TS-570D Low output power

[wa2hlv]

Power output of my Kenwood TS-570D on 20, 17, 15, and 10 meters is approximately 40 watts using a Bird wattmeter with a 50 ohmn dummy load. On all Other bands, 40, 80, and 160 meters the rig puts out 90-100 watts. I don't know if is this is problem that I can resolve myself or might require sending the XCVR to be serviced to the manufacturer or an experinced technician.

 

[Robb]

I'm assuming that the SWR is OK on the questionable bands?
You didn't say...

 

[Radioman1]

570D problems

Power output of my Kenwood TS-570D on 20, 17, 15, and 10 meters is approximately 40 watts using a Bird wattmeter with a 50 ohmn dummy load. On all Other bands, 40, 80, and 160 meters the rig puts out 90-100 watts. I don't know if is this is problem that I can resolve myself or might require sending the XCVR to be serviced to the manufacturer or an experinced technician.

Have you tried the reset procedure ? Quite often this clears up problems.

it's in the manual, only problem you will return to factory defaults and lose

your memory contents if programmed.

"With the power off press the A=B key hold and power on."

Hope this helps, if not sounds like a trip to Aavid to me.....Mac

 

[295]

I'm assuming that the SWR is OK on the questionable bands?
You didn't say...

That is a good question, even though he is using a dummy load, a high SWR reading on an internal SWR meter could indicate a failure in the band pass filter stack. I've experienced this on my Yaesu FT-1000D, it was fine on the lower bands, but on 10 through 20, I had low power output and a high SWR reading on the internal SWR meter. My fault was I kept transmitting on the higher bands trying to diagnose the issue. It cost me a few capacitors, a new set of finals, and $125.00 in shipping.

Later, I discovered that my neighbor across the street had a lighting strike while I was out of town for the day. Oh well we live and learn, I did. Now I never keep my rigs hooked up when I am out of the shack. All coax, ladder lines and grounds go into a glass jar, and everything gets unplugged from the AC mains.

73

 

[Beetle]

Now I never keep my rigs hooked up when I am out of the shack. All coax, ladder lines and grounds go into a glass jar, and everything gets unplugged from the AC mains.
73

What do you hope to gain with the glass jar? That lightning has just travelled a mile or more through open air. I doubt whether 1/8 inch of glass is going to stop it. I've also seen the results of these jars exploding. About a bazillion teensy little bits of glass imbedded in every square inch of exposed surface in the vicinity.

 

[295]

What do you hope to gain with the glass jar? That lightning has just travelled a mile or more through open air. I doubt whether 1/8 inch of glass is going to stop it. I've also seen the results of these jars exploding. About a bazillion teensy little bits of glass imbedded in every square inch of exposed surface in the vicinity.

I use the jar because it keeps my all my exposed grounds and lead-ins not dangling loose on the floor when they are NOT connected to my gear. I also have an expansive ground system of 8, 8 foot ground rods, static discharge units, and centralized grounding bus, all located outside. Two years ago a vertical 10 meter antenna I had up took a direct hit, guess what? The jar did not explode, and none of my gear had any damage. However, I did lose a wall phone, fax machine, and wi-fi hub, the energy actually knocked the phone off the wall. A friend who now uses a jar does so because he noticed that he got little burn marks in his carpeting caused by static discharge going across his PL259's while they were laying on the ground embedded in the carpet.

Lightning looks for ground to complete the circuit, not unterminated/ungrounded feedlines, there is no reason for the bulk of the energy to dissapate to the jar, I have provided a better path for this. This is what works for me, I use it in addition to my ground system, not AS as ground system.

I always see people posting on various message boards of how they seen this or that, adverse to the original post, but rarely do you see these adverse claims actually supported. I have been doing this for well over 30 years, and never have I've seen or heard of the "exploding jar" until you posted it here, although I agree that it could be plausible if someone used the jar without any type of ground system. Nevertheless, googleing the term "exploding jar lightening" returned no results of anyone experiencing this. The only results returned seem to suggest that most use the jar to contain any possible small static discharge that may be on the feedlines. Amateur's have been using glass containers since the dawn of ham radio. It is not my suggestion that anyone do what I do, but this is what has worked for me for years.

So anybody who reads this, DO NOT DO WHAT I DO! DO NOT use a jar to rest your feedlines in during a storm it MAY EXPLODE!!!!

73

Edit: I stand corrected, I was able to find one other claim of this. However, there was no mention that a ground system was in use.

 

[Beetle]

Lightning will do whatever it wants. If your ground system is correctly installed and maintained, and everything is correctly bonded, you won't have to worry about disconnecting everything.

I've been a ham for fifty years this year, and I've never had a lightning-related problem.

 

[Robb]

I suppose it's a question of where you live. Sure Washington gets its share of lightning storms. But not a n y t h i n g like the midwest or other parts of the US.

I'd hate to run a station anywhere between Fla and Neb. Too much lighting. Been there, done that. Some lightning storms I've seen in IA/NE - that was too dangerous just to walk outside. Nasty! KS and MO - too.

Those states that I've mentioned - because I witnessed it firsthand...
Yikes!

 

[Beetle]

I lived in eastern Colorado (Kit Carson County) for about a year in the late 60s.

Never had to disconnect any antennas; never suffered any losses due to lightning, although I replaced several dipoles after winds. No tornados, though.

 

[295]

I suppose it's a question of where you live. Sure Washington gets its share of lightning storms. But not a n y t h i n g like the midwest or other parts of the US.

I'd hate to run a station anywhere between Fla and Neb. Too much lighting. Been there, done that. Some lightning storms I've seen in IA/NE - that was too dangerous just to walk outside. Nasty! KS and MO - too.

Those states that I've mentioned - because I witnessed it firsthand...
Yikes!

Rob, I agree that a lot of the lightening damage potential depends on where you live. According to this study I found on the net, Washington actually has the least amount of lightening density out of the 48 U.S. mainland states. As I suspected, Florida is number 1, my state is near the top 20.

Bettle, you should consider yourself lucky if you've never disconnected your feedlines from your gear and never suffered any losses due to lightning. Even a static charge can damage the front end and finals of most newer solid state rigs. Like you pointed out, lightening will do what it wants to do, it can jump across most grounding junctions and grounding type antenna switch boxes, the best way to protect your gear is not to have any of your transceivers connected to the antenna/ground/or AC during a thunderstorm.

I've seen more than a few rigs that have suffered damage from being connected to ground during a storm even though the AC line and antenna were disconnected. I know several older gents who refuse to use any type of grounding in the shack because of this issue.

73


Rank of Cloud-to-Ground Flash Densities by State from 1996 - 2005

State Flashes Flashes
Per Year Per Square Mile

1. Florida 1507277 26.3

2. Louisiana 975187 21.1

3. Mississippi 878934 18.4

4. Alabama 853644 16.5

5. South Carolina 459326 14.8

6. Tennessee 604955 14.4

7. Indiana 517140 14.3

8. Georgia 835114 14.2

9. Oklahoma 966295 13.8

10. Missouri 952823 13.7

11. Kentucky 546989 13.6

12. Arkansas 718581 13.5

13. Illinois 759609 13.5

14. District of Columbia 772 11.4

15. Ohio 452721 11.0

16. Texas 2875027 10.8

17. North Carolina 535388 10.8

18. Kansas 851520 10.4

19. Iowa 560847 9.9

20. West Virginia 213625 8.8

21. Virginia 346751 8.6

22. Maryland 85866 8.6

23. New Mexico 919464 7.6

24. Delaware 14784 7.4

25. Pennsylvania 307297 6.8

26. Nebraska 460876 6.0

27. Arizona 673320 5.9

28. New Jersey 40851 5.4

29. Wisconsin 292622 5.2

30. Michigan 302614 5.2

31. Colorado 517267 5.0

32. South Dakota 372113 4.8

33. Minnesota 391573 4.6

34. New York 218099 4.5

35. North Dakota 289633 4.1

36. Connecticut 17181 3.5

37. Wyoming 308550 3.2

38. Utah 260260 3.1

39. Massachusetts 22967 2.8

40. Montana 363456 2.5

41. Vermont 23304 2.5

42. New Hampshire 19945 2.2

43. Rhode Island 2216 2.1

44. Nevada 172152 1.6

45. Maine 39663 1.2

46. Idaho 85343 1.0

47. California 90577 0.6

48. Oregon 51738 0.5

49. Washington 20050 0.3

 

[Beetle]

Ever see an AM broadcast station's 300+ foot antenna take a direct hit during a lightning storm? And did you notice that the station remained on the air? That's because commercial broadcast stations have well-engineered grounding systems with safeguards to ensure that the whole station is and remains at the same potential. No potential difference, no current flow. For transients, lightning arrestors and similar devices do a fine job IF sized and installed correctly. Most ham/cb grounding and lightning protection systems aren't adequate at all.

I've always taken care to ensure that mine is.

 

[vu2cpr]

TS-570D POWER OUTPUT LOW IN SSB

I transmitted once with poor SWR. The power output in TS-570D is low in SSB, CW the output is fine across all bands. I tried reset once, it did not help me much. Is there any way i can solve the problem on my own?
Anyone has similar problem?

 

[redlght]

Safe to say your pa section is good it does full output on some bands the problem would likely be in the filter section dirty relay, bad cap or diode not much else in that section. Or some issue that the radio can not tune down the SWR on that band. Grab the schematic of the filter section and check the bands in question.

 

[RatsoW8]

It's an 8 year old post and the OP hasn't been on the forum since 2011. In case you expect him to reply...stranger things have happened.

 

[Road Squawker]

Meanwhile,... lets talk about the mason jar thingy.