I was in the shack fooling with the laptop computer and I had left the rig on 40 meters from last nights SWL'ing. I was listening to the Voice of Vietnam, pounding in at S9+20db. Had to be a relay via Radio Havana. Anyway, they're more of the good old-fashioned Communist propaganda type programming that the former Communist East European countries were always good for.
Anyway, I scooted down to what's becoming my favorite spot on 40, the area between 7100 and 7125. There were a couple of QSOs under way, and one of the guys had a wonderfully chirpy signal … not the quick type of chirp, but more like a “whooooping” signal. There was a slow change in frequency each time the txmtr was keyed; the longer he held down the key, the greater the frequency shift.
It really wasn't that bad, but when he sent his final K at the end of each transmission, he held the damn key down for an unGodly long time, making that K sound like “whoooooooooop-wheep-whooooooooooooooop!” I don't get why people send K's and R's with exaggerated dahs; in this case, it sure made it an interesting K to copy.
He and the guy he was in QSO with were talking old rigs, and on his final, the guy with the chirpy rig advised the other guy that if he builds a transmitter, to select a design that uses a buffered stage rather than keying the oscillator. “I've had two OO reports the last two weeks, hi hi.”
It's funny how that years ago, chirpy rigs probably didn't attract as much attention as they do now. It seems OO's tolerate precious little chirp. Well, I guess if I had an old rig on the air, if the guy I was in QSO with didn't mention the chirp, I probably wouldn't know it otherwise, eh?
I found the original box for my Icom IC-756PROIII recently, and I have it boxed up. I've grown to really like the FT-2000. The only thing I still want for it is an external speaker. The SP-2000 is like $180, so I'll keep looking for a gently used one on eBay for now. I may just try one of my old hi-fi speakers I have to see how it works. The built-in speaker fires up, and I was spoiled by the external ICOM speaker I used with my PROIII.