TelePost LP-500 Installed

The TelePost LP-500 installed today without a hitch, using 4 couplers to enable the trapezoidal linearity display.

LP-500 installed with 4 HF couplers
LP-500 installed with 4 HF couplers

The LP-500 was the last piece of the 2018 Hardware Upgrade to be installed. The station hardware is now complete, and fully tested. Now that I no longer need to get behind it, I can finally push the rack (very carefully) back into the corner and return to full ‘mega-enhanced’ operation.

SPE Expert 1K-FA should play nice with the LP-500
SPE Expert 1K-FA should play nice with the LP-500!

Once the LP-500 was in circuit I ran some tests using my current radio and amplifier settings. Boy was I in for a surprise! The station monitor quickly revealed that my signal was in need of some serious adjustment.

My Signal was Non-Linear

My signal was non-linear. Prior to the LP-500 I adjusted the exciter drive level according to the output displayed on the amplifier (eyeball method). I’d always received good reports and so I assumed all was well. I was running the amp to maximum output with minimum SWR, and no amplifier faults and thought I was making the best use of the amplifier.

My entire gain structure needed to change, starting with the microphone level and working through finding the ideal drive levels for each band. I quickly found out the LP-500 would make this work both easy and verifiable. I worked the RAC contest a bit today and made adjustments in the process. I’ll spend the next week or so creating and editing profiles until I have all my operating conditions defined exactly as I need them.

LP-500 Big easy to read display
LP-500 Big easy to read display

Every inch of rack space utilized

K6HR Station Rack
Carefully planned and executed. It all works! Now I can re-arrange the furniture!

Improving my view!

The rack is complete and back into its corner. One of my aging 22″ monitors has gone dark (above). Rather than repair it again (I installed a capacitor kit the last time it went out) I have decided to replace it and add two more 22’s to balance out the right side display. I chose LG 22M38D-B 22″ 16:9 LCD Monitors. They arrive next week.

Each side display will consist of one 32″ 4K and two 22″ LCD panels. This will provide simultaneous heads up display for 6700 SmartSDR, DXLab, GeoChron 4K, Pi-Star D-STAR Dashboard, JNOS BBS console, 6500 SmartSDR, MMSSTV and EasyPal Live SSTV Cam, SatPC32/FlexSatPC, and WSJT-X v2.

Back To The Front

Author: K6HR

Licensed since 1994. Active on HF / VHF / UHF / Satellite.

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