Broken band conditions return …

One thing is certain — these days you never know what kind of band conditions to expect when you turn your rig on in the evening.

One night 75 meters is great, the next its way long. I again heard the Idaho-Montana Net NCS better than the KSN NCS last night at 10 p.m. It wasn't just bad here at my house, it was all over the state. The other stations checking in were having difficulty hearing the NCS and he was having difficulty hearing us.

Today I had a package delivered via UPS that had a scrawled Christmas greeting from an old friend of mine. Apparently he's got a job helping UPS deliver packages during the holidays, and when I wasn't home, he left me a greeting on the box and continued his deliveries. Sorry I missed him.

The package he delivered brought a nearly complete 1920 Vibroplex Original I sniped on eBay some time ago. I use the term “nearly complete” because the key is missing the “main spring” and weight rod from its keying lever. It's not that his key was converted to a single lever paddle, it appears the spring steel “spring” on the keying lever was broken flush at the end of the keying lever. And of course the thumb piece (paddle) is broken off the key. I have several replacements in my parts drawer for that, so that's not an issue.

I'm not sure yet exactly what I'll do with this key. It shouldn't be a difficult thing to replace the spring and weight rod, I have another key thats a similar vintage that had the damper bent in shipping, and I've considered parting this new key out. Other than the obvious missing parts, its complete and original, even right down to the coal soot still coating the thing. Of all the junk keys I've acquired off eBay, there's only been one that I actually parted out after I received it. The rest I put back in service after locating spare parts. I was lucky enough over time to find people selling parts to complete or repair those other keys.

BENCHER BY-1 OFF THE WORK BENCH. A couple of weekends ago, I found a seller who had just listed a Bencher BY-1 for $15. The key was in pieces, and the seller said it “needed adjusting” and one paddle was higher than the other. As much tinkering as I've done with BY-1s in the past, I figured it was worth gambling $15. The auction spent less than 15 minutes live before I hit the Buy It Now button.

The key was complete and in fair shape when it arrived a few days ago. It was pretty screwed up adjustment-wise, but a little patience and its back to its old self. One of the keying levers has a slight “twist” in it, and the top of the right paddle is slightly higher than the left. If you look for it you'll see it, but otherwise its fine. And it operates just like a BY-1 should. The base is a little worn and it has some scratches, but it plays fine. I've got to make a cable for it this evening.

I find that trying to use the iambic paddles again after using a bug has me sending CW that sounds like I'm stomping the key with my foot. I thought extra half-dits were bad on a bug — I'm getting extra dits and dahs, and in combinations that make my sounding more akin to Japanese Kanji than English.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME. No, I'm not buying myself a present … yet! I still have the hots for the Yaesu FT-2000 with the DMU unit. You see a lot of FT-2000s for sale these days, and the theory I'm hearing is that they're not as user friendly an HF rig as a lot of current medium-priced rigs (like the IC-756PROIII). I've heard more than one FT-2000 owner say he wasn't sure he liked the rig for the first couple of weeks, and only after spending time on the learning curve did he appreciate the rigs functions. One owner told me he nearly sold the rig to buy another PROIII, but decided to hang in there with the rig and try to learn it. The summary — it's a lot of radio, and unless you're willing to spend time with the manual to learn how to operate it, you may be better off with something more user-friendly.

I've continued to look at the Yaseu FT-950, which appears to be a decent rig. It's appearance (IMHO) is absolutely ruined by how Yaesu designed the rig's left upper front panel, which has the on/off switch and controls for VOX, MOX, antenna tuner and antenna switching. The buttons and switch look like an afterthought, as though they were all they could come up with to fit the available space. Ugly. The rest of the rig is passable, though I'm still partial to the FT-2000.

Would I consider selling some of my bugs to fund the purchase of an FT-2000??? Hmmm …. don't tempt me!

73 es CUL … de KY4Z … dit dit