![]() ![]() Make sure your rig has been adjusted to rumble the static, instead of frying it. If you minutely adjust the PPL pot after you have adjusted your radio, you will be surprised how much copy that can occur with weaker CW, on congested bands. There is obviously a point where you will lose your PPL sync, due to too much attenuation. Higher frequency static crashing confuses the reader. I have found that to lower the background static to a lower frequency rumble, and adjusting RF gain of the radio to furthur reduce static, is sucessful. There is a point of adjustment of the PPL frequency control that allows that perfect sweet-spot to sync with the radio speaker thru much bad band conditions. Using the variable bandpass control on my Icom 718, to center the wanted siganl from neighboring signals. I have found that tuning the PPL Frequency control allows the unit to sync with varying tones within the band conditions. This could hold true for individual mfj 461 units. The human ear hearing process differs person to person. One is for input level, I left mine on high, fully clockwise, for best results. The following is for using the built-in mic pickup. I found mine is quite sucessful, despite some bad QRN,QRM band conditions. I read many good, and not so good reviews. I really got the bug to understand the varying band conditions that this reader has to work thru. I purchased mine at the Charlotte Hamfest 2010. Id rather live in a world with MFJ and their questionable QC than a world with no MFJ at all. Having said all that, I am very very thankful for MFJ and I hope they continue making all these wonderful accessories for us. I'd be happy to pay a couple extra bucks for something that didn't need to be fixed. I had to drill out the holes to 1/4 inch! and now I can just barely get a tiny jewelers screwdriver in the slot, I should have just drilled two more holes.Īnyway after all that it seems to work great but I've only tried it on computer generated code, but it coppied 100% even at 50wpm. Looking in the two holes on the back, I was only able to see the edge of the trimmer housings, could not even see the place where the screwdriver goes. I was unable to adjust the level control or the PLL. I installed a small 10k trimmer and was able to set it to a satisfactory level (I took it out an measured the resistance, 4.3k looked best to me) Maybe I'll look for a fixed resistor. The contrast was terrible! I could only 'barely' read it when looking straight on and not at all from any kind of angle. at all! After removing the electrical tape (only from the ribbon cable, not the pcb) I was able to just get it closed but its about to bust at the seams! I just got it in the mail today so this review is based solely on "out of box functionality" I couldn't get the battery cover to go on with a battery installed. I gave it 4 stars since I'm not TOTALLY happy with it even given its shortcomings. With all these caveats and concerns, I still like the unit for the help it gives me. It's annoying but I called MFJ and they didn't have a solution to this problem. One other complaint, the LED display is very dark and you'll need to tilt the unit just right and have a lamp aimed at the unit to read the display. I didn't have any trouble installing the 9V battery that some reviewers reported. I rely on my ears and experience for that. I don't use it for routine CW copying though. I'm good at CW but this is a nice aid that helps me in certain difficult situations. It works best when RST is close to 599 and minimum QRN and QRM, especially good when the sender is using a keyer or paddles. Also, the unit does not compensate for sloppy sending, and it is not good at deciphering code sent by bugs. Band noise, when at a certain level, causes this unit to read a series of E's and T's instead of code. So this unit can really pick up super fast CW, providing there is no QRM nearby or band noise. When the high-power DX stations start sending CQ and callsign over 30 WPM my aging ears fail me and I have to listen repeatedly to get their callsign right, if at all. I am very pleased with this product, though I already can receive CW at up to 25 WPM. This is not a miracle producer, so if you are a poor CW receiver then brush up on your receiving skills on the air, because this unit will not replace skillful CW receiving. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |