Thursday, March 15, 2012 — As the title implies, I’ve been back on eBay drooling over the goodies. There’s never a shortage of “stuff” I would enjoy snagging for my shack. I guess if that makes me an “Equipment Whore,” well, so be it, HI!
HOMEBREW BABY! The key pictured at right arrived today … finally! I haven’t had a 
great deal of time to spend looking it over yet, but its a very interesting key.
It’s certainly homebrewed, but fairly well designed. I have to put up some detail photos of its construction, they tell the tale better than my description.
The base of the key is solid steel, and it seems longer than the run-of-the-mill Vibroplex key. The pivot frame is similar to the Vibroplex style, but is pieced together. The horizontal “arms” are attached with screws, and then they are also soldered to the upright part of the frame.
The top and bottom of the base, which appears to be just plain metal, features extensive engine turning. A couple of unusual aspects of this key include the main spring, which is much longer than a usual bug, and the dit contact spring, which makes a rather long loop.
The damper is a much later creation, though there are holes drilled in the base that appear to have previously supported an “M” damper like that found on the Lightning Bug. There are indications on the base that the previous damper lived there quite a while. The replacement damper has a place where a wheel should be, but the wheel is missing.
I’m going to try to clean up the minor surface rust and grime on the base; it isn’t plated, but should clean up reasonably well. I can probably clear coat it or something similar.
WHAT, ANOTHER YAESU?? I have a soft spot in my head for the venerable Yaesu FT-757GX, and I usually will watch auctions featuring these models. I have picked up probably half a dozen over the past 10 years and usually turned them around for a profit. I picked up one that didn’t work a month or more ago, and its not been touched. I’m probably going to send it off for repair.
Well, I should be shot, but I bought another FT-757GX — this one allegedly has a transmit problem but receives fine. I’m going to place this one at my listening post in the library. I got it worth the money, and probably considerably less than I would pay for a shortwave receiver to monitor the ham bands.
HALLICRAFTERS SX-130 HITS ITS STRIDE. Last year I decided to switch to my WWII vintage BC-348Q. It’s holds up pretty well as a receiver, though the crystal filter is not very effective (this is due to age, not design. The factory filter was effective on CW). After putting up with splatter the best I could (on both CW and phone sigs) I decided to try the old SX-130 again. This time I didn’t use an external antenna tuner, I connected the antenna to the rig directly. In short, it plays very, very well! I have been using its crystal filter and phasing, and it works very, very well. The drift isn’t bad after 30 minutes or so, and its been my nightly reading companion.
The Yaesu FT-757GX does not have an antenna trimmer, so a tuner might help the receive when I try it out. We’ll see how it goes. It was cheap enough, and hey, I could part it out if I the receiver is as lousy as I remember, lol!
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