The AM Forum

I have a Viking Valiant that transmits on 80 and 160 simultaneously.  I know the 80 frequency is a harmonic of the 160 signal coming from the same oscillator, but is this normal?  When the band switch is set for 160 shouldn’t the 80 harmonic be much weaker than 160?  Anyone with a remedy?

  At the risk of asking some very dumb questions—a thing for which I'm eminently qualified—how have you determined that it's transmitting on 160 and 80 at the same time? Are you using a spectrum analyzer? The typical RF watt-meter is frequency-blind, so it wouldn't know. A nearby receiver would very likely pick up the 2nd harmonic when you're transmitting on 160, but it would be extremely weak. When you transmit on 160, can you see your 80 meter signal on a WebSDR suitably distant from your QTH?
  Did this Valiant just recently start doing this?
  Unless your antenna is resonant on both bands, like a fan-dipole, I would think that if you were transmitting real power on both bands, the indicated SWR would be very high; even more so if you were transmitting into a tuner. A dummy load would probably be just fine with it, though, and SWR would likely appear normal. I would also think that you'd have the devil of a time tuning and loading that Valiant if it were indeed transmitting power on both bands.

Problem solved…..(Misplaced wire on loading band switch)

Good! Nothing like finding a problem on the first go-around!