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Old October 14th 09, 08:41 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.moderated
[email protected] N2EY@AOL.COM is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 877
Default What's your station?

Well, let's see....

The main rig is a homebrew 80/40/20 CW transceiver of my own design,
built in the early 1990s and still going strong. It consists of a 12
tube single conversion receiver, an external 1 tube audio amp for
driving a speaker, a 2 tube transceive adapter that converts the
receiver VFO to the transmit frequency, and a 3 tube transmitter
section that ends up in a pair of 807s. There are two power supplies,
one for the low-level stages (one rectifier, two VR tubes) and one for
the transmitter section (four rectifiers, four VR tubes, one time-
delay relay and three control relays). The receiver has two cascaded 8
pole crystal filters and an LC audio filter, and the VFO is built
around the capacitor from a BC-221. There is also a homebrew Universal
Transmatch which has an internal SWR bridge and permits selection of
different rigs and antennas.

The entire assembly is known as the Southgate Type 7. Only a few
crystals and the solder for it were bought new, everything else was
NOS, used, or recovered from old gear.

The antenna system is a homebrew 80/40 W3DZZ-inspired inverted V which
uses N4UU-style coax-cable-on-PVC traps. Center at about 37 feet, ends
at about 12-15 feet. Fed with RG-8X, no balun. Adjusted for near-unity
SWR on 3540 and 7040, less than 3:1 on 20.

I have five Morse Code keys: four Vibroplex bugs (two Original
Standard, one Lightning Bug, one Champion) and a WW2 J-37.

The clock is a Telechron mechanical digital clock made from the parts
of several junkers. The speaker box, op desk, equipment shelves and
almost all shack/shop furniture are homebrew. The chair was found
alongside a dumpster.

There is currently no shack computer but one is being assembled from
the parts of discarded PCs. It will run Win98SE and be used mostly for
contest logging.

Also have an Elecraft K2 which is hooked up and used occasionally
(built it from a kit in 2001) and a Heath HW-2036 (built from a kit in
1977) a BC-342N used for general coverage ($2 back in the mid-1980s)
and an LM-20 frequency meter.

Several predecessors of the Type 7 are in storage as backups. Others
were dismantled years ago for the parts.

There's also the library, the shop, and the parts inventory, but you
didn't ask about those.

73 de Jim, N2EY