I had ordered a P4 Dragon Pactor modem which finally arrived a few days ago. My intent was to hook it up to my IC-9100 so I can use either Pactor III on HF (P4 is not legal in the US even though it uses no more bandwidth than a SSB signal) or Packet on VHF. Things are sort of OK, it hears well, but the transmit audio level is causing full ALC action, which is not good for a digital mode. Even though the IC-9100 input spec is full output at 100mv p-p, and the P4 modem is adjustable from 1 to 140 mv p-p, it is still over driving the radio.
Mostly because I was checking the modulation level, I started a session with VE1Yz on 80 meters last night with my power dialed all the way to “zero”. I was shocked when the connection was completed and data transfer at 4400 bps. I measured the power output with my QRP meter and found it to be 50 milliwatts. That’s pretty impressive performance for a high speed digital mode on a noisy 80 meter band.
