BAFFLED AGAIN

[Stellasstillarat]

My Washington went from 2 1/2 swinging to 8 to, 2 1/2 with only 1 watt swing yet, it still produced 70% modulation as, it did when it was swinging 8 watts. I switched over to my sonar which normally dead key's at 2 1/2 and swings to 10 with 100% modulation. The sonar did the same thing. It still dead keying 2 1/2 but only swings about 1 watts but, still produced 100% modulation. I changed to another meter. same thing. I changed the jumpers. Same readings. I changed the 300a to a Palomar 500 elite. Same thing. I took thr amp/amps out of line hooking the Washington then the sonar straight to the meter/meters same thing only 1 watts swing. The wattage output readings with either of the amps also changed. I used to get upwards swing when I applied audio but now it's downward (with either amp). On air audio reports are good on the sonar and Washington. Any ideas? Thanks to all my friends. P.s. walways me!

 

[Stellasstillarat]

Please ignore the above post. I've discovered the problem. I use a 4 outlet heavy duty power strip. I have the Washington,sonar and 300a plugged into it. Yesterday I wasn't using my station. At that time I plugged in my phone charger. This obviously was to much for the strip. I forgot I had plugged in the phone charger. The strip has four lighted switches. When I noticed the 4 switch lights on I shut two. THe one with the phone and Washington. Leaving the 300a and sonar power lights on. Walla! Both radios are back to there normal 2 1 /2 watts swinging to there 8/10 watts respectively. When the amps on it also returned to it's upward sswing. Problem solved. The power strip has a breaker but it didn't blow. I'm assuming the 4 switch cannot be used at once as it's just to much draw.I've since removed the phone charger and will make sure the outlet containing the unused radio will be turned off, only using the 2 outlets that are needed . I'm definitely learning that theres usually a simple solution for what seems a complicated
Problem. Thanks. P.S. I'm beginning to really enjoy the hobby. I must say without the help of the wwdx members I wouldn't have gotten the antenna and everthing else associated with it on the air. The collective knowledge of wwdx members is in my case invaluable . Thanks again to all who have helped me these past months. God bless.

My Washington went from 2 1/2 swinging to 8 to, 2 1/2 with only 1 watt swing yet, it still produced 70% modulation as, it did when it was swinging 8 watts. I switched over to my sonar which normally dead key's at 2 1/2 and swings to 10 with 100% modulation. The sonar did the same thing. It still dead keying 2 1/2 but only swings about 1 watts but, still produced 100% modulation. I changed to another meter. same thing. I changed the jumpers. Same readings. I changed the 300a to a Palomar 500 elite. Same thing. I took thr amp/amps out of line hooking the Washington then the sonar straight to the meter/meters same thing only 1 watts swing. The wattage output readings with either of the amps also changed. I used to get upwards swing when I applied audio but now it's downward (with either amp). On air audio reports are good on the sonar and Washington. Any ideas? Thanks to all my friends. P.s. walways me!

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

No way in hell a phone charger would pull so much current so as to affect anything else plugged into the power strip even if things were on the edge to begin with. Well not unless your phone has a battery that requires a forklift to move. I suggest it was either a coincidence or something missed and overlooked but no way did the phone charger pull too much current. You would have seen smoke and flames if it pulled that much.

 

[222DBFL]

I agree 110% Capt. There has to be an issue somewhere. I would recommend checking the amp rating on the power strip and also inspecting the phone charger. If it truly was an issue with the charger overloading the strip, it is probably still being stressed and may need to be upgraded to a larger amp rated strip. JMO.

 

[222DBFL]

110% agree Capt. Unless he is already maxing out the 4 plug strip already? Cell phone chargers today pull roughly 1amp, give or take a few tenths. If that is truly all it took to cause such an issue, maybe time to change the strip out to a larger amp one. JMHO.

 

[wavrider]

maybe it is an vintage cell phone and the charger uses a selenium rectifier with tube regulators.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

110% agree Capt. Unless he is already maxing out the 4 plug strip already? Cell phone chargers today pull roughly 1amp, give or take a few tenths. If that is truly all it took to cause such an issue, maybe time to change the strip out to a larger amp one. JMHO.

Yeah one amp at the rated battery voltage. If that battery is a 7.5 volt battery that means the charger would be consuming about 10-12 watts taking heat and efficiency into account. Note I said 10-12 WATTS. That would equate to one tenth of an amp at line voltage. I have been transmitting at full power and did something stupid and overloaded an outlet and things were either developing full power or nothing at all. In order to drag the line voltage down to a low enough value that the power supply actually loses regulation and causes the [power out to be affected you have to severely over load the circuit and the fuse/breaker would trip before that. If it didn't the house wiring would burn up.

 

[222DBFL]

It is weird. Hard to make sense of it. Can't understand how the cell phone charger could cause such an issue??

 

[Stellasstillarat]

Ok! I got it! It wasn't the charger. All I know is when I unplugged the phone charger the problem ceased. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe the power company dropped the power for a short time. I would plug the charger in again but it's obvious by all the (sarcasm) responses that It wouldn't recreate the problem and, honestly I don't ever want to see That again. Thanks for all the interesting responses but, not one possible suggestion on what could've caused it. I think I did everything in my power to figure out the problem by process of elimination. I'm convinced it wasn't the charger but something else. It just happened to fix itself at the time I unplugged the phone charger. I've had weirder things happen. I may never finf out what caused it and hope it never happens again.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Hey no sarcasm from me but simply comments based on 35 years of electronics knowledge including over 22 years making it a career servicing commercial grade electronics. If you actually understood electronics you yourself would see how far off base your idea was about the phone charger overloading the power strip enough to cause the radio and amp to reduce power. You cannot draw enough current thru a branch circuit using normal house wire in order for the voltage to sag enough for that to happen.

 

[2RT307]

I accidentally plugged some radio equipment into an old UPS that the battery was questionable by mistake. I saw some weird things with power output from that. I figured that the battery didn't affect things unless it went into backup mode, but that proved not to be the case. Sometimes it's good just to go back through your wiring, jumpers, grounds, etc. just to make sure you didn't get something out of whack.

73,
Brett

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Some UPS's are actually active all the time providing stable clean power from an otherwise mains feed.

 

[Stellasstillarat]

First let me say I have the highest respect for you and your knowledge about communications equipment and how they work. You (captain) have helped me so many times with straight forward easy to understand answers to my sometimes convoluted questions. I enjoy this hobby as much if not more than anyone can enjoy something without it getting creepy. I like to compair myself to a guy who plays softball. This guy's on his nabourhood team and has been for 30 years. He looks forward to softball season. He's got his glove aluminum Easton bat and his is Wilson batting glove. There's nothing he enjoys more. Except banging his over whaight wife (when she doesn't have a headache). now this guy doesn't know how the bat glove or even the softball he's been catching throwing and hitting for over 30 years was made. and he really doesn't want to know. All he knows is he enjoys the game. That's me.I enjoy communicating using an antenna, transceiver, sometimes an amp and all the cables that tie them all together. Don't get me wrong we all know something about our equipment. Everyone's bound to learn ccertain aspects about the hobby there involved in but there's two types of people. Thoses of us who send out equipment for repair when something fails and then there's the people like yourself ,the person that I send my equipment too. I know nothing about nothing when it comes to my hobby but I'll guarantee i enjoy the hobby just as much or more the a person who can take apart a radio and put it back together before i can solder a pl259 to an end cable. I know i will never be that person who repairs or even understand 99.9% of radio communications and the equipment that makes it possible. My grandfather always said "where would we be without ditch diggers ".... this hobby kicks ass! Thanks for all the help.

Hey no sarcasm from me but simply comments based on 35 years of electronics knowledge including over 22 years making it a career servicing commercial grade electronics. If you actually understood electronics you yourself would see how far off base your idea was about the phone charger overloading the power strip enough to cause the radio and amp to reduce power. You cannot draw enough current thru a branch circuit using normal house wire in order for the voltage to sag enough for that to happen.

Hey no sarcasm from me but simply comments based on 35 years of electronics knowledge including over 22 years making it a career servicing commercial grade electronics. If you actually understood electronics you yourself would see how far off base your idea was about the phone charger overloading the power strip enough to cause the radio and amp to reduce power. You cannot draw enough current thru a branch circuit using normal house wire in order for the voltage to sag enough for that to happen.

 

[psycho]

This thread has me baffled.....again.

 

[Stellasstillarat]

Inalagey. Hope this helps you.

This thread has me baffled.....again.