Low/No Power on SSB

[Howard W. Ashcraft]

I have a late model K2/100 that I mostly use on CW.  In the past, I have made successful contacts on SSB, but haven't tried for 6 months or so.  Last night, I was scanning the phone side of 20 meters and heard a dx station that I tried to contact.  He never heard me.  I then heard a local station and tried to get a signal report, but he could barely hear me and reported that I was dropping off badly.

I got suspicious and put an rf meter on the output.  On CW, key down, I get the full 100 watts on 20 and 40.  On SSB, when I speak loudly, I get a very short, low level output, that falls to nil almost immediately.  The brief output is reading in the 10-15 dbm range--very low--and then it drops to a few dbm.*  It smells like the ALC circuitry has gone south, and I will be investigating that in the next few days.  However, if anyone has any suggestions as what other sections could cause this to occur, I would appreciate the heads up.

Thanks in advance,


*I am using an uncalibrated RF power meter (PIC power meter from recent QEX/QST articles) through a 40db tap.  Although I need to calibrate the meter, it is relatively sensitive and appears to be "close" using  default settings.  In any event, the relative measurements, show that there is a significant problem on SSB but not on CW.


HOWARD W. ASHCRAFT, Jr.  W1WF
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