Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020
On my radio show this morning, we honored our nation’s veterans and we had a guest, a local pastor who was a 28-year U.S. Army veteran and a chaplain. He served in Desert Storm, and was in Iraq when they held their first free elections, which was a nice tie in with all the debate by over last week’s General Election.
Today also marked my return to cardiopulmonary rehab at the regional hospital in the next county — a place I last went in March 2020. After a 9-day hospitalization in August 2019, I needed to get into the program and build back my endurance and stamina, which I was able to accomplish over the following six months.
I was scheduled to go to rehab on Monday, but over the weekend I cracked my knee on the edge of our bathroom door, causing a painful flare up of bursitis. Ice and rest helped a great deal, and my rehab workout went off without a hitch today.
ANOTHER SB-102?? Yep! A couple of nights ago I ran across a completely redone SB-102 that was refurbished by ham who is a collector and fan of vintage gear. I thought about it for a day or so, then after contacting the seller with some questions, I pulled the trigger on the rig. I decided to pull the money from my radio fund, which had built up slowly since my eBay sales have gotten down to small items.
Chances are that I’m probably going to sell the other SB-102s, though the one I’m using is a fine performer and will probably be a keeper.
Speaking of Heathkits, I have a couple of HP-23s to look at. One of them is the original HP-23 that originally had the fuses in the line cord plug. This one had a 3-wire grounded plug installed — but the change did not add any fuse or circuit breaker protection! I purchased a suitable panel mount circuit breaker to install in the supply to protect me and the supply.
I have a second HP-23 supply that was modified to power the National NCX-200 I sold earlier this year on eBay. That supply has been modified so it supplies the proper bias voltage for the National rig; there’s a resistor network that was cobbled together and installed in the supply. My hope is to remove the extra parts and return the supply to its original function.
Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020
I’m going to spend time tonight in the main shack … due to the Veterans Day holiday, it looks like everything I’ve purchased in the past week is at a freaking standstill. The SB-102 I purchased is coming by UPS Brown Camel, I think, its at least 2 weeks away from being delivered. About the same with the keys I bought.
The SB-102 I bought doesn’t have the CW filter in it, so I’m planning to wait until I check out the new one, I expect that I’ll install the CW filter in the new one and then look for a second CW filter for the other one … or I may just see if one of my remaining rigs has a filter. The one that I have apart to reassemble the vfo knob doesn’t have one, but I have at least one other SB-102 to check.
Due to my bum knee, I’m still operating in the main shack rather than climbing the stairs to Studio C. My operating position here in the library is currently off the air; I sold the Yaesu FT-950 I had here and haven’t moved another rig in its place. And worse yet, during a recent thunderstorm, our chicken-shit dog tried to get behind my office chair here in the corner so he could hide from the thunder; in the process, he got tangled up in all the feedlines and cables I had for the rigs, power supplies and antenna tuner. He got tangled up and then panicked, and all of that equipment was pulled off the bookshelves and onto the floor. I was ready to kill me a dog, trust me.
The antenna tuner is one of the MFJ-962 Differential T tuners; my only complaint with that tuner is how damned DEEP it is … its deeper than the bookcase shelf, so until I can cut the back panel of the bookcase, it hangs well over the front edge of the shelf. I’m seriously considering bringing down a smaller tuner — an MFJ 941E or an MFJ-949 tuner — that will take up less space and not be the pain in the butt to fit in place.
Right now, in the main shack and Studio C, I’m running Heathkit SA-2060 tuners. The one in the main shack is in primo condition; the one I’m using upstairs had the antenna switching and metering circuitry removed; therefore I use an inline SWR meter to insure that I’m tuned correctly. The tuner works great by the way.
I have TWO of the Differential T tuners, so I would like to replace the tuner in the main shack as well as the one in Studio C. There are differing opinions of how well these work; some critics suggest they won’t cover a sufficiently wide range of matches. If that’s the case, I would rather know I can’t find a match, than have a tuner that *appears* to provide a match when in reality, half of my RF is being dissipated as heat.
I plan to wait to change the main shack tuner until I get read to install my FTDX101MP station, which is why I need to get back on cleaning up the shack!
73 es CUL … de KY4Z …. SK … SK … (dit dit) …