Good news for me. My TS830 is back up and running. I was concerned that it may have a fault of some sort but since replacing the fuse all seems ok. Whilst I had everything on the deask pulled out of its place I took the opportunity to calibrate the low power scale on my MFJ antenna tuner. I can now read powers down to 1 watt or less. Careful adjustment of the soundcard volume and the TS830 Mic gain has allowed me to get my power on WSPR down to 1 watt.
This evening so far, with just my single watt on 30 metres I have been reported in WSPR by U.S German and one Austrailian station- Amazing!!
I had similar reports last night on 30metres, yet when I moved up to the PSK section of the same band I was only able to hear and work one OK2 station, apart from that the band was dead.
I don't think I will be able to get the TS830 down to much less than 1 watt reliably. I am considering at some point getting a slightly more modern rig for data modes and using the TS830S as a backup to my Yaesu FT1000MP main rig, The 830S is capable of superb transmit audio and is slightly wasted on PSK!
I am rapidly becoming convinced that 30 metres is quite a seasonal band. Certainly as winter approaches it seems to "drop out" around 2100 UTC , something that was not happening in the summer. If I am operating any later I find I have to drop to 40 or 80 to make contacts.
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