Kitchen appliance box provided a neat RF surprise …

Monday, Dec. 28, 2020

After shipping out a couple of items sold recently on eBay — and starting to pack up an SB-102 — I had time to take a dive back into the main attic to see what else I can dig up.

This time, I ran across a box that I thought was some sort of home appliance. It wasn’t until I saw it had a UPS label on one side that I realized it contained some sort of raio equipment.

The rig in question was a Knight T-60 transmitter that, according to the label, I purchased in 2004.

The transmitter was marketed by Knight in the early 1960s as a kit. The transmitter came out of the box well packed and in excellent looking condition, and came with one crystal and a photocopy of the manual.

I checked out the operating manual and decided to hook up a dummy load and check the transmitter’s operation. The tubes lit and I plugged in a 3550 crystal. I didn’t have a wattmeter hooked up, but the transmitter did load up. I was monitoring the signal on my FT-757GX, and the rig’s output was clean and steady. I only wish I had a VFO for it!

I only have three crystals, and from what I could tell, the 40 meter crystal did not oscillate. But this was just a very preliminary test of the transmitter — more testing to come.

And while I was getting the T-60 out of the attic, I ran across the SX-101A receiver; it would make a nice pair, eh?

73 es CUL … de KY4Z … SK … SK …. (dit dit)