The Defpom Forum, for RadioMods, S&M Software and Music by The Defpom

Hi Folks,

My Washington isn't putting out the power it should. On AM it is relitively fine at 4 watts with very little forward swing. On SSB I can not seem to drive it past 5 watts or so. Anyone have any ideas as to what could be the problem? I am using a Astatic D104 Mic to modulate it but there seems to be little power from it. I have tried adjusting the SSB trimmer pot but it does not make much difference.
Thanks for any advice!

Jim

Try a different mike as it the first place to start.

Rick.

i have a uniden madison with the same problem tried different mic ,did an ailgnment no luck. and i get about the same 4w on am and 5-6 on ssb.

Questions, questions.

Is this a (nearly) 30 year-old President Washington with a 4-pin mike socket?

Have you ever seen it perform at full power? Or has it been like this since you first saw it?

If you hire a tech to figure it out, he's gonna ask the same questions. If he has a clue. History details like "It was okay before that storm last week" can save a lot of wild-goose chasing.

If it's always been this way, do the final and driver stages have the wrong parts substituted in them? Checking that the driver is a 2SC1306 or 2SC1266 might be a good start. The final should be type 2SC1969 if it's the later 5-pin radio. A 2SC1307 if it's the older version

If these have been substituted, that's an important clue.

Are you set up to set the SSB bias current for this radio? Requires that you pull a socket loose from a pin on the main board, and hook your current meter across the gap.

A bum idle-current reading can narrow down where to look if you can't just probe it with an o'scope to measure stage gain.

There is no single "usual" breakdown in this model to blame for this.

Alignment is a big deal. Only one of those tuning slugs need be cranked wrong to knock down the transmit power.

73

Thanks for the help guys. It was a allignment issue. I tweeked a couple of coils and behold, the power is dead on. Thanks again.

Jim