Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021
Tonight’s CW traffic net was brought to you by the North American CW Sprint, which made the 80 meter CW band a chaotic mess of QRM. I was running my Kenwood TS-530S with the Inrad 400 Hz CW filter, and doing my damnedest to copy CW. Shutting off the Noise Blanker improved copy, and I cut back the RF gain. But the signals were so dense that there were at least two other contesters holding court in my bandpass.
But we managed to get 9 or 10 check-ins, which is about the most we get on weekends. Of course, as the net progressed, we ended up having some intentional QRMers adding their crap to the mess.
The sprint is a 4 hour contest, but the band was incredibly crowded and people didn’t seem to get a crap that there was a QSO already in progress on the frequency.
TS-530S UPDATE. I’m really happy with the operation of my TS-530S. It is really stable and the received audio is pleasant. I think I’m going to install the HV caps in the TS-520SE and then list it on eBay.
TEN-TEC PARAGON. In the next couple of days, I’m going to take the TS-530S off the operating desk and try out my Ten Tec Paragon. I’ll compare the newer one to the one I bought earlier and end up deciding which one to keep. And whenever I locate the Ten Tec Omni VI, I’ll check it out and decide which to keep — if any.
I was a fairly new ham when the Ten Tec Paragon was new, and at that time, it was way beyond my means. I always wanted one, and I’m happy to have a chance to enjoy one a couple of decades later.
73 es CUL …. de KY4Z …. SK ….. SK. ….. (dit dit) …..