole in the
centre pin … and even if I eventually succeed, I’m never happy that
the soldered connection will be durable enough to withstand
“normal” /P operations.
Have you tried the crimp on BNC’s Walt?
I’ve started using those now and they are a doddle to fit. The crimp pliers I have also have part of the jaw recessed for crimping the centre pin on too.
I’ve also just started to swap any PL259s/SO239s to N types, as they do seem to be that much sturdier.
The plugs I usually struggle with are clamp types. There seems to be a number of different variations around and I’ve never been happy with the ones I have used. They always give the fear that one pull and the coax will depart from the plug. No such problem (so far) with Crimp ones though!
73
Jonathan
M6HBS
In reply to GM8OTI:
Transmission lines, Walt! At really high frequencies (and even UHF is
affected if the power is high enough), the physical transition at the
connector (shape and size of the bits), if not at the proper
impedance, reflects some of the power. The higher the frequency, the
worse these effects are, since the transition is a bigger fraction of
a wavelength. PL259 are, I understand, not the same impedance all the
way through.That’s why these things are fine at DC, and fine at HF for me (since I
only use low powers on the infrequent occasions I’m on HF), and I
could probably get away with it on 2m, but once up to UHF and above
the little power I have is obtained with such effort that I don’t want
to waste any of it!
I know about this point, John, but I have never seen the argument quantified. Given a high quality teflon product to minimise dielectric losses, the segment between the end of the coax braid and the soldering point on the SO239 is just a couple of centimetres of mismatch, and not a huge mismatch at that from the look of it. What I would like to know is how significant is that mismatch at 70 cms? Remembering that part of the reflected power is re-reflected back to the antenna, what is the actual loss in dB? I would wager that it is very small at 70 cms but have no hard figures, does anybody, or are we dealing with the ham version of an urban myth? No argument about it becoming significant at 23 cms, its the 70 cms situation that interests me - I have too many tall trees here to bother about 23!
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to G8ADD:
I know about this point, John, but I have never seen the argument quantified.
Use Google grasshopper.
http://www.qsl.net/vk3jeg/pl259tst.html
Although he used a Wiltron analyser rather than a proper one from Rhode&Shwartz or Agilent. Still his analyser is better than mine as I don’t have one. Sniff!
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to MM0FMF:
So the nitty-gritty is an insertion loss of 0.2 dB at 2 metres and 1 dB at 70 cm from a connector that he admits is not a high quality product. Hardly the end of the world but YMMV!
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to MM0FMF:
TNC and BNC are electrically the same. The only difference is the TNC
having a screw thread locking mechanism vs. the BNC over-centre lock.
I had never heard of a TNC connector until I read this thread. I always thought a TNC was a Terminal Node Controller … which I used back in the far-off days of Packet Radio!
73,
Walt (G3NYY)