ham radio tubists

[Steve Marcus]

I was WN3SEV in high school (call letters that were assigned in order of application just missed my initials--SEM). Novice tickets entitled the budding ham radio operator to operate only code--no voice at that time. I recall that the minimum for Novice code recognition was 5 wpm. For General: 13 wpm.

I studied for the General license but never took the test. Got busy with other things and never went back to ham radio.

Sold my Heathkit HW-16 transceiver.

[TubaSchnaidt]

de KJ0M
active DXer

[opus37]

KB0JDJ I am not very active most SSB phone. I have a yaseau 990 set up with verticle.

[SplatterTone]

Sold my Heathkit HW-16 transceiver.

Still got mine. Built in high school ... just a li'l while back in the early 70s. I screwed around about learning code for a long time. I eventually wrote a little random code practice program for the Commode Vic20 where it would do a Morse code letter and wait for you to type the correct letter. I did the Novice and Technician license test first. The Tech class got me a great call for CW: N5NAD (try it). The following month, I did the General and Advanced. Getting up to the 20wpm code for Extra class took a while -- a few months. But I kept the Tech 1X3 call because it's so good on CW. That was all back in the late 80s. I was active on predominantly 40m CW until moving about 16 years ago. I have not gotten around to setting up a new station. No telling when that will happen. If I ever do, I suspect getting back into CW will be a chore. I don't know when, but the Icom 751A with narrow xtal filters might ride again some day.

I built a Knight Kit Star roamer in eighth grade. My last kit build was a Heath SB 1000, which was a essentially kit version of the Ameritron AL-80A. I also built the QSK board for it. But a component in it failed when I was running it on 160m through a tuner into a 10m Ringo. Oh, do you think there might have been just a little stray RF in the room at the time?

[SplatterTone]

I got a Kenwood TS-520.

A 520 was my first solid-state rig, but having to retune the 6146 tube final every time the frequency was changed got old. So I sold it and got the 751. If I ever get back into it, I'd like to compare the latest DSP to old-timey narrow xtal filters. I have a feeling that CW activity is down to where narrow filters are no longer necessary -- just a guess, but don't know for a fact.

Was the component that failed in your kit the final?

Only a component on the QSK board. I took the board out reverting the amp to a plain, non-QSK. After using QSK for a while, I saw no significant benefit to it. I have never had somebody want to interrupt me while I was sending. It's one of those things that look beneficial in theory, but doesn't turn out to be in actual practice.

[The Big Ben]

KB7AIL I do mainly PSK31 on 20. Using an Icom-746 First Edition. Would take a lot of money to have something better. I have 144 and 432 all-mode and would love to do 220 FM again but the adherents to it in my area have disappeared.

I, too, have a Kenwood 520 but it is a "D" model intended to be used in Japan. The owners manual is in Japanese but, according to a tech I had change the tubes and align/neutralize it, the circuit is the same. For a long time, I wanted a Collins KW2A then someone on the Collins list told me that Collins designed the 520 as a replacement for the KW2A but sold the basic circuit design to Kenwood who offered it as the TS-520. If the Collins KW2A wasn't going to be better than the 520, I was not going to pay the cost of a Collins.