rants
Sprints and CW nets don’t mix …
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 […]
ham radio
TS-530S shows its chops as a CW rig …
Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021 I finally got my new-to-me Kenwood TS-530S unboxed and in place in Studio C. The radio is in really nice condition — better than advertised. It’s really a nice upgrade from […]
boat ancher
Attic excavation Part 47 … ‘What? Another Hallicrafters?’
Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021 I had a meeting to cover for my news website this morning, but had the afternoon (mostly) free , so a return to the attic was in order. I had spied […]
ham radio
VFO calibration a success! Next on the bench … ??
Feb. 1, 2021 This evening before my CW traffic net, I decided to try to calibrate the Knight V44 VFO I got running again and connected with my Knight T-60 transmitter. There are two trimmer […]
classic radio
How not to change from a 2-wire to 3-wire power cord …
Friday, Jan. 29, 2021 — Several months ago, I bought a Heathkit HP-23 power supply on eBay for a price well worth the money ($60!). The seller noted that he had updated the power supply […]
boat ancher
Transmitter, VFO pairing tests well! Receiver pairing is next …
Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021 Today I had a chance to check out my Knight T-60 paired with my Knight V44 VFO. Each worked separately, but would they work together?? My first mistake was my feedline […]
attic excavation
Shack clean-up brings old school iambic back on the desk …
Monday night, Jan. 25, 2021 After setting my 1936B Mac Key bug aside, I turned back to my venerable old Bencher BY-1. The Bencher is the gold standard of iambic keys, and I have several […]
ham radio
Yaesu FT-77 easy upgrade …
Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021 I recently sold the Yaesu FT-77 I purchased a few months ago after I was able to get the radio’s transmit function restored. I had to make some other changes to […]
boat ancher
Some coax, a surplus FT-243, and thou ….
Thursday night, Jan. 14, 2021 The parts arrived yesterday that allowed me to complete the Knight Kit VFO V44 that I dug out of the attic recently. The VFO looked to be in good shape […]
boat ancher
Fishing for a boat anchor results in a big catch …
Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021 As my small-to-moderately priced items have been selling on eBay since Thanksgiving, I’ve been quietly thinking of my next rig I want to buy. There are a lot of used rigs […]