Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2021
We’ve finally dug out of an ice storm that shut things down for a day or two; of course, its February in the Ohio Valley, and true to form, we have a Winter Storm Warning from now until Tuesday night. Our area is the prime target, and could wind up with 8 inches of snow.
Now for you folks who live well north of the Ohio River, an 8-inch snow isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, south of the Ohio, we don’t get many 8-inch snows. Our local governments don’t keep enough equipment on hand to deal with very many snows that deep (or deeper). What it means is that that much snow will shut us down a day or so; the state highway department will get the state roads clear, but side roads and back roads won’t get clear very quickly.
At least there’s no ice in the forecast, which means we probably won’t lose power. I’ve always got ham radio to keep me busy, hi hi!
HALLICRAFTERS CYCLONE UPDATE. I have thoroughly enjoyed my Hallicrafters Cyclone SR-400 transceiver since it arrived. The radio is just as minty as promised; the cabinet for the radio and power supply were powder coated the correct shade of gray, and they look fabulous. The front panel is perfect.
Among my observations is that the radio takes a minimum of 30 minutes to stabilize the drift. Among the manuals I received, there’s notes from a technician who serviced the radio 5 years ago.
Its a joy to listen to, and it puts out the snot on transmit. One hiccup to report, however; when you select CW mode, the radio goes into transmit automatically without touching the key. I’m not sure why yet, but you can even hear the 800 Hz sidetone being generated.
I’m sure the radio isn’t supposed to switch into transmit that way, so something is pulling the keying line to ground somewhere along the way. I have not done any troubleshooting on it yet, but I’m looking over the schematic to look for possible reasons why. Could be something simple.
HALLICRAFTERS PS-150 UPDATE. In the process of unboxing stuff I’ve been dragging out of the attic, I unboxed a nice looking PS-150 power supply that goes with the SR-150 and SR-160 rigs. But what I didn’t notice at first is that the power cord was cut off.
I took the supply out of the case, and all the components are there and look original. I will probably replace the missing power cable and give the supply a try. I also ordered a recap kit from Hayseed Hamfest. The kit will replace all the electrolytics in the supply. If it works OK after replacing the cord, I may leave it be; otherwise, I’ll replace all the caps.
This particular power supply isn’t the one I used to check out that very clean SR-150 I was looking over — the one without receive.
SPEAKING OF PS-150 … I have a Hallicrafters HT-44 transmitter that’s partly unboxed; its still wrapped in bubblewrap. A couple of nights ago, I unboxed what turned out to be the power supply that came with it — yes, a third Hallicrafters PS-150. Yikes!
I have the matching SX-117 receiver to go with the radio, and my plan (still) is to set this station up … (sometime).
73 es CUL …. de KY4Z …. SK …. SK …. (dit dit) …