On Jul 14, 6:02?pm, (Michael Black) wrote:
) writes:
a junker Tempo One, which is
actually a Yaesu FT-200. All you need from it is the VFO assembly,
which covers the same range as the Heath LMO - 5 to 5.5 MHz.

If you're going to start doing that, then any external VFO that covers
5 to 5.5MHz is a potential candidate.

Agreed, but the idea (which I didn't state very clearly) is that you
put the Tempo One VFO *inside* the Heath rig, so it's still one-box.

If you're willing to do the external-VFO thing, just mount the LMO in
an external box and make a nice dial drive for it, plus the digital
readout.

Or build an external vfo with that variable capacitor from the BC-221
that's been lying around for decades, and put a frequency counter
in the box.

Or a mechanical dial. I've done that for homebrew rigs.

That's not even a new idea, there were things like that
over thirty years ago when digital ICs became cheap enough to easily
make frequency counters.

I made one in 1975. But it's a lot more than just a counter.

For one thing, the VFO frequency isn't the signal frequency. But the
big deal is that, in the Heathkits, the VFO tunes the wrong way (5 is
the high end of the band and 5.5 is the low end). Both are solved by
use of a presettable down-counter.

This thing will then work with any rig that needs a 5MHz VFO, and has
the advantage of not requiring dramatic changes to the rig. Many
will even have things in place for an external VFO.

Agreed. But if you want a one-box tube transceiver, and you happen
across a junker Tempo One with a good VFO, the result could be pretty
sweet without all the work of building a stable VFO.

73 de Jim, N2EY