A few folks have asked about what I'm using on the road, particularly in regard to the antenna and how it is mounted.
I'm currently taking a day off the ride to wait out the heavy rains due here in central Arkansas which gave me time to put a short video together.
Back on the sure-to-be-muddy Trail tomorrow.
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Once everything was satisfactorily cleaned and ship-shape, I fired up the Hermes Lite 2 and the Neptune amp that I've had for about a year now...and something wasn't quite right.
For starters, the green "ON" LED was blinking slowly rather than remaining steadily on.
More significantly, automatic band changes weren't occurring.
I could switch bands manually by short-pressing the "ON" button and I had full output on every band - just no auto bandswitching.
A look around 60dBm's website revealed that there is no online manual for the amplifier. Great. So I fired off an email and received the following reply from Paul UU0JR in Ukraine less than an hour later.
If you left an Ameritron AL-80B and an Elecraft KPA-500 in a room together with some wine and soft music, the Mercury III S might be the result. Like the KPA-500, it is solid state and therefore broadbanded - no tuning up is necessary. And, like the AL-80B, it outputs a kilowatt (actually, 1200 watts) and uses a relay for T/R switching.
I've owned both the Ameritron and the Elecraft amps, so the new Mercury feels a bit like a hybrid of both, though it is nothing of the sort.
I assembled the Mercury on the same day it arrived. What initially looked to be a two-evening process took only 5 hours, and that was taking my time. All the parts, patch cables, connectors and hardware went together easily and I think this would make a great first kit for someone.
It was a far easier build than anything else I've ever built and, upon completion, there is no alignment - just a few checks with an ohm meter to make sure various sections aren't shorted to ground.
Rather than a narrative, some brief notes and then some numbers.
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| Using Anan-10e to drive KPA-500 |
