Omni D Series C PTO Drift

from the Ten-Tec reflector 8/17/12

W9ILF: I had a comment while on the CW traffic net 40 meters tonight that my tx was drifting up and down a little while transmitting on my Omni D series C. I could also hear the freq shift in the receiver.

Anyway I finished with the net and moved down freq and had a QSO with a guy who said my signal was rock solid. I called another net just a little later on 80 meters and my report again was solid, no drift.

I guess it is intermittent, but where should I start looking to trouble shoot this issue?

N4NT: Tune around some carriers and see if you can hear a warble as you tune. The main cause of trouble like you experience has always for me been gummy, dried-up grease in the PTO. I have never needed a PTO rebuild kit, just clean off the gummy grease with Dawn or some such and re-grease. I asked a tech down at Ten-Tec what grease they used and was told, "just axle grease we get down at the Co-op."

W8AU: Take the bottom off, use cramolin or solvent on the bandswitches. That clears if for my OMNI C