Are people changing?

Rick Denney · Post by **Rick Denney** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:05 am

snorlax wrote:Right now I fire up (literally) a Johnson Viking Valiant and a Hammarlund HQ-100 whenever "boatanchor night" is.

I love the smell of melting grid plates in the morning.

I'm not going the boat anchor direction. I have scrounged a Kenwood TS-430S for HF, a Heil boomset with foot pedal, a G5RV wire antenna and an LDG tuner. I might get a good deal someday on a boat-anchorish amp, like, say, a Heathkit SB-201, but the new amps aren't really any more modern.

I'm using the G4FON software to teach myself code, and it teaches you at full speed (20 WPM 15 Farnsworth). So far, I know K, R and M really, really well, but my handwriting is not up to the task. -.- -.- -- -- -.- .-. -- ad infinitum. I bought a set of paddles (an MFJ Bencher knockoff that I had to re-engineer), and I'm building a keyer for them. So far, I can send "CQ CQ CQ CQ KR9D CQ CQ CQ" real fast, but then there is that famous old rule:

Do Not Send Faster Than You Can Receive

I never really understood that until now.

But then, to make DX contacts, just about all I need to do is read the other guy's call sign (or read it off the DX cluster) and recognize when he's repeated my call back and given me a signal report: -.- .-. ----. -.. / ..... .- .- / --... ...--

But if he says anything else, I'm lost.

Rick "--... ...--" Denney

SplatterTone · Post by **SplatterTone** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:14 am

OK you ham guys. If you keep this up, I'm going to have to get out the Icom 751a that hasn't been turned on in years. For antenna, the 40 mtr. inverted V, with a tuner for other bands, is tough to beat for effective simplicity on everything except 160 mtr band. Since I rarely worked anything but CW, I was usually on 40 mtr.

If I ever get with the program again, I might take the lazy route and go with a multi-band vertical out in the yard. For a while, I had nothing but a 10 mtr Ringo and used a tuner for everything down to 80 mtr. The Heath SB-1000 (kit form of an Ameritron AL-80) helped overcome the antenna's limitations. When I took the Ringo down, the plastic in the connector was partially melted.

I have a few Hammarlund receivers and, my favorite, a National 183. But I'm afraid to power them on now. No telling what kind of shape the filter capacitors are in. I also have a Globe King which will require some restoration ... if you come across somebody with more money than good sense.

Also a few Heath transceivers in various levels of condition. The HW-16 I built in high school stays with me till I die.

Chuck(G) · Post by **Chuck(G)** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 2:21 am

SplatterTone wrote:I have a few Hammarlund receivers and, my favorite, a National 183. But I'm afraid to power them on now. No telling what kind of shape the filter capacitors are in.

Get a Variac, wire a 100W lamp in series with the line to serve as a ballast, set the variac to about 20 volts to start with and gradually crank the voltage up over a few hours. The electrolytic caps that haven't completely dried out will reform. I have a surplus receiver that saw shipboard duty in Okinawa in 1945 hooked up to an old Western Electric power supply. It still works fine after all these years.

Rick Denney · Post by **Rick Denney** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 2:36 am

bloke wrote:to Rick Denney: Jerry Griffith

and sold to: neither of those you mentioned

He appears to have moved to Florida. His call is K4BHS, if I've found the right guy. There are several Gerald Griffiths, but only a couple with a call in 4-land. The other one is on the other end of Tennessee.

The guy you sold the antenna to must not live in your zip code.

Yes, there is a website that will pinpoint on a map all the ham radio operators in the FCC database in a given zip code.

Rick "who found him in a 1993 call book, living in Collierville" Denney

Rick Denney · Post by **Rick Denney** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 2:41 am

SplatterTone wrote:The Heath SB-1000 (kit form of an Ameritron AL-80) helped overcome the antenna's limitations.

As Chuck mentioned, the power-supply caps in the old receivers might still be good. A variac is a required tool for someone interested in boat anchors.

But if you decide to get rid of the SB-1000, give me first shot at it.

Rick "who wishes amp kits were still available" Denney

Rick Denney · Post by **Rick Denney** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 3:34 am

bloke wrote:probably 38053

Too many in that neighborhood to guess. There were only three in yours.

Rick "thinking ham operators are denser on the ground than tuba players" Denney

SplatterTone · Post by **SplatterTone** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 7:47 pm

Wanna trade a Hammarlund or National for some euphonium mouthpieces or sell a couple of 'em??

As the saying goes: Everything is for sale.

"One of these days" I really have to drag all that crap out, snap some photos of it and move it out. It's difficult to part with old toys, but I haven't had that stuff out for so long it's time to admit that I'm probably not going to play with them any more. I used to goof around with a manual send/receive switch to use them for CW reception. Most them are drifty for CW reception, so you have to write with one hand and constantly adjust the bandspread with the other hand; plus the bandpass is too wide if the band is busy.

I have probably forgotten some of the stuff. Besides the National 183D, there are:
Two Hammarlund HQ-129. A mediocre receiver.
Hammarlund HQ-160 or 170 (can't remember, probably 160)
Hallicrafters SX-111.
Hallicrafters HT 32B transmitter.
A cutey pie Gonset G66 (might have the matching transmitter, not sure)
Some kind of Swan transceiver.
And ...
(oooh aaaah) ...
RME-45 in very good condition (cosmetic, at least).

Then there is the usual collection of mundane junk like: Heath HW-101, DX-60, DX-this and that, Eico garbage, Knight garbage, Hallicrafters garbage, stuff I've forgotten about, test equipment -- one piece of which is an big, ancient Hewlett Packard thing using tubes with exposed heaters (i.e. directly heated cathodes). The old WWII frequency calibraters are actually pretty good. A homebrew 1KW AM transmitter (nice job too) a widow wanted out of her house. I about busted a gut getting the power supplies, and that was back when I did steroids and could dead lift over 600 lbs. I doubt I could lift them now.

The receiver I used the most was the SX-111. It is the most modern and had the best stability. I don't know what 40 mtr. CW is like now, but 15 - 20 years ago, it was busy in the evenings and difficult to work without a stable receiver and a narrow bandpass -- preferrably, crystal filters.

It's amazing how big (HUGE!) and heavy this old stuff is. You quickly learn NEVER to touch the radio and any grounded piece of metal simultaneously. Although, back in their day, they were probably considered to be decent receivers, by today's standards (or even standards 30 years ago), they suck.

Then, there is the typewriter collection.

Rick Denney · Post by **Rick Denney** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:34 pm

SplatterTone wrote:I don't know what 40 mtr. CW is like now, but 15 - 20 years ago, it was busy in the evenings and difficult to work without a stable receiver and a narrow bandpass -- preferrably, crystal filters.

The newest equipment uses digital signal processing in the imtermediate frequency stage to shape the bandpass. It works really well.

Even with SSB, you need to be able to narrow the bandpass on 40, especially during a contest. Otherwise, you are always trying to tune the SSB voice in the middle of the AM shortwave broadcast. And during contest, you'll find your screen name highly descriptive as contest CQers try to stack themselves 2.5 kHz apart.l I don't yet do CW, but I bought the narrow SSB filter for my older Kenwood. It helps a lot, but I am impressed by the DSP IF filtration in the newest rigs.

Rick "who likes old stuff only to go back far enough to get knobs rather than menus" Denney