Monday, Oct. 5, 2020
My need to pack up some items I’ve sold on eBay required me to disconnect the “for parts” IC-756PROII I’ve been using in Studio C for the past week or so. I had to have desk space, and my choice was to either pack up the Icom or disassemble the Heathkit SB-102 station. The Icom was the obvious choice since it was a great deal simpler to disconnect and move.
While working to get the things safely packed, I copied the mail on 40 and 75 meters using the SB-102, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was really impressed by the rig’s stability after it was on and warmed up. And despite the fact it doesn’t currently have a CW filter, the radio is still an enjoyable one to operate.
My plan to add a CW filter to the rig has been delayed; I missed the end of the auction of the one I was watching on eBay; besides, the thing brought more than I really wanted to pay — $75.75. Previous auctions for Heathkit CW filters sold as low as $12 to $30, which is a price that’s more to my liking. I may just remove the filter from one of my existing rigs and replace it once I can find one for sale at a reasonable price. I have an SB-102 and an HW-101 that both have dead receivers, so either of them would qualify as donors.
Using the SB-102 brings me tremendous satisfaction. I love feeling the heat the rig creates, the smell of the hot tubes, and the fun of operating a station that was the reason I was able to get my CW speed from 5 wpm to 13+ wpm, and upgrade to General and then Advanced Class. I operated my original SB-102 with the HD-1410 iambic keyer, which was the path of least resistance in the pre-eBay late 1980s.
Thirty-plus years later, I’m depending on an outboard MFJ CW keyer and one of my Vibroplex Square Racers. I also have one of those all-in-one Bencher clone keys with the CW keyer in a box that attaches to the base of the key (MFJ-422). I have two, one that’s just plan, the other with the fancy rows of momentary contact buttons on top to control the contest keyer, memories and other functions.
The irony is that you can sometimes buy one of these MFJ key/keyer combos for LESS than the cost of a used Bencher key alone. MFJ makes (or made) a very small, relatively inexpensive keyer that I might invest in if I can find one for a good price. The one I’m using — the MFJ-407 — is rather large, and it offers knobs on the front panel that adjust controls that you only really need to set once, like sidetone frequency and weight. I’ve even considered using a keyboard keyer.
MICROCRAFT KEYBOARD REPAIR. I have ordered a number of logic chips that I plan to put in the Microcraft CW keyboard to see if I can eliminate its tendency to repeat certain characters. The ICs are inexpensive, and I ordered replacements for nearly every IC in the keyboard — fortunately, all of the ICs are mounted in sockets. Yeah, its kind of a shotgun approach, but I’m convinced the odds are likely the problem is an IC. Given the fact the 30-year-old keyboard must have worked when new rules out a wiring error or solder bridge. I’ll provide an update on my efforts.
One addendum to the Microcraft CW keyboard: The manual I purchased from Vintage Manuals notes that the company added additional bracing to the keyboard they use to make them more rigid. It was a good move; the previous Microcraft unit I owned lacked the additional support, and the middle of the keyboard felt spongy and weak. I was always concerned that the “give” in the keyboard might cause me to send double characters.
One interesting fact from the owner’s manual — the type-ahead buffer is limited to 16 characters, so if you’re sending fast CW, you could wind up out typing the buffer! Fortunately for me, I’m not a high-speed op!
73 es CUL …. de KY4Z SK … SK …. (dit dit) …