Late springtime band conditions haven’t been too bad, at least for my 9 p.m. CW net. One of the regulars who lives in South Carolina did two nights this past week as NCS, and his sigs are always strong and copyable.
With the pandemic lockdown, I have been focusing on the honey-do list around the farm, and tackling those things I’ve put off for … well, for a long time. My wife spent a week on furlough from her job but went back last week and will be staying on the job, which is good news. Its tough emotionally to be cooped up at home together when you’re not sure if you’re going to be working soon or ever. Fortunately for my wife, one of her co-workers decided he could use the time off to help his family’s move, so he voluntarily decided to take furlough, which gave my wife sufficient hours to go back to work.
HAM RADIO ACTIVITY. My CW net has been most of my hamming of late, though I still do a lot of listening in the post 11 p.m. hours from Studio B here in our home’s library.
And as you might expect, much of my eBay activity — buying, anyway — has been focused on supplies and parts for projects here on the farm like the new barn door, the garden, etc. But I have picked up some ham radio stuff, mostly spur-of-the-moment purchases.
HEATHKIT HW-101. I was looking over an eBay auction for a Hot Water 101, and the seller’s write-up advised that the rig received and transmitted, but the output seemed down on some of the bands. On closer examination of the photos, I saw that the rubber band that connects the final tuning control shaft to the adjustable cap in the finals was broken. There’s a good chance the output low on some bands is due to the inability to adjust the final for optimum power out.
I sent a rather lowball offer, and was surprised when the seller jumped on it. The rig arrived a couple of days ago, but is still safely in the box. I’ll need to take it upstairs to Studio C.
MFJ AUTOTUNER. I was browsing the new eBay listings earlier this week and found a new listing for a brand new MFJ autotuner. I’m hoping I can make this tuner work with my station setup in Studio C, that’s the plan. If not, I bought it cheaply enough to resell without losing money.
NORCAL K8FF PADDLE KIT. I have two or three of the K8FF paddles that were built from the 1997 release of kits from the Northern California QRP Club. But I have never seen the actual kit for sale — ever.
From what I’ve read, the kits themselves sold out very quickly when offered for sale by the club. I’ll admit I was surprised to see a seller with a complete but unbuilt K8FF paddle kit for sale on eBay. Interestingly, the Buy It Now price was less than I’ve actually paid for a couple of my completed Norcal paddles.
Will I assemble the kit? Right now I’ll thinking that I won’t assemble it. Its an interesting kit to keep just for its own sake as a code key collectible. And frankly, having used my NORCAL kit keys and the Vibroplex version, the Code Warrior Jr., the Vibroplex version is the much more refined version and a super key to operate.
OTHER EBAY STUFF. I bought a few other odds and ends on eBay … a new multimeter; a Dow Key type T/R switch (for use with my SX-117/HT-44 station); and a DPDT Frankenstein lab-style knife switch.
What the hell do I need a knife switch for, you ask? Because I need an antenna for Studio C, my plan is to use the knife switch to switch my feedlines between Studio B and Studio C. Before I go upstairs to Studio C, I’ll throw the knife switch here at the window sill to switch to the feedline to the shack upstairs. And because I’m using balanced feedlines, a normal coax switch won’t accomplish what I want.
My son was suggesting I get a vintage knife switch for this use, but I ran into problems that prevented me from doing that. The biggest problem is that I couldn’t find a vintage DPDT knife switch; nearly all of the double pole knife switches were single throw, which wasn’t going to do what I wanted to do. I ended up buying a brand new DPDT knife switch that was brand new and never used.
HALLI STATION UPDATE. Well, my HT-44 and PS-150 are still sitting in their shipping containers as received. My SX-117 is here in the library but not plugged it. I’ve decided NOT to set the station up here in the library Studio B, but instead, to put the station together upstairs in Studio C.
Why? Well, Studio C will give me a chance to set the station up and work out any kinks in the setup before I move it to Studio B and depend on it for my nightly CW net check-ins. Assembling the station will take up quite a bit of real estate, and I would like to have time to become reacquainted with the gear. This will be the first time I will be using the HA-1 TO Keyer for a station on the air.
The reality is that Studio B consists of several shelves on a bookcase next to chair here in the corner of the room. It just isn’t a great place to experiment with gear. Once I have it tested and the setup working, then I can swap the gear around.
THE SETUP. Here at Studio B, the station still consists of my Yaesu FT-950 and the MFJ-986 Differential T tuner feeding an inverted vee fed with balanced feedline. My go-to key still is my early production Kent Twin Paddle key (the early production models had bent arms, not straight like later versions of the TP-1). The key is just a solid performer with no slop or extra play; I can adjust it for minimum gap and the action is super smooth.
I have no plans on additional ham gear for now, though if you’ve following this blog for any time at all, you understand that buying ham gear on eBay just kind of “happens” without much planning.
Frankly, there’s some ham gear that still appeals to me when I see it on eBay. Some recent examples include: The National NCX-5 transceiver; the Yaesu FT-990 transceiver; the Globe Scout transmitter; the Johnson Viking /Viking 2 transmitter; the Viking Adventurer transmitter; and of course, the Hallicrafters SX-101A receiver, and the Hallicrafters HT-32A and HT-37. And even the Heathkit DX line of transmitters.
Well, there’s more eBaying to come, including my own listings to clear out my extra stuff!
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