Can Power Levels Be Set By Slice Rather Than Band on 6600M?

Al Dewey

I often run my new 6600M in contests doing SO2R.    In some contests, I will enter as High Power and run the KPA 500 at 500w which takes about 30 Watts in from the Flex.  I will still use the other slice to make QSOs at Low Power (i.e. 100 Watts).  The amp is always connected to Slice A.  Sometimes I will want to operate 20M at 500W on Slice A and other times I will want to use the amp on another band (e.g. 40M) and operate 20M at 100 W on Slice B.  The problem is that , with the power level following the band, I often find my self running 30 W on Slice B (when I really wanted 100) and , worse yet, I will sometimes find myself running 100 W into the amp on Slice A if I had operated that band at 100 W on Slice B. 


All my problems would be solved if the Power Level could follow the slice rather than the band.  Is there a way to do this or some other clever way to do what I want.  I suppose I could set up a whole lot of different profiles for this different situations but I prefer to change bands from logging program (i.e. N1MM+) rather than having to navigate through profiles on the radio in a middle of a fast moving contest.


I have the feeling this may have been discussed before but I could not find this specific use case.


de...…..Al, K0AD

k0eoo

Al, do you run DDUtil to control the amp?  Doesn't the 6600 have two antenna output ports?  With DDUtil you can assign either VFO A or VFO B to drive the amp.

Al Dewey

No, I do not.  But would that really solve the problem?  It's not having the correct slice attached to the amplifier that is the issue.  It is being able to have a constant power level on that slice on every band even if I use a different power level when I use that band on the other slice.  Hope that makes sense.

k0eoo

I just tried DDUtil using VFO A or B and it didn't work as I expected.  So, DDUtil is not a solution to your issue.

Wayne

What u need is 2 antennas have ant 1 on slice a feeding the kpa amp and ant 2 feeding the other antenna direct then u only use ant 1 with the amp and ant 2 without the amp and set your profiles accordingly. I have a 6400m and thats what i do since i only have one antenna that can handle up to 1200watts and the other can only do 250 watts. Just an idea.

Al Dewey

Wayne - if I understand you correctly, that would not address my issue.  For one thing, I have six antennas that are switchable to either slice via a WX0B 6 Pack.  Depending on the situation in the contest ( and assuming I have entered the contest as High Power of course), I may want to have a specific antenna attached to the amp using high power yet in other situations have that same antenna connected to the other slice using just 100 watts.  If the Power Setting in the 6600M followed the Slice, I would be all set.  I would just set slice A to 30 watts (to drive the amp) and slice B to 100 watts.   But the power setting follows the band so I have to continually adjust the power level when switching bands which is easy to forget in the heat of a contest.

de Al, K0AD