Heathkits still on the air
About a week ago, I worked KA7U, who was operating a set of “Heathkit Twins,” a combination of the SB-300 receiver and the SB-400 transmitter. It sounded pretty good, too!
My very next contact was with VE3AIA. He was running the DX-60B transmitter (with HG-10 VFO) and an HR-10 receiver, shown at right.
These old Heathkits keep plugging along. Maybe one day I’ll get my HW-101 back on the air. :)
Chirp, chirp chirp
On Saturday, I heard a guy calling CQ whose signal had some serious chirp. As you can see from the screenshot at right, instead of a nice straight display on the waterfall, his transmit frequency varied by several hundred Hz.
At first, I wasn’t going to work him, but I thought that he might want to know about his signal, so I gave him a call. As it turns out, he was using a homebrew transmitter that consisted of a couple of Type 27 tubes. The circuit was basically a Hartley oscillator, with the two tubes connected in parallel for increased power output. My contact was guessing that he was running about 5 W output.
I hope he does get his chirp problem under control, but he should get points for homebrewing the thing in the first place, shouldn’t he?
DX QRM
Yesterday, I called CQ on 7028 kHz, a fellow returned my call, and we proceeded to have a chat. Shortly after, an LZ1 station pops up on frequency and begins to call CQ himself. No problem, my friend says, and suggests we QSY to 7024 kHz.
So, we get down there and start chatting again, when another DX station pops up on frequency and starts calling CQ, completely oblivious to our complaints that the frequency was already in use. It was about time to end the contact, anyway, and we’ve since corresponded by email, but it was a little annoying. I guess, though, that I should be glad that propagation was good enough to hear the DX stations at all.
Rob says
I’ve got to say, working CW on a 1929 design state-of-the-art tube rig is mighty cool.