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Here are a few question that seem to pop up often and their answers. If
you have a question, feel free to email me. I will answer your
question as soon as possible. Thanks
Q. I see that the SuperSenior has a VFO? How does it work?
A.
There is a control on the front of the SS that allows you to step
up or step down in frequency in 5 khz steps. The frequency is displayed
in the LCD display. When the desired frequency appears in the display,
you return the switch to the center position and you are good to go!
The VFO is a PLL design with very low spurious output and is quite
stable. Stability is on the order of .5 ppm which roughly means about 2
hz on 80 meters.
Q. Where is the bandswitch?
A. The band switches automatically to match the frequency that you select. I tried to make it easy! Q. I am using an old "boatanchor" receiver. How does the muting work?
A.
The SuperSenior can be configured to mute any receiver. A form C relay
contact set is available on a din plug at the rear of the transmitter.
The common may be wired to give you normally closed contacts for use in
many of the older tube receivers, such as a 75A2 or HQ-170 or SX-100,
and by wiring your receiver mute to another pin, you can mute modern
receivers that require a closure to ground. It is very versatile and
those contacts can be used for many other thing too! Q. Why does it have three fans if it doesn't produce much heat?
A.
Actually it runs very cool and the three fans gently pull air across
the internal heat sinks to keep it that way. Those fans are the same
type of fans that keep your computer cool! Q. The SuperSenior is neat but I still want to buy a Senior. How do I order
one?
A. Sorry. The Senior nor the Junior is being made any longer.
Q. What about the SWR protection.
A. Well it's pretty easy. If your
antenna presents more than a 1.8:1 SWR, the SuperSenior provides fold back
protection that will reduce power and protect itself from damage. The SuperSenior
protects itself from most of the "oopses" that occur in a ham shack.
 Q. How do I adjust my percentage of modulation? I don't see a control for
that.
A.
Modulation is controlled by the amount of audio that you feed the
SuperSenior. If you install the K7DYY audio processor board in the base
of your D-104, the output control on the base of the microphone
provides a convenient way to adjust your audio level. If you use
outboard audio equipment, an output control is usually provided. Also,
a peak limiter is designed into the Senior to keep you from exceeding
100% modulation.
Q. How soon will you ship my order?
A. Please check with me for availability. Q. My antenna system uses a tuner to make everything happy. Can I cut the power back some way to safely tune the tuner?
A.
Yes, of course! The front panel has a switch labeled Spot and the other
is Transmit. If you turn both of these switches on at the same time,
the SuperSenior will put out about 70 watts for this purpose. You
should not try to modulate the SuperSenior with the switches in this
position as it is meant only for tuning. By the way, using a
tuner with the SuperSenior is a very good idea. Although the
transmitter will safely protect itself from high SWR, the protection
circuits will sense that something is not right and you may experience
some undesireable effects, such as audio distortion.
Q. Can I use my audio equipment that I normally use?
A.
If you are referring to normal audio processing equipment and regular
dynamic or condenser or ribbon microphones, the answer is probably yes.
As long as your equipment meets the SuperSenior's input requirements
and most equipment does. The SuperSenior requires line level (-10dbm)
unbalanced audio. Most of the time you would want to isolate the
balanced output of your equipment with a transformer but that's just
good practice anyway.
Q. How do you switch from receive to transmit? Does it have PTT?
A.
T/R switching is built into the SuperSenior. A relay switches the antenna from
your receiver and also provides muting contacts to mute your receiving
equipment. Jacks are located on the rear panel. A PTT connection is provided
in the microphone plug on the front panel as well as a toggle switch that
will also switch your equipment into transmit, should you not have a
microphone with PTT.
Q. What kind of AC power does the Senior 300 watt transmitter need?
A. It
uses regular 120 VAC. It does not require 240 VAC as do most high powered
transmitters in this class. It will draw approximately 5 amps when
transmitting. Remember Class D is extremely efficient and if you are looking
to heat the shack, like most 300 watt transmitters would, forget
it. Put on you Long Johns, your parka and gloves and slide up next to a DYY SuperSenior this winter!
Q. Why not put the microphone preamplifier inside the Senior?
A. That's a
good question! Being that there is a lot of high power (square wave)
circuitry in that little box, the environment is not a good place to house
low level circuitry like a microphone preamp. Not only that, some of the
most popular ham microphones, like the venerable D-104, is best served with
as short a lead as possible between the element and the first audio stage,
as in the K7DYY Audio Processor mounted in the D-104 base. That means that
the coiled cord now carries line level audio, nearly immune to RF and noise!
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me with your question
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