A little help please

[cjruger]

I have a galaxy dx 949, on a palomar 2 x 1446's, with a 1/2 wave horizontal dipole. The past couple days ive had some good luck with skip, ny to texas on am today, ny to california, arizona on ssb, few days ago. All say sounds great. The key up on am is very steady on my external watt meter, around 80. On ssb, with the output on radio turned all the way down, the needle is very eradice and wont swing much over 30-50. If i crank the output all the way up( on am would be about4-5 watts) then the needle swings up around 80-100 watts ssb. Is it the watt meter that has trouble or is that really what the signal coming out of linear is doing? It seems i only get replies on ssb when power is turned up on the radio.i can also hear the switch in linear, Kicking on and off as i talk with radio turned all the way down. A steady whistle will swing needle way up and stay there, but i can never get that close with normal voice. Would a power mic help here?. Is it safe to run in to the linear with the output Turned up on ssb?

 

[wavrider]

Output can be turned all the way up on SSB mode, no carrier on SSB. If you have a carrier the radio needs aligned.

Mic gain at 12 o clock position on SSB, get a local radio/audio check on SSB to find the best settings for your station.

It may also be your watt meter can not detect the true PEP output on SSB.

 

[cjruger]

Ok thanks, unfortunatly no local ssb ive heard yet, but glad to hear i can turn output up onssb, i was doing it but not sure if it was safe, i when i did it is when i got call backs. No, there is no needle
Movement on the watt meter on a dead key in ssb mode. Just the eradic
Needle swing when i talk. The meter is a older gc swr/ 10&100
Watt meter, it seems really accurate on am.

I guess i dont fully understand what the
Carrier is, or the difference in am and ssb, i kind of thought i did, but now confused on how it works
Also the radio was tuned and aligned, modulation opened to100% by the tech i bought it from

 

[9C1Driver]

Your amplifier has an auto SSB delay. A SSB delay is needed because in SSB mode there is no carrier to hold the relay open. The clicking sound is your relay not holding. You can try to talk faster, or not pausing in between words so much. As stated, in SSB mode you can run the power up, you won't hurt the amp with a 949.

If you are serious about your SSB talking you will want a class AB amplifier with a switched delay for best performance. Most (not all) Palomars are rough on SSB because they are class C and the delay sucks.

 

[cjruger]

Ok good info, the clicking doesnt happen when power is up, so i think that explains that.