Good morning,
I recently acquired an Icom IC-718 transceiver (with MARS mod), and MFJ-993B Intellituner.
I have just become affiliated with MARS and am participating in the MARS nets (made my first HF contact 2 days ago on the MARS net). Anyhow, not wanting to miss my first check-in with the net, I fired up my transceiver and tried to make contact. I dialed in the frequency, made sure the tuner had everything matched and transmitted my callsign with 25W. The meter on the tuner only read approx. 2.5 W (USB).
No signal report.
Then I increased power to 50W and re-transmitted my call. This time, them meter read approx. 4W (USB). So i bumped up the power again to 100W and transmitted my call. The tuner's meter read approx. 7W (USB). When I key down in the CW mode, 100W output reads about 67W (CW). Not too bad, considering I am using an inverted vee cut for a much different frequency. It is when I transmit on USB that I am wondering if there are any problems.
My question is: Does this seem normal? I am aware that the output is going to fluctuate with increases and decreases in the volume of my voice, but should the power output be THAT decreased? I had the mic gain turned all the way up, also and that helped a little, but I still saw nowhere near the power output that I thought I should have (or that I saw on CW). Does this sound like an equipment issue (due to the mod), operator error, normal operation, or perhaps a matter of getting the settings properly aligned (mic gain and ALC?).
I am using an inverted vee with apex at approx. 30', and each leg cut to about 45' (about 10 MHz).
I was curious because I want to operate with as much power as is required to make contact, and no more, and there is another net tonight that I wanted to participate in. Any thoughts?
Thank you in advance for your advice!
Gerrit
KE5HVM
NNN0XPDT
P.S. I posted this earlier in the Elmers forum, forgetting that the MARS forum was here...Sorry for the double post!