Chasing the quirks

I mentioned yesterday that I've noticed that the IC706 tended to be really quiet at times - dead quiet.

During my lunch break I noticed the same thing again. Recalling that I'd recently found 40m to have an SWR of under 2:1, I thought I'd check. 9.99:1 - basically the end of the scale. Change bands... same result.

I went out with the multimeter and dropped the dipole. Continuity was interesting at the balun - the ground level balun fed via ladderline to the dipole. It seemed to be quite intermittent from the feed in to the feed out. I recalled that balun was wired as a 9:1 and had been used on an end-fed previously so was less than ideal. 

I'd once made a 1:1 that I'd used briefly then pulled apart. A quick rebuild later, and it's in the place of the failing 9:1. Instant success. I come back in to the S meter giving me S7 noise - far less surprising here in the middle of the day. A quick quick tune around 40m, and I heard some VK2s. We have a working antenna. The SWR is now reading about 3.3:1 around 7.150Mhz so it's not perfect, but it's better. 80m is similar. It's actually better than it had been. I'd love to be back to that time where it was already resonant - possibly that was occurring when the 9:1 was working properly. 

I do need to rework the 1:1 - the connectors are tiny, corroded and leave a bit to be desired. Possibly that might help further. I may even convert the 9:1 to a 1:1 - it has a better case and is generally better setup for the job. I have options. 

I'm looking forward to that NanoVNA getting here so I can start testing this easier at the various points to understand what is impacting me and where.