Sunday, May 8, 2016 — A entry in this blog about five years ago mentioned a W9DUA QSL card that featured the Hallicrafters factory building that still exists in Chicago at 1000 
South Kostner Ave., on the corner of 5th and Kostner Ave.
The QSL was from the Sangamon Valley Radio Club (Springfield, Mo.) for a contact on behalf of the American Red Cross at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield.
I posted some photos of the then-current state of the Kostner Avenue Hallicrafters plant, which was looking worse for wear. The factory was completed in 1946, and is the only one of the three Chicago Hallicrafter facilities still standing.
I heard a few days ago from a fellow Hallicrafters fan, Fernando Daniel Fiamberti, LW7DDH, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, who was in Chicago in December and visited the Kostner Avenue plant and sent some photos.
As his photos show, the long-empty building is occupied by National Furniture Distributors, a furniture wholesale company. Just a few years ago, the building was in sad repair, with peeling paint and broken windows. The building has come a long way — and it is encouraging to see it being used again.
Many thanks to Fernando, LW7DDH, for his great photos of the Hallicrafters building. I wonder if the furniture company would allow a group of crazy hams to do a Hallicrafters-related special event station in front of their building?? I’ll bring my SR-150 transceiver! Let’s see a show of hands — who wants to do this??
HEATHKIT HW-16. I have spent the day trying to get reacquainted with my Heathkit HW-16 and matching HG-10 VFO. I don’t want to make it sound like its a terribly complicated rig; but I had intended to check in to the Georgia CW net, and I couldn’t remember with certainty how to tune a direct conversion receiver. In other words, I didn’t want to be on the “wrong side” of zero beat where the station I’m calling won’t likely hear me.
The rig has good output — it has about 60 watts output on 80 and 40, less on 15 meters. The rig has some chirp which is pronounced on 15, less on 40, negligible on 80 … just enough to give the signal some character.
If you’ve ever owned an HW-16, you know the factory sidetone — using a neon bulb setup — is one of the worst-sounded sidetones ever designed. There are mods to improve it, but I haven’t taken time to mess with one yet.
The factory CW filter is pretty good, but I have a Datong FL-3 outboard audio filter setup I’ve used with the rig for a long time, and it works very well. I’m planning on doing more with this rig on the air.
DMU-2000 OUT. I disconnected my DMU-2000 from my FT-2000 sometime ago in order to use the $70 panadapter kit that allegedly offers far better performance. Tonight I cleaned up the case, disconnected the wiring and boxed it up for long-term storage in the attic. The truth is however that I’ve never gotten the panadapter thingie to work as well as it should, and the only feature I’ve been using is the remote software that operates really, really well.
But I’ve decided I want to make the dang panadapter thingie work — I’ve seen YouTube videos and it looks impressive.
Of course, about the time I get it figured out, I’ll need to get my Flex-3000 setup in the shack next … I just need a bigger shack, I think!
The XYL and I are considering building a garage to give us covered parking closer to the house, and to give me a large shop area and possibly, a larger ham shack with an area to property display my CW keys.
We’ll see how that works out, but I would certainly give it my vote!
Enough for now, have a great week.
73 es CUL de KY4Z SK CL …. dit dit ….