Hi Bill,

Glad you got your money back, but if I was a foreign ham, your opening statement would give me the impression "do not deal with hams from Canada"

You might have said, VE1JBC from Halifax, Nova Scotia or something a little more specific. That would be like me saying W8xx from United States ripped me off. Makes us all sound bad.

Anyway, glad to hear things worked out for you.

73

Hi all,

I've read and re-read the manual but can't figure out how to setup the CAT commands for mode, frequency etc for the FT990.

Is it CATHEXCMD or CATCMD?

I've tried both with various codes and can't get anywhere. Anyone help?

Thanks,
Max

Wondering if anyone has tapped the 455 KHz IF in the FT990 to use with the Softrock kits? I have asked the same question in the Softrock40 Yahoo group.

Any help appreciated.

Thank you,

Thanks for the suggestions guys, lots of filters available to narrow it down but I don't see any wider filters available. My radio has all four filters in it, but I find the 2.4KHz filter just a bit too muddy for my liking. Used to the Kenwoods I guess!

73,

Does anyone know of any wider SSB filters for the FT990? I belie the stock filter is a 2.4KHz, would like to widen out to about 2.8 or 3 KHz if possible.

Thanks,

Congrats and welcome to the hobby. Nice looking QRZ page.

VE3TMT (Teresa, Max and Tara)

My wife, me and my daughter. I was licensed in 1990, my son Shea was born in 1992. If Industry Canada ever grants 4 letter suffixes, VE3TMTS?

73,

The antenna will all be horizontal, no vertical in it at all.

Max

Hi guys,

I want to run a random length of wire off the side of the tower to use on the lower bands. I can fit about 62' in a straight run or about 125' in a horizontal "L" configuration. It will not be very high, about 30' at the start and depending on the configuration, about 10' at the end if in the "L" formation. I will be using an MFJ-993B tuner.

I have been experiencing some pretty high RFI on my DX-B sloper that I don't hear on a portable longwire I have temporarily set up now. It's not very high so I want to run one off the tower at about 30' and see how it performs. Not interested in any DX just out to about 500 miles.

Thoughts or comments?

Max

Yeah I love seeing the pictures of the guys who complain they are in an HOA or antenna restricted neighborhood and have to use stealth antennas. You always see an amplifier on the table!

When I first started on PSK31 many years ago, I enjoyed the mode because operators actually took the time to have a conversation with you. If I start a QSO and see it is going to be a typical canned macro conversation I simply tune off frequency and start over. Pretty soon the other operator will get the hint, I hope.

I do like to know what radio and antenna you are using, a little bit about your job, your hometown, etc. I don't care how much RAM your computer has, or the upteem member numbers of the clubs you belong to. I don't care if I am your 1 millionth PSK31 QSO. I just want to chat and learn a little about you and your part of the world.

Sounds simple doesn't it.

If it ever came to that I think I would just give up operating on 160 and 80. I don't really do much there now, more listening, but hard to listen with a 20 over buzz. I do have to give the 990 credit, between the notch filter and the IF shift, it does a fair job. The NB is pretty ineffective on the buzz, my old TS940's did a much better job.

Can you email me more information on this modification? Please email me at
mycallsign at yahoo dot ca  (ve3tmt @ yahoo .ca) no spaces

I am going to do the W8JI mods as well as I do not plan on transmitting thru the unit. I use the RX antenna loop on the FT990.

Thanks,
Max

I ran the sensing antenna from the chimney over to the tree and down to the same end support as the sloper, so the "noise" antenna has both a parallel and perpendicular element to it. Is still does not pick up the loud "buzz" the sloper hears. I am totally at a loss. I have tried every configuration possible and I cannot duplicate the interference on any RX/TX antenna. Even my 3 element HF beam does not hear it the same way.

I think I am going to have to remove the sloper and just run a long wire for my low band antenna, probably won't perform any worse than the sloper and at least this way I won't hear the interference.

Is it possible the sloper is picking it up differently because of it's configuration? As mentioned, the tower is the ground half of the sloper and it runs easterly at about 30' at the top and 10' at the bottom. It is a DX-B.

My last effort may be to just run two parallel wires from the tower down to the lower support and separate them by a few inches. Feed them with separate coax and use one for the RX/TX antenna and the other for the noise antenna.

Can't really think of any other options.

I have tried everything, running the noise antenna parallel to the sloper, ran it perpendicular, regardless of the configuration I cannot get it to hear the same noise as the sloper. I really don't know what to try next.

The sloper is at about 30' of the side of the tower sloping east, and about 10' off the ground at the far end. The noise antenna is about 60' of 12 gauge wire connected to the center of an unused piece of coax. There is no ground connection on this antenna. Could this be part of the problem?

I used a splitter and hooked my sloper to bot the radio and the 1026. Was able to null the noise from 20 over to S-0 so I know the MFJ unit is working. Just need to get the sensing antenna to hear the same noise the sloper does.