Thursday, Dec. 13, 2018 — With Christmas rapidly approaching, I can predict right now there’s not going to be any ham radio goodies under the Christmas tree this year.
Not that I’m really disappointed. I already have an overflowing room of ham radio “stuff” — including my key collection — and while there’s lots of new toys I would like to try out, there’s precious little I need. But as we all know, “need” matters little when it comes to impulse buying on eBay.
My latests acquistion was something I’ve wanted for a long time — and yes, its another roller inductor antenna tuner. This time its a Murch UT-2000B, a high-power 10-160 meter antenna tuner. This Murch tuner is equipped with SWR metering and a switch to bypass the tuner.
I own the Murch UT-2000A version tuner, which is basically the same tuner minus a 4:1 balun and the SWR metering functions. The Murch tuners are based on the “Ultimate Transmatch” design that was in QST in the 1960s. The parts are super heavy duty, much in the same line the Heathkit SA-2040 and SA-2060 tuners.
So what burning need did I have for yet another tuner? Well, frankly, I’m tuner poor. I could set up HF stations for my siblings and most of their adult children with the tuners I have in stock. But I picked up the Murch for a couple of reasons. First, I always wanted one because I’ve used the UT-2000A and immediately wished it had an internal 4:1 balun. When this US-2000B showed up on eBay with best offer as an option, I couldn’t help but make an offer — which was subsequently accepted.
The tuner arrived a couple of days ago but I haven’t had time to unbox it. I probably will leave it boxed up through the holidays. My daughter and her husband are coming to visit beginning next week, so the efforts here at home are what we call “bulldozing.”
So today we have to get more decorations out of the attic and take care of some other issues.
ON THE AIR! I have been enjoying checking into my Georgia CW net on 80 meters. Propagation is doing fairly well, and I’ve enjoyed having a chance to do a little CW operating. Operating from here in the Library, I usually use a paddle; I’ll need to bring a bug in here for Straight Key Night.
The only real hiccup I’ve had from my Library operating position was one night my SWR was all over the damn place — from 1:1 to off scale high. Turned out that one end of my dipole was loose from its mount on the barn, and antenna was laying across my old farm truck. I used a screw-in insulater this time to serve as a place to tie off the antenna. So far so good.
Thinking of SKN, I’m still thinking that maybe I should operate in the shack where I can fire up one of my classic rigs. We’lll see, lol!
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