Chipswitch IC

Recently I've obtained a Chipswitch IC over here in the states, its NOS and the price was good, I intend to install this into my Uniden 2830 with the main goal of getting it onto 12 meters as well as 10, the chip itself has a number of useful features which make it worth installing.

The chip is no longer in production sadly, so I'm rather pleased to have obtained one, I really don't know why I never got one back in the 90's.

Fox Tango One Oh One

I've had a hankering for a valved radio for a while now, I've been keeping my eye on various radios Kenwood hybrids, Yaesu rigs, KW-2000B etc, anyway this old radio presented itself at a good price physically it was in good condition, it was sold as spare/repair for 105 usd I thought why not?

On arrival I swapped out the HV caps before attempting to power it up, the item was as described no RX no TX, no glow from the valves, the 25/100kc marker was not creating a signal either.

Following on from the HV capacitors I changed all the electrolyte capacitors in the distribution board, this took the tube heaters back up, PROGRESS!

Next step was to get RX, this is where it got confusing for a moment, the radio is a early FT-101 pre 25k serial, but many of the boards were transplanted sometime ago to later boards, anyway to cut a long story short, I continued the theme of changing el. caps this time in the audio board, this took the radio back to life, both RX and TX are now going! so much for a winter project! 

So I'm rather pleased, finally a real radio on my desk here in Denver, I have a TS-480HX which is a great rig, but the 101 feels right, I had a 101Z and a 101B years ago the Z gave good service, the B was part of a trade.

Anyway I'll just need to realign the radio, and install WARC bands into it, the plan is to use the 11 meter position for 12 meters, the WVV xtal will be jumpered to 20/40 band selector for TX on 30 meters and the AUX band switch will be filled with a 17 meter xtal jumpered to the 15 meter tuning gear

Errr

Again a lack of updates, been busy working etc, and I never really had much to blog about on the ham front.

I recently obtained a 1919/20 Blue Racer unusually this key has a T bar damper and not the normal U damper found on most Blue Racers of this era, Its got a lovely feel to it also.

Whatelse ham radio wise? well a couple more bugs have been obtained, also ordered a new band module for my Elecraft K1 it currently has 40 and 30 meters, I've ordered 17 and 15 meters, but I may convert the 15 meter band to 12 meters during build (unsure) Also ordered up the internal battery kit for the K1

Plans are inhand to put up a website with my key collection at some stage soon.

Bug *ered

Just going through some photos of bugs I own, and I came across this sorry state, I got it on ebay a few months back for peanuts, but its in pretty bad shape, and hardly worth the effort to restore it, none the less I will, but not to original spec. I intend to paint it British Racing Green, and lacquer the heck out of it, yes the main spring is bust, but it can be replaced.
Something for the winter.

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1920 Vibroplex with T style damper

Recently won this bug on Ebay, one of my few rare wins of recent, the main spring in this bug has been messed up also and repaired badly, intention is to replace the main spring the paint work won't be touched!

FT-847 gets ears for 4 meters.

I decided to carry out the PA1O mod for 4 meters and also install the CT1FFU preamp board, The preamp board was a very easy install.

The PA1O mod was also pretty simple and very rewarding the power is up at 85 watts now from 15 or so, It did take a bit of rummaging through the radio to get to the board to carryout the modification, once you get to the board its a case of desoldering a capacitor and thats it.
well sort of if your 847 has some transistor for controlling the ALC level on 4 (as i understand) you'll need to cut a leg off from it, mine had this transistor.

The HF and 4/6 meter final board at the top of the picture

Digging!!


During the installation of the CT1FFU preamp.

The CT1FFU board installed, its in a far more accessible location than the Power modification, I opted to attach the red + to a track that was more accessable than the one suggested (its not attached in the photo yet).
GM0USI Alan who lives close by has a 847 with a different preamp board and a different power mod. the plan is to get the radios side by side at some point and compare.

Electro Voice 638 *FAIL*

Tonight was bored and tried to wire up a impedance transformer into an old Electro Voice 638 50K ohm hi-Z microphone, while I got it physically inside without having to damage anything, the dang thing just does not work so good on the air, need to investigate further!

Uniden 2830 repaired

Earlier on in the year I took my Uniden 2830 out and plugged it in, No audio, confirmed the audio ic was fine and the main IC was opening squelch etc etc changed a few capacitors in the audio section and nothing, anyway I got busy with other stuff and the 2830 was left, yesterday evening 10 meters opened up briefly with sporadic E propagation into Southern UK and North Europe, well this spurred me on and last night I revisited the circit diagram for the 2830, this morning I plonked it back down on the desk, replaced a capacitor that may have been holding the squelch, bang hey prestor the 2830 is working!
Looking forward to working a few Sp. Es on it.

I've had this radio since I was around 13 years old, so its nice to see the old girl going again.





A while back I obtained a Turner 22X microphone head casing, It had been painted badly, anyway it polished up good, but was still useless as it had no internals, So! today I put a Heil HC-5 microphone element into the old beast, and mated the head up with an Electro Voice PTT microphone stand.






Quite a productive day Ham radio wise :-)

Oops

Seems I've let my blog die, well I've been off the air, busy with other stuff, good stuff coming soon............. !

Made it home.

Well I got back across the pond with no drama, I must say the Airlines have done a good job of getting things moving again after the Volcanic ash issues, of course stopping ALL flights was bit of a knee jerk reaction anyway.



I took a couple of bugs back across with me :-)




A World war II era Blue racer deluxe with unchromed base (due to the ongoing war) and a TAC bug which I rather like, Apparently TAC was some company the famous TR McElroy had a interest in.
Bug feels nice, looks nice, and sits very well.

Back to Europe? maybe..

Tomorrow I'm due to fly back to UK then next week to Belgium for a Seafood show, however this is looking not so likely with this Airline nonsense, I decided to put the bits onto the Standard key for safe keeping and good order, here are a couple of pictures of the result, I've not polished the gear up yet.


Okay I had a huge dilemma regarding the pinstrips, to go with the placement I found under the green paint, or to go with the placement of the pinstrips normally found on Standard Radio keys that feature them.

In the end I decided to go with the placement normally found on these bugs, as the strips on mine might not have been original anyway, and I preferred the over all look of the strips further in.

Fred KT5X gave me the placement offset so I must thank him for that and all the input he has given me, highly appreciated!




Also a couple of pictures of the Lefty VP original that I got via ebay, it had its components mounted upside down to make it function Right handed and was a mess covered in some shitty blueish paint, I did not realise it was a Lefty, It had no plate but it appears to be pre 1940 most likely somewhere in the 30's.
I got it for parts, and the only reason I restored the base was as a test bed for the Standard key, I started the standard well before this, actually I think its good working with 2 keys, gives you something to do when the other is drying etc, I have no plans to restore it any further unless for some reason I run into components for it.

During removal of the awful paint.

After.

Standard Radio Bug

Pin stripes applied.

Callsign issued

So this afternoon the FCC issued me with a General class callsign KDØLEJ.
It should do me okay till I sit the Extra class, Just paid a visit to 17 meter put out a few CQs but the band is not in great shape.

Well the Standard Radio key is shaping up nicely, the odd setback now and again but I hope it turns out good, pictures to follow.

I forgot to mention, But on the 10th of April I sat my US Ham ticket, Passed the Technican and the General and I'm now awaiting a US callsign, maybe try the Extra, It would need a bit of study however.

73's

2nd gloss topcoat

Second top coat into the Standard Radio Bug


Standard Radio Bug on the left
Some old VP that was in rather poor shape, on the right, in early primer stages.

Standard Radio Bug

Couple of pictures on the base of the Standard Bug, I expected the bug to have been originally army colour green as some of these bugs are.

However it appears its actually black with pinstripes.

Above it can be seen where I've scraped of the green the placement of the pinstrips.

Sanded down, ready for priming up

After a few coats of primer its coming together.

Zephyr

So far so good, need to get its running gear polished up sometime.

One month since last post

Well I keep meaning to post something, and I've let a whole month, I've started on the Standard Radio key, It appears it was originally black with gold pin stripes, this is good enough for me, I've gotten most of the paint removed from the plastic finger pieces, but the mainspring is a right mess, but can be repaired.

Photos to follow........... sometime :-)

73's

Mizuho MX-28S

So I've had this idea, I have a few bits of HAM radio gear that I consider interesting, I'm sure some other people will also (I'm equally sure others will find it boring) So I've decided publish a few pictures and comments on my blog.

First up is a Mizuho MX-28S I've had this radio for around 13 years or so now, Its a crystal controlled 10 meter hand held, output 2 watt, Mizuho made a series of these radios for different bands, info can be googled.

Here are a few pictures of mine.

Sports a real S meter! the 1000MP does not even have that :-)

The two cystals can be seen in above picture on the Right side, they can be changed to various sections of 10 meters giving 50khz per crystal.
Batterys go in round the back 6 1.5V AA cells or 7 rechargable cells.

10 meters is often closed so with a monoband radio having a pack of cards close by is essential! :-)

If anyone has a MX-24S or a MX-18S they would like to sell, please contact me!

Puxing PX-888

Towards the end of last week I got a Puxing PX-888 from Hong Kong sourced new via Ebay, cost about 40 sheets of queens money.

I've had a play about with it, and it seems to work fine, and at that price its damn good value, Its no Kenwood or Yaesu but nor is the price tag.

Box looks nice! So far so good!

The radio covers the 2 meter band plus some (a 70cm version exists also) has repeater offset, ctcss, DTMF, scrambler (voice inverter?) and some other "features" that you'd expect for 2 meter operations.

It also has some highly impressive features that I'll demonstrate below :-D

As you can see the light colour can be changed :-D

It also has a voice feature, you press a button and it attempts to communicate with you!
I'll upload a mp3 of this at some point for entertainment.

Conclution: its a budget radio, but its simplicity and price do bring a smile to my face,

First post

Okay well blogs seem to be the way to go at the moment, at least for getting stuff online with minimum effort.
I'm not expecting to be updating this daily or weekly even, but I will try to avoid it becoming another abandoned blog. [you know the sort 3 weeks of the owner posting about what he had for breakfast, then nothing :-) ]

I recently added two more morse keys to my small collection, both are in need of restoration and one is quite scarce and might be of interest to others so I figured I could document its restoration.

The keys are a "Standard Radio" dated from about 1943 and manufactured for the "US Army Air Corps" bug in fair to poor condition, its main spring is bust and its sporting unoriginal paint, however it appears to all be there and should be restorable to a fine example.

Less than 40 of these keys exist, and Fred KT5X has done some wonderful work researching and documenting this bug, I'd like to thank him for his work on this!
Freds page on the Standard Radio bug




The other Key I've obtained is a Vibroplex Zephyr, I've always liked the narrower base Vibroplex keys and I already have a nice 67 Blue Racer deluxe, the Zephyr is a bit rarer but not uncommon.
Again this key needs work, the spring has been butchered in this key also, I'm guessing to slow it down? I'll inspect this and decide what to do, most likely I'll put in a new main spring etc, and tidy it up cosmetically.


The finger pieces will be put back to orignal spec. and the base, I'll attempt to restore keeping as much of original crinkle finish paint as I can.