Hi all, I have a really nice FT-101E that I use for AM reception and it used to be better but now it sounds muffled on AM. I do have the AM filter installed but the sound quality is poor. Signal strength and receive is great, just sound quality is the problem. I tried external speaker but no help. Anyone familiar with the FT-101E that can help? Thanks, Adam
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Help with FT-101E on AM reception-muffled
- Thread starter Adamf
- Start date
Try pulling the PB1183 board with the AM filter on it out of the radio and plugging it back in. The contacts on the board or the socket may be oxidized.
Here's your problem. The second accessory-filter spot where you installed the AM filter is only activated in CW mode.
Switch the radio to "CW" and observe how the sound of the noise changes. More high-pitched 'hiss' than you hear in SSB or AM modes. That's what a "wider" filter sounds like.
But AM will still sound muffled and "narrow".
This is because the stock SSB filter is still selected in AM mode.
There are instructions to rewire the mode switch so that the accessory filter becomes active in AM, not in CW. Pretty sure it's on foxtango.org.
But that's your missing link. Just because your new filter is the correct wider one for AM doesn't mean the radio will select it for that mode.
If you didn't care to use sideband you could put that expensive AM filter into the SSB spot (the lower one) on the pc board. That way it would be active in AM mode without modding the mode selector. But sideband would totally suck.
73
Switch the radio to "CW" and observe how the sound of the noise changes. More high-pitched 'hiss' than you hear in SSB or AM modes. That's what a "wider" filter sounds like.
But AM will still sound muffled and "narrow".
This is because the stock SSB filter is still selected in AM mode.
There are instructions to rewire the mode switch so that the accessory filter becomes active in AM, not in CW. Pretty sure it's on foxtango.org.
But that's your missing link. Just because your new filter is the correct wider one for AM doesn't mean the radio will select it for that mode.
If you didn't care to use sideband you could put that expensive AM filter into the SSB spot (the lower one) on the pc board. That way it would be active in AM mode without modding the mode selector. But sideband would totally suck.
73
Nomad, in his original post he said it used to sound better but changed later. I doubt that would happen because his switch was wired incorrectly.
Hi all, I had some time so I studied the paperwork for the mod from FoxTango and then did the mod, not too hard and I already hear an improvement but no one was on the air for the real test but I can already hear the normal background noise is much normal sounding. Thanks again! Adam
Well, when one thing gets fixed something else goes wrong! So now when I key up on USB with NO audio I have full output and carrier control has no affect, always full output. On LSB when I key up there is a slight amount of carrier, maybe a few watts output and when I modulate it goes to full power but the real concern is USB. Any help out there? Thanks, Adam
OK, so I balanced the SSB so on LSB my carrier is at about 3 watts and on USB about 1/2 watt. Receive is good and I got good signal reports from the couple of contacts I made. I would like to get them both closer to zero but not sure what I can do, anyone more familial with the FT-101E? Thanks again for any help.