• You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.
  • Click here to find out how to win free radios from Retevis!

Acom 1000 Keying Question

Uneasy Rider

Member
Jan 11, 2011
14
5
13
I've been running a used Acom 1000 with my Yaesu HF rig using a DIN to RCA keying cable. Then I got to thinking about using my Stryker 955 or my Anytone Q6 with the amp on 10 meters.
So using the 10 meter radios, could I key the Acom using a foot switch and a RCA cable to the amp relay input? My footswitch is the Clipper dual 636-S. I already use switch to key a studio mic. Key the amp first and then key the radio?
Is there something I'm missing here. I know Heil makes the FS-2 that does this. Should I not run these radios with this amp? Should I not attempt to key the Acom manually with a switch? Just wondering what are the do's and don't's. I want to be precautious and not sorry.
73,
Uneasy
 

I would add keying circuit to radio.
This. Rig up a relay to the mic keying circuit in the radio and use that to switch the amp. If it's an older radio with relay operated transmit, it's even easier as you can run a second relay in parallel to key the amp.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Uneasy Rider
Just don't haywire a 12-Volt relay onto the mike jack. The "2950"-type radios are especially tragic if you do this. The mike jack's pin 3 is not connected to the radio's transmit/receive switch circuits.

It's connected to the radio's 5-Volt computer chip. The mike keys the computer, and the computer keys the radio if it feels like it.

12 Volts on that 5-Volt computer input will fry the radio's computer. Seen it more than once.

Like I said. Tragic.

Much better to tap onto the radio's internal T/R switching and trigger (not power) the relay from that. The radio's internal 8-Volt transmit-only voltage probably doesn't have the extra current output to spare for powering a relay coil directly. But it can spare a couple of milliamps to trigger the base terminal of a NPN transistor.

73
 
Thanks for all the advice! I really like Nomad's keying relay. I do have one of those big black radios. LOL
I can read and read but sometimes it just helps to ask and I did learn. You all never disappoint.
73
 

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • @ Mark Malcomb:
    Hello BJ. Been a long time since I've been on. You doing well? Mark Malcomb
  • @ Naysayer:
    I’m
  • @ kingmudduck:
    Hello to all I have a cobra 138xlr, Looking for the number display for it. try a 4233 and it did not work