Hi Tisha, thanks, but the squelch is set properly and in fact I tried no squelch.

I would really like to test the sensitivity, but no one replied with either a ham resource in my area nor a shop that is trusted with this type of equipment.

oh well, I'll google for a shop I guess.

I dont think it's the outer jacket because I tried touching the coax feedline to the outer threads to no avail, but the inner sma post it comes alive.

What started all this was not hearing the airport with the diamond antenna anymore when I used to, (same for the rubber ducky) and neither i nor the airport have moved to my knowledge.

The radio works well though when connected to the 30' high rooftop dj130 discone. Using  very low power 50mw and full quieting to a repeater 5 miles west, and one 15 miles east of my location.

Thats why i would like to test it's sensitivity and get a definitive performance eval. If no hams have this in southern New England, is there a preferred shop to send it to?

I'm in RI, so if anyone happens to be reading this and has one of those, I'd like to stop by of possible and see the sensitivity before taking the cover off (and perhaps after!)

is there a trusted kenwood repair shop who has the equipment to check the specs on this?

that may be the way to go, at this point since I dont have the skill or more importantly the equipment to test the various performance of the front end, or any other aspect.

yes using the same Kenwood TH-F6A connected to the rooftop discone. I can work a repeater about 10 miles away at min power 50mw. (EL setting)   With either the rubber ducky of the diamond whip, I cant trip the repeater even at 5 full watts.

I will see if I have the skill to open it and check that connector, thanks

I have a Kenwood TH-F6A and recently it stopped receiving air band very close to my airport (using a Diamond SRH-320A antenna). My rooftop discone brings in a good signal, so I figured the antenna had been bent one too many times. But I tried the original rubber ducky and have similar poor reception. In fact it wont even pick up a strong FM broadcast station. (The rooftop one does).

Meanwhile my cheap little pocket Grundig hears the FM station really well even with the telescopic antenna retracted.

Also, I cant get to a repeater with the Diamond or the ducky even at 5 watts, but the rooftop discone works with full quieting at 50mw. So I am fully baffled.

Finally, I dont remember how this worked before but I know for a fact that at work I could hear the airport tower and now I cant.

I just dont know where to go from here?  Is there a sensitivity test, or who can check out this HT for me.

Thanks for the replies again. I have a 40x100 house lot with the small 1 floor house toward the rear left. The small chimney is about 15' high at the top. So I attached a 20' 1.5: antenna mast (2 section) total height about 31'. On the top of that is the discone. The G5RV is also attached at the top with the ladder line sloping slightly away.  Right next to this is the 10m whip on a shorter pole (the top is about the same height, 31') The chimney and masts are only ~20' from the back property fence line so the G5RV goes around a branch for a 90 degree bend, and along the rear property line.

At the back the two trees are ~70' tall. I cannot get up them but someday when I can afford a tree pruning, I'll have a stainless steel pulley put way up on each with brown sailboat halyards for more experimentation.

I also (and this may make me a real ham) plan to move the power lines to the house underground to get them out of the way. My city does have a rule regarding "antenna towers", with a description that includes monopole setups. So sloping wire from those trees would be okay, but as soon as I attempt to put up a support pole out front, I may have an technical issue. You know how neighbors can be.  Using a stout 20' flag pole would prob work though.

Anyway sorry for the long wind, but thats my setup. I am happy to be on the air on basically all bands (except 160m) with the G5RV and smaller antennas even with the space issues. In fact at my new job, one of the guys is a very active ham whose specialty is wire antennas. We talked about getting some kind of 160m solution up eventually.

I just got the idea to lookup this tuner on reviews. this is not the first time for arcing between the plates. I did like the size, it matches the radio next to the recliner. But the issue came back a couple times since I cleaned it, so maybe the plates need to be realigned if possible.

For now I am using the LDG autotuner. The autotuner, besides being less fun, I noticed does not  get as good SWR results. Also it will not match at 6m which the MFJ will.  Thats not a big deal since have not been on 6m. My local ham friends are starting to talk about us playing on 6m so I ordered a alpha delta antenna switch and plan to add the Arrow GP52 6m antenna as soon as there is budget for that.

Anyway here the reviews of the MFJ971 and a number of them describe the arcing issue in detail, with soem hams attempting to fix, with mixed results.

http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1546

See my previous post, who makes a really good tuner if I decided to go that way at some point. (And if I ever get an amplifier then it will be a definite need.)

who makes best/better tuners?

I removed the MFJ971 tuner's cover and at full power when modulating, there is blue sparking within the left hand variable capacitor at the same time as the needles drop and shake.

It is very clean inside, but I rotated the plates as I blew out any dust etc that might be there and now (at the moment and after several tests) it doesnt have the issue.

 

Thank you all for the advice, as I was barking up the wrong tree and never would have thought to check inside the tuner.

just long enough to tune up. seconds of use, a few times and the plastic is quite warm. i am surprised, because they are icom oem.  but it is what it is.

okay i will do all that when I get off work, and the issue arises at approximately above 75 watts. since this conversation has turned my attention to the tuner, I do have an unused LDG auto tuner I can swap in just to see if the problem goes away (i only have those two tuners, and prefer manual tuning)

tuner MFJ-971.  i should add also that this is a new problem, didnt do this for months on this antenna and station setup.

the antenna is a G5RV mounted on a 1.5" 20' pole which is mounted on my chimney. peak height is about 30' or so (the bare min.)  the metal pole is topped with a discone for vhf/uhf.  also lower on the pole is a flat multi-bowtie uhf tv antenna which should be no factor.

the ladder line is pulled away at a slight angle, it only gets near the pole near the top.

due to my small 40x100 house lot, the rear leg goes around a tree branch at a 90 degree angle at about the halfway point and follows the rear lot line to terminate above the opposite corner with an insulator . when I can get my bigger ladder here I plan to install a true insulator at that point

i appreciate these ideas and I will take the cover off the MFJ tuner to inspect and clean it forthwith.

yeah its both needles just sitting near the bottom fluttering, alc and swr are flickering up in the red. the radio is obviously folding back and forth rapidly due to whatever the cause is...

KZ1X just to be clear my 7000 is only a couple years young, came with the apparently newer blade fuses, and they are what is getting hot and impeding current flow, resulting in lower volts at the radio than at the PS. They get surprisingly hot, and both of them. I pulled out the blade fuses and worked them back in to little improvement.