FT8 Power

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John - AI4FR

Jim KJ7S

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That’s interesting because that’s just about what I am seeing. I’m watching the power on the Acom’s meter, so this might be a slight lag of some sort. I’m going to hook up,the Bird and see what it says. Thanks

John - AI4FR

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The 90-60W reference was w/o an amp.  Cut the power back to ~25W which produced ~300W. It stepped back to ~220W. Again, not on every transmission - seemed it was when the "RR73" was being sent. One other point - I ruled out a problem with the amp or radio. Had them keyed up for 1 minute at both power levels, with no fold back noted. It's very strange, but not causing any problems I can see. BTW, AGC max's out just short of the red area, top scale.

John - AI4FR

From your first post above I did not think that it was going to solve your problem but it was worth a try. After all, I am fairly confident that you can tell when the rig/amp/software is transmitting and when it is receiving. You have something else going on.

Ok, if you have checked the other settings I mentioned above and all is correct then this is odd. Unless you are near the band edges on some transmissions with out using the split option in wsjt as you could be cutting off half your signal or more. Hmm, I don't know what other software you are running but I have seen a ton of flex problems that turn out to be aftermarket software as the culprit. I also assume that you have the flex set to DIGU mode, right? On this end, I do not see such a massive drop in power towards the middle/end of a transmission. Sure it fluctuates some but not that much. You did state that the SWR was good, but please watch it. Maybe you are heating something up and the system is folding back some.

Let's get you up and running. Maybe Jim has a few suggestions that I have missed.

John - AI4FR

Something else just came to mind. There was an issue with the 64 bit version of wsjt and they recommend we use the 32 bit version even if you have a 64 bit PC. I forget now what the issues were. On this end I am running version 2.1.0.

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Ah ha, and I just installed the 64 bit version .... wonder if I can reinstall it over the 32 bit version? More testing tonight .....

John - AI4FR

Good question and I have never tried. If I recall correctly, the wsjt instructions tell us to install over older versions. Then again, the 64bit version might not be the "power" culprit but it might cause you issues at a later date.