Just finished with my NCS duties and I'm a free ham again. Static crashes from storms passing across the southern half of the state were killer in my headphones. Down in West Kentucky, several parades were rained out, so I hear.
I've been operating my FT-757GX solidly all weekend, and I continue to be impressed by how well it works, for a 25-year-old rig with marginal front end.
I've been on HF more this weekend than I have since the last contest, and the FT-757GX is getting consistently excellent reports. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, 100 watts of old Yaesu RF propagates as far as late-model Icom 746PRO RF.
I will send this one off for alignment and minor repair so the CW jack has its ground back. With an external speaker, the audio sounds pretty good.
Why the love affair with the rigs? I guess its a nostalgia thing. The only early rig of mine I don't have is a Heathkit SB-102, and I've been keeping my eyes open for one for some time. That was one of my favorite CW rigs .. well, probably because it was the first to have a CW filter. Old Ironsides had no filtering, nor any option to add it (an oversight in my book).
This FT-757GX, like war-weary No. 3, is a veteran of the 11-meter band. This rig's been “tweaked” by someone who believed “If more is better, then too much is just enough.” On CW full output, the rig keys nearly 200 watts. The linearity of the power control leaves a lot to be desired too — it jumps from about 80 to 180 watts in just a few degrees of movement.
I thought my meter was lying to me, but judging from the “grunt” my power supply gave at full power, I believe it was fairly close to that power level. That also explains why so many FT-757GX's wind up with blown finals.
At any rate, the rig's been a retro-ific blast to operate with my Heil headset, busting pileups along the way. I didn't have much time to work on TA4D's pileup on 20 today before he QSY'd to CW at 14.012. Had my CW jack worked, I would have pounced on him, there was much less of a crowd calling him down there.
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I have a little jingle in my pocket, and I'm hearing the call of the … auction. The eBay auction …. sounds like a clock ticking … why can't I use my wife's excuse for shopping and tell her how much money I saved buying XYZ radio on eBay??
There's several rigs I've been looking at on eBay, just … well, window shopping.
1. Yaesu FT-817. For $400 (including battery pack), this is just a super neat little QRP portable rig. I've wanted to try one forever, but never have. Still thinking about it ….
2. Yaesu FT-100D. For about $500, I can pick one up off eBay. For whatever reason, I've never really heard a great deal about these rigs. Seems like the IC-706 has been the overwhelming favorte HF/VHF/UHF mobile rig.
3. Yaesu FT-450AT. Yeah, I called it ugly, but for $600 and change you get a lot of capability in a package that's about the same size as my FT-757GX — and weighing half as much. I have heard a couple of these on the air, and they sounded really nice. The rig is HF+6, so that's a plus. Why get one? Its affordable, small and affordable. It's priced right, and I can get one without vacuuming out the bank accounts. And the price is easier to hide from the XYL (you know I'm joking, right?).
My plan is to send the Drake R4A and FT-757GX back to the eBay food chain with full disclosure of their problems. Before I do that, I'll test the tubes in the Drake, just to be certain its not something simple. I'm not familiar with Drake enough to know what to do for it, I may take a loss, but thankfully I don't have a lot tied up in it. The FT-757GX will bring about $200. I saw one today that didn't work sell for nearly $190!
And lastly, I'm still looking at the FT-2000. I really enjoyed operating the one at ARRL HQ, and would welcome a shot at owning one. I want the DMU unit too, of course. You see quite a few FT-2000s for sale, I think the radio requires more operation than a lot of folks care for. If the new Icom 7700 wasn't so expensive I would go for that, but I'd have to liquidate everything in the shack I'm afraid.
Enough rig dreams, I'm off to the Yaesu to hunt DX …. 73 es CUL … de KY4Z … dit dit ………