Well, the 148 took a dive. No modulation when keyed and the final checked decent with an Hfe of 28. Was finally able to get up with a tech and dropped it off for repair,and a complete alignment. While I was in there he had a 99V2 setting on the shelf, so I bought it. I must say, I'm pretty impressed with it. around <40 watts PEP, clean, strong audio and the receive is beautiful. Only thing is the dead key won't go low enough, I'm dead keying around 400 watts which as we all know, isn't all that great for the pixie dust holders. I'm using the variable on the amp for now to lower the DK but it robs me of about 100 watts that way (which may not really be a bad thing as far as life of the pills go).
Anywho.....waiting on some skip to try the SSB out, hopefully she'll be clean there too. With the clarifier in center position, fine & coarse, the frequency is dead nuts, the fine will change it from say, 27.205 to 27.204 and 27.206. All bands are functional, I believe ....don't really have a way to check and have no idea which channels people even use on those bands to see. Overall, it seems to be a good talker.
Anywho.....waiting on some skip to try the SSB out, hopefully she'll be clean there too. With the clarifier in center position, fine & coarse, the frequency is dead nuts, the fine will change it from say, 27.205 to 27.204 and 27.206. All bands are functional, I believe ....don't really have a way to check and have no idea which channels people even use on those bands to see. Overall, it seems to be a good talker.