Uploaded June 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Someone emailed me the other day after working FT8 for my first few days with a screenshot of my radios signal on his waterfall, and a third order harmonic.
He attached a document with a lot of good information on tuning a radio for FT8 and other digital modes.
After doing a little research into what ALC(Automatic Level Control) is and what it does, I experimented until I found a "sweet spot" where I could transmit higher power without it resulting in distorted audio, or my radios ALC kicking in.
By tweaking a few settings I was able to achieve a nice middle ground and eliminated my third order harmonic.
I am by no means an expert, so suggestions and corrections are welcome. But I wanted to bring this to light, and share how I fixed this on my ft-450.
This ducument was sent to me by a Mike Black/W9MDB and apears to be created by a Eric Spero/WA1SXK as well.
Full credit goes to these two for this document.
docs.google.com/document/d/1zK-wsDC64SC8NYxUENwVQWe5QjTnKknSHLW_QnBrTFs/edit?usp=sharing
Make sure to check out my blog, and shop over at:
themodernham.com .
⚡ Join the ModernHams Discord: ⚡
discord.gg/EbP9dTMrTU
Someone emailed me the other day after working FT8 for my first few days with a screenshot of my radios signal on his waterfall, and a third order harmonic.
He attached a document with a lot of good information on tuning a radio for FT8 and other digital modes.
After doing a little research into what ALC(Automatic Level Control) is and what it does, I experimented until I found a "sweet spot" where I could transmit higher power without it resulting in distorted audio, or my radios ALC kicking in.
By tweaking a few settings I was able to achieve a nice middle ground and eliminated my third order harmonic.
I am by no means an expert, so suggestions and corrections are welcome. But I wanted to bring this to light, and share how I fixed this on my ft-450.
This ducument was sent to me by a Mike Black/W9MDB and apears to be created by a Eric Spero/WA1SXK as well.
Full credit goes to these two for this document.
docs.google.com/document/d/1zK-wsDC64SC8NYxUENwVQWe5QjTnKknSHLW_QnBrTFs/edit?usp=sharing
Make sure to check out my blog, and shop over at:
themodernham.com .
⚡ Join the ModernHams Discord: ⚡
discord.gg/EbP9dTMrTU
