To AM or not to AM

[Moleculo]

My last Icom 746 was killer on AM. Sounded great. Did 40 watts with swing to 80 and that could be turned up some inside but never did. Could very safely be turned up to 50 and should swing to 100 and will probably do a bit more.

Interesting comment. I have the 746Pro and has similar modulation percentages: about 2:1 peak to carrier. I've never been able to get a nice 4:1 peak to carrier ratio out of it. To my ears, this seems to affect the overall sound of the rig on AM. What was your experience like?

 

[Radio Tech]

Well, looks like the deal on the FT-200 is not going to happen. Oh well.

May see if I can find a better print out for my 745 and try it.
I have already tried my TS-140 and the AM audio is not very good. Plus the power adjust slide switch is in bad shape.

 

[Wire Weasel]

Interesting comment. I have the 746Pro and has similar modulation percentages: about 2:1 peak to carrier. I've never been able to get a nice 4:1 peak to carrier ratio out of it. To my ears, this seems to affect the overall sound of the rig on AM. What was your experience like?

Hey Mo, here's what I was told somewhere and did. Worked great as stated to me. Use the Speech Processor. Pick your freq. and go to sideband. I ran the radio Mic Gain about at 12:00. From sideband, set Processing until 100% with spoken audio on the ALC meter. Ready to switch to AM and talk.

For tonal qualities it had great reports too. Selected a base-leaning profile in the Audio Tone/Menu.

I like a little echo/reverb anyway and wished to have a roger beep available so I used one of those modern Galaxy Echo Roger Talk mics.

Set all mic gains and echo ect...along with fudging the processor gain up a little according to multiple on-air reports. The guys will tell you how loud you can get (increasing gains) without being too loud or starting to splatter.

I also found the 746 would swing the carrier to exactly double of wherever you set the DK. 10=20, 30 would get you 60 ect...

 

[De_Wildfire]

After reading this post, I tried AM tonight on 75 meters for the first time. I thought that AM sounded distorted unless you had real AM vintage equipment but I proved myself wrong. I fired up my Elecraft K3 on AM and they said the audio sounded real good on up in CT. I was running 50 watts. The station coming back was was running 1500 watts but the main point was that we carried on a QSO. He said I was "light" but never missed a word. One thing he did advise me though is not to run my Drake L4B on AM. He said that he's heard a lot of amps going up with long transmissions.

 

[Radio Tech]

After reading this post, I tried AM tonight on 75 meters for the first time. I thought that AM sounded distorted unless you had real AM vintage equipment but I proved myself wrong. I fired up my Elecraft K3 on AM and they said the audio sounded real good on up in CT. I was running 50 watts. The station coming back was was running 1500 watts but the main point was that we carried on a QSO. He said I was "light" but never missed a word. One thing he did advise me though is not to run my Drake L4B on AM. He said that he's heard a lot of amps going up with long transmissions.

Good for you.
I think I am going to find me and old boat anchor.

 

[HiDef]

Duplicate post.

 

[HiDef]

You could run the Drake linear on AM but don't ask for too much. Load it for full 1200 watts output, leave it in the ssb position and reduce drive until you get a couple hundred watts carrier.

Then ask Bob how yer doin.