Ready for Nearfest!

[KD1SH]

  As usual in the run-up to Nearfest, I've been obsessing about the weather, but it's looking good: mostly sunny on Friday followed by a slightly cloudier but probably rain free Saturday. My truck's been packed since last Sunday's Nutmeg Hamfest, so I'm ready to hit the road in Friday morning's pre-dawn darkness.
  My IC-7000 started acting up this morning, intermittently shutting down and resetting when I transmit—sounds like a power cord problem—so I'll be out in the driveway troubleshooting in a few minutes; I'll be needing the rig to keep in touch with the rest of my group on the drive up to the 'fester.
  Hoping to see a good AM turnout!

[KD1SH]

  Okay, the problem with my IC-7000 is resolved. It was, as I expected, just a matter of cleaning all the contacts—including those in the fuse-holders and the pins of the fuses themselves—on the power cord. The IC-7000, from what I've heard, is notoriously antsy about low DC input voltage conditions. It started a few weeks ago with white lines jittering through the display when transmitting without the engine running, and this morning progressed to jittering white lines on transmit even with the engine running, and then complete shutdowns when transmitting. Back home, my DMM showed a drop down to 9v on transmit. Modern embedded-microcontroller rigs—low-droput regulator drops out; microcontroller says I'm outta here.

[N1BCG]

I bought an IC751A at a hamfest and couldn't wait to try it out, but when I turned it on, one LED momentarily flashed then the rig went dark. OMG, could the CPU be dead? Did I just buy a brick?

Some online comments cited voltage regulator issues but this would be hard to confirm without at least some power in the rig. Putting the power supply on a Variac revealed that there was some life after all (panel lamps, S-meter activity) but only up to a very low voltage then suddenly all goes dark.

Backtracking from the mainboard power connection showed that the power only failed at the rig side of the 20A inline fuse. HUH!?! Two hours of troubleshooting ended with the discovery that the fuse element wasn't soldered to one of the metal caps inside the glass and was just making enough contact to carry a small current. Changing fuses resolved the problem. GAH!

And now, back to the intended topic of this thread...

[AJ1G]

Just looked at the latest forecast for the fester, and it now looks like Saturday, at least through the morning and early afternoon will be sunny! 

Bill - re your intermittent cutting out of your IC-7000, there might be a problem that is very common in ithr IC-7000’s successor the IC-7100 where operating using the speaker in the remote control head at high volume levels will randomly shut the radio off coincident with high transient audio levels, from things like loud static crashes and very loud stations coming on frequency when you may already have the volume turned up.  It’s apparently a designed in protection feature for protection against over current conditons in the interconnect cable between the remote head and the mainframe of the radio.

Usually drives the operator, like me crazy, thinking that there is a problem with the
interconnect cable or its connectors.  Easily avoided by not using the internal speaker in the remote.  In my mobile setups of my 7100 in the Tacoma or Volvo XC60, I take audio from the 3.5 mm external speaker/headphone jack on the rear of the remote unit and hose it into the vehicle’s infotainment system analog auxiliary input jack, which turns off the remote’s internal speaker and it’s amplifier.  Have never had any recurrence of the high strap level audio power off cutout when set up that way.  Be sure to have the small speaker/headphone switch on the rear of the remote unit set at headphone, otherwise the IC-7100 audio will only appear in the left channel speakers of the vehicle.  Needless to say, the audio though the vehicle sound system is spectacular compared to the tinny
little remote speaker! If you don’t want or can’t send the headphone audio into the vehicle system, you could alternatively use an externally amplified power speaker. The problem will still occur if you use an unpowered remote speaker plugged into the remote’s speaker/headphone jack.

[KD1SH]

  I can imagine that the IC-7000 and the 7100 share some similar circuitry, but the 7000's remote head doesn't have a speaker. I didn't know that the 7100 has a tiny little speaker in the remote head; that's a cool thing. I am using an external speaker, stuck on with double-sided tape down under the dash, and it doesn't sound too bad. At least it's a great deal better than listening to the audio from the main unit's speaker down under the seat.
  I was actually seriously considering buying a brand-new IC-7100 a while back, but then the Covid thing hit, followed by the supply-chain thing, and the price went way up and never came back.
  Neat trick, patching the audio into your vehicle's entertainment system. My Frontier has some nifty gizmos, but no fancy infotainment system, unfortunately.
  Weather's looking great now for both days, and I'll be there for both. Getting excited like a kid before Christmas. I'll be on the road at 0330; probably won't sleep a wink before then, but I'll make up for it with a few hours napping in my truck before the gates open.
  See you there!

Just looked at the latest forecast for the fester, and it now looks like Saturday, at least through the morning and early afternoon will be sunny! 

Bill - re your intermittent cutting out of your IC-7000, there might be a problem that is very common in ithr IC-7000’s successor the IC-7100 where operating using the speaker in the remote control head at high volume levels will randomly shut the radio off coincident with high transient audio levels, from things like loud static crashes and very loud stations coming on frequency when you may already have the volume turned up.  It’s apparently a designed in protection feature for protection against over current conditons in the interconnect cable between the remote head and the mainframe of the radio.

Usually drives the operator, like me crazy, thinking that there is a problem with the
interconnect cable or its connectors.  Easily avoided by not using the internal speaker in the remote.  In my mobile setups of my 7100 in the Tacoma or Volvo XC60, I take audio from the 3.5 mm external speaker/headphone jack on the rear of the remote unit and hose it into the vehicle’s infotainment system analog auxiliary input jack, which turns off the remote’s internal speaker and it’s amplifier.  Have never had any recurrence of the high strap level audio power off cutout when set up that way.  Be sure to have the small speaker/headphone switch on the rear of the remote unit set at headphone, otherwise the IC-7100 audio will only appear in the left channel speakers of the vehicle.  Needless to say, the audio though the vehicle sound system is spectacular compared to the tinny
little remote speaker! If you don’t want or can’t send the headphone audio into the vehicle system, you could alternatively use an externally amplified power speaker. The problem will still occur if you use an unpowered remote speaker plugged into the remote’s speaker/headphone jack.

[AJ1G]

I expect to get underway from Stonington about 0230, want to be on site by around 0630, and yeah good idea grab some sleep once in the queue.  I’ll be on 40 SSB around 7140 kHz in the Tacoma on the way up, will keep an ear on 7290 AM also.

[KD1SH]

  Another Nearfest in the log, and it was a great one, and yet another lesson in not getting too freaked out about weather forecasts more than a few days in advance. Five days earlier they were not only predicting rain for both Friday and Saturday, but upwards of an inch of rain on Saturday! Instead we got mostly blue skies both days.
  Met a few AM'ers who I'd never met before, including Bob, N1TZU; Mike, WU2D; Howard, VE2AED; Dan, W1DAN, and Larry, NE1S, and chatted with a handful of regulars who I'd met before but always look forward to seeing again at every Nearfest. Missed a few in the shuffle, unfortunately, even though I knew they were there.
  Brought home a few prizes, including an 813 rig—RF deck only, no modulator—and a couple of old but sturdy looking power supplies for it. The 813 rig will need a bit of reworking—it's clearly not a K1JJ quality build, (not meaning any insult to whoever built it)—but it's a fine platform to start with. A project for another day, though; I'm juggling way too many projects simultaneously right now.
  The trophy of the day was a commercial broadcast 5KW fan-cooled dummy load. One of my current projects is restoring an old homebrew 2X 8877/YU158 amp, and I've also got a 3X 813 rig in the preliminary stages. None of my other loads come close to doing them justice.
  Today I'm in recovery mode—those two days are quite a marathon.
  

[KL7OF]

I had my pickers looking for 2 days at Nearfest....Alas, no 4-1000 chimneys.  At least the weather was good....

[KD1SH]

  I didn't see any 4-1000 chimneys either, nor 3-500 or 4-400 chimneys for that matter. I did see some 3CX*/4CX* chimneys. It was a great 'fest, but really, I didn't see a whole lot of AM homebrew parts, like mod iron (I saw one somewhat beat up looking VM-4), tubes (I was sniffing for 810's or 813's), sockets, plate chokes, filament chokes, or big power iron. I did get a box of nice looking oil-filled caps; a very nice looking huge transmitting doorknob, and a big—easily 1KW capable—roller inductor.
  Well, there's always next year.

I had my pickers looking for 2 days at Nearfest....Alas, no 4-1000 chimneys.  At least the weather was good....

[W2JRO]

It was great weather compared to what we usually get.
I thought there was a TON of early 90's to early 2000's transceivers for sale. I can't remember seeing a single r-390/a, although I'm sure there was. I picked up a 75a4 for a good price, and some parts to complete some projects. The 50's stuff is getting more sparse every year. I counted 3 rangers, 3 Viking II's, one valiant. The spring fest did have a but more though

[KD1SH]

  I thought I saw Brown, W1NZR, with an R-390, but I could very well be mistaken. Yes, a strong showing of Icom IC-746's, IC-756's, and comparable Yaesu and Kenwood offerings. A few decent looking Rangers and a couple of B&W 5100's, along with a few Heath amps—SB200/SB220—but those have soared in price over the last few years; probably linked to the likewise soaring prices of new amps from Ameritron and the like since the supply-chain shortages kicked in.

It was great weather compared to what we usually get.
I thought there was a TON of early 90's to early 2000's transceivers for sale. I can't remember seeing a single r-390/a, although I'm sure there was. I picked up a 75a4 for a good price, and some parts to complete some projects. The 50's stuff is getting more sparse every year. I counted 3 rangers, 3 Viking II's, one valiant. The spring fest did have a but more though