Sunday, April 11, 2021 — For months now, the only signals emanating from Studio C have been CW signals. Well this weekend, that changed. Sometime back I ordered an inexpensive CW quality mic that was wired for the 4-pin Ten Tec rigs. During this past weekend’s Georgia QSO party, I had a chance to give the mic a test, and it performed just fine. No, no, not a high quality audio signal, but communications grade, which is all I needed. I also want to wire up one of my D-104 mics for use on the Kenwood TS-530S.
Friday, April 2, 2021 — Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose — and in my last eBay project, I appear to have come out with the short end of the stick.
I bought a pair of MFJ keyers sold as “not working” by a seller who professed not knowing how they operated. Well, the seller apparently knew more than he or she let on — the keyers weren’t just being misoperated, but they are actually broken.
Can they be repaired? The MFJ-406 is the early version that uses one of the early Curtiss CW keyer chips — yeah, the one no longer available. While I don’t know that the chip is the issue, its the only logic device on the PC board. There’s a couple of transistors and other discrete components. Not sure where to start; nothing looks broken or burned.
The other keyer is the MFJ-482 Grandmaster memory keyer, and it also has problems. It has a lot of additional ICs due to its memory functions. Of course, finding a schematic for these older units is another challenge all its own.
But on the bright side, I’ve got some good chassis and parts for a future project — or I may just sell them on eBay.
73 es CUL … de KY4Z … SK SK …. (dit dit) ….