Sunday night, Jan. 3, 2021

I suppose I’m setting eBay Buy It Now prices too low — I sold both HF rigs this weekend that I listed on Friday. Not complaining, mind you!

I’m trying to get rid of my surplus rigs, particularly the Heathkit SB-102s I’ve amassed in the past 20 years. I’ve sold three and still have three to go, plus the restored one I bought and still have in the box.

My plan was to keep two working SB-102s; operate one and keep the second as back up. Well, I unboxed one of my surplus SB-102s yesterday, and lo and behold, I found I had a mint condition SB-102 that worked perfectly — complete with the optional 400 Hz CW filter installed. In fact, this new one may be better than the other two working SB-102s I have been operating! And that doesn’t include the restored one still in the box. So it looks like I’m going to wind up selling at least one of the remaining ones until I can see which of the remaining ones are the cream of the crop.

This is a 1936A Mac Key with a solid “U” bar connector from front to back, and brass lever and pivots. The nameplate is the later aluminum; the earliest 1936A keys had brass nameplates.

YAESU SWAP-A-ROO. I’ve been operating mostly one of my Yaesu FT-757GX rigs the past couple of months. This one isn’t the one that was given to me by my friend K4EEF (SK). Well, I decided to pack up the rig I was using and then use K4EEF’s Yaesu FT-757GX. Ed’s rig works well too, though the display reads about 100 Hz low. I need to break out the service manual and some test equipment and adjust that.

The MAC-KEY is equipped with a thin dot stabilizer that may have come from a later 1938B Mac-Key.

EBAY PACKING. I have two rigs to ship out early this week — one of my SB-102s and the Yaesu FT-77 transceiver. I ran out of packing peanuts, so I’ll have to take care of that tomorrow.

For the past week or so, my key of choice has been my 1936A MAC KEY seen above. I’ll admit that I’m adding my homebrew “tamer” which clips on the weight set screw to slow the pendulum action a little bit. The action of the key is smooth, and while not as perfect code as the keyer in the FT-757GX, its much more enjoyable to send.

Well, more to come soon enough, that’s enough for tonight.

73 es CUL … de KY4z … SK … SK …. (dit dit) ….