When all else fails, start at the beginning.

Found the problem. Cold solder joint on the PL-259 failed in the feedline -
obviously due to temperature swings, since I solder perfect connections
every time. Yeah, and the pope's Protestant...

Fixed it and now it works - almost. Twice now, a few minutes after it tuned,
my radio by itself would key the transmit - both times while I was not even
near it! I had to shut down power to kill it! Oh well, one more problem to
troubleshoot!


"Jon KB1HTW" wrote in message
...
I need to extend the control cable for my AH-4 tuner. I have lots of Cat 5
Ethernet cable. The four leads to the tuner are Key, Start, +13.8Vdc, and
Ground. I initially hooked up each to each of the four pairs in the
Ethernet cable (i.e., Key to Blue/Blue-White). My thinking was parallel
each pair so I have less current loss, but I think I blew the capacitance
out of the water and the Key/Start pulses are getting smeared along the
100+ foot run.

What's the best way to wire things up so to the twisted pairs so any RFI
gets nulled out? Ground to each of the 4 White leads, and Key to say Blue,
Start to Green, and +13.8V to Orange? That way each twisted pair would
have a "signal" and ground. Or I could use the Brown for Ground, and
connect the AH-4 factory cable's shield to the four white leads. Which is
the preferred route for minimizing RFI or cable capacitance affecting the
Start/Key pulse signals?

Jon - KB1HTW