Can TX but not RX

[sunspot]

Sure, I'd appreciate those settings.

wb6uqa: like I said, I wouldn't feel comfortable imposing, and it's not my neighbor. The attenuator is no the problem. Nor are the pre-amps, nor is the RG gain. If the problem was that simple I would have solved it the first day when I learned the features and skimmed the manual!

So I made progress today. I had my fiance pull breakers as I watched my signal and one made a massive difference. I tracked it down to a battery charger we have plugged in 24/7 in the kitchen. This cleaned up the signal greatly. I'm not positive that his eliminated my issue entirely as I haven't made any contacts today but I will post back with any updates. I contacted a ham that has been helping me out of new york to see if he can schedule a time to do another test.

Btw, the UPS worked great, but I see why you'd recommend a car battery, I should get one just for emergency use anyhow. I'll pick one up the next time I get to Costco.

Thanks!

 

[wb6uqa]

7300

Take out the LG tuner. Use the 7300 built-in tuner.Two many tuners wreck your signal.

 

[AK9R]

Depending on the antenna, the external tuner may be necessary. The IC-7300 internal tuner has limited range. I have an antenna for 80m/40m/20m that the internal tuner in my IC-7600 or IC-9100 would tune over the entire band, but the IC-7300 tuner will only tune that antenna over parts of the bands.

 

[edweirdFL]

The internal tuner on my 7300 has worked well and almost always matches the antennas I use.

On the rare occasion it wasn't able to tune, I hooked up a LDG AT-100ProII Autotuner using the Icom specific cable to the tuner connection on the back of the 7300.

This configuration will disable the internal tuner and use the external one with no added issues. It has been able to tune every thing I've tried to use with it so far, and adds the ability to switch between two antennas, and some large LED power and SWR meters to my shack.

 

[wb6uqa]

two tuners

I thought switching to one tuner would help isolate the receive problem

 

[wyShack]

Based on your location, there is a good signal you can use to 'try out' different settings on receive. CHU (the Canadian time station) transmits on 7.85 MHz. You should be able to hear it most of the time. CHU transmits in AM with the lower sideband removed so if you use SSB it has to be USB. Once you tune to the ticking sound, you can then 'play with' gain and other settings on your receiver and experiment to find the best settings. they are near Ottawa and should be fairly strong at your location -especially after dark.

If you use USB and tune for 'zero beat' (kill the carrier and make voice sound right) you can also try any filters in the radio which will act the same in either LSB or USB.

Learning how to use the radio to receive is a significant part of making contacts as you are finding out.

Good luck, have fun and 73

 

[AK9R]

I thought switching to one tuner would help isolate the receive problem

You should only use one tuner in any case.

When using the IC-7300 with a manual external tuner, you should turn the internal tuner off (press the TUNER button until the "Tune" indicator on the display goes out).

But, if you are using an automatic external tuner that connects to the 4-pin Molex TUNER jack on the back of the radio, such as the Icom AH-4 or the LDG AT series, the radio will automatically disable the internal tuner and control the external tuner.

 

[sunspot]

Yes, I've used the internal tuner, and I'm using the LDG AT-200ProII. I've taken the tuner out of the equation to attempt to isolate the problem, it was one of the first things I tried. It doesn't make a difference.

I do not use both tuners simultaneously. I plan on building many antenna from scratch so I wanted a more powerful tuner. My antenna will tune fine at 40M with either tuner, but outside that the AT-200 comes into play and brings it down flat, and I love the dual antenna feature it gives the IC-7300.

wyShack: Thank you for those frequencies I'll try them out. But I believe I've learned all there is to learn about the 7300, most of which day one. I have an extensive background with computers and electronics and unless there's something huge I'm missing, this signal problem has nothing to do with being able to filter out someone's signal. But I'm definitely going to experiment with these frequencies and adjust some settings in case I'm wrong. The problem is there is no signal to tune, IE I can TX to someone in Missouri, but I cannot hear them period. But someone in New York I'll hear, and he'll hear both of us. Since removing that RF source I am getting better signals from the south, oddly enough my antenna's oriented to face E/W but the majority of my contacts are from the south, that and New York. I'm getting nothing from the West. I still think there is an issue with my antenna orientation/height. I just ordered some lineman straps and a harness so I can get higher up in my trees next weekend.

 

[wyShack]

One more thing you will find in your radio career is that the 'world' at times seems to not have read the 'book'.At HF much of our ability to talk (especially as distance increases) is determined by factors we have no control over (for example it could have been something at a neighbors house that was the source of the noise). Because we don't control all the factors, we quite often get results we may not expect.

Have fun and always keep learning

73

 

[sunspot]

Have fun and always keep learning

Thank you, yesterday I was able to make contact with someone from Georgia and Florida in a three way conversation and they could hear me perfectly and I could hear them extremely well! I understand that it could just be the band and prorogation changes but so far I'm happy. I still don't understand why I can't get anything from the west though.

Thanks for everyone's help. I *think* I have this solved for now, hopefully increasing the antenna's height next weekend will get me out even further.

While I'm here, I have a question. Every so often I'll hear a noise on the freq I'm on and I'll look at my scope and see that a signal had just skipped all the way across the frequencies. Since the scope is Freq/Time it looks like a angled line running along it and I'll hear a momentary chirp when it passes by my current frequency. What are likely causes for this? Once I saw it dance around for a few moments and wondered if someone was just messing around.

 

[wyShack]

Likely an Over the Horizon Radar-used both for greater distance and to defeat 'stealth' technology.

 

[popnokick]

More likely an ionospheric sounder known as an ionosonde. More details, spectrographs, and how you can use their data here -
Real-Time Ionograms

 

[majoco]

They happen frequently and some times sweep over a very broad band - 2MHz to 20 say. On my G33 DDC SDR the sweep can be easily seen - strangely there are gaps often across the aeronautical bands but I wonder If that's where they change over antennas or something. If they have an antenna that will radiate that effectively over such a bandwidth I want one! If you knew the transmitter site they could be a very useful band opening indicator - I see there's one on Niue which is reasonably close to me and may be my strongest signal.

 

[KD2FIQ]

Sounds like you have it figured out! That's great. I was getting terrible RF interference from my internet router and network switch. It was too close to my shack. The IC-7300 scope was super helpful as you could see the interference was every 60hz. Folks have already suggested some great things - attenuator button, check combo squelch knob, etc. Good luck!

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

[nanZor]

Sunspot - if you want to take this further consider adding a ferrite-choke / sleeve balun / 1:1 choke right after your 4:1 balun. I can guarantee that your feedline is actually part of the antenna.

Worst case, it skews your pattern, or provides unwanted noise pickup from the transmission line, precisely because the OCFD is anything but balanced to begin with!

The "BAL" part of that 4:1 balun is not seeing anything close to balance with the purposely different sized legs. So it has a real hard time, and the feedline (common mode - outside skin of the braid) now becomes a big part of the picture.

So my advice would be:
1) Add at least a ferrite isolation choke after the 4:1 balun.

OR ......

1) Because we know that the ocfd is always going to be UNbalanced, you might want to swap out for a 4:1 "UN-UN", which will have a much easier time of things. It is wound a little differently from a bal-un.

2) Follow up with a ferrite 1:1 rf choke anyway.

Just some thoughts for down the road. In the meantime, enjoy the 7300! Hope I hear you around.