Category: Miscellaneous babble

The future vintage radios

In the “Things that make you go hmmm…” category:

After my recent acquisition of the Hallicrafters HT-32, a thought popped into my head: What does the boat anchor/vintage radio of the future look like.

Go to any hamfest or talk to any long time amateur radio operator, and it won’t be hard to find 40+ year old radios still in working condition (some better than others). Even if they’re not working, it’s not impossible in most cases to find parts to resurrect the radio.

I’ve got 3 Hammarlunds and 1 Hallicrafters in my boat anchor collection now. Our Kenwood TS-480SAT or Elecraft K2 could be considered vintage, depending on what time frame for vintage you want to use. Should they be considered part of the boat anchor collection?

In the age of (current) modern, IC based, software-defined radios (pretty much anything from 2010 onward), how many of those will remain servicable/fixable enough to become the boat anchors of the future? Will anybody be using an ICOM IC-7300/7300MK2 or Yaesu FTDX-10 in 2050? Will I be able to repair our Kenwood TS-480SAT in 2040 when something fails?

Ask anyone of a certain ham radio age what a boat anchor radio would be, and you’ll get answers like Drake, Collins, Hallicrafters, Hammarlund, National. What will people say in 2040 or 2050? What boat anchor radios be we be using 20-30 years from now?

NC QSO Party 2024

Got W4BXC on the air again for part of the NC QSO party. Band conditions were about the same as yesterday, although didn’t hear quite as much DX on 10m today as I was hearing yesterday.

As usual, 40m was about the only band I could hear NC stations on. Toward the end of the contest, I started hearing one or two up on 20m, but none I hadn’t already worked on 40m. Did pretty well this year with 58 QSOs, including 4 out of the 6 bonus stations, and 38 counties.

Contest: NC QSOPARTY
 Band     QSOs     Pts  Mul  Pt/Q
     7      58     116   38   2.0
 Total      58     116   38   2.0
Score: 4,458
1 Mult = 1.5 Q's

Practicing with the Begali

Got my Begali Camelback straight key wired up with a standard 3.5mm TRS cable, and made up an adapter cable to connect it to the Heathkit HD-10 keyer.

Morse code keys and bug connected to a Heathkit HD-10 electronic keyer

I’ve been really enjoying practicing Morse code with the Camelback. The solid, weighty base gives it a super stable feel and a nice satisfying thunk-y sound as opposed to the more clack-y sound from the J-38 key. I’m sure if I mounted the J-38 on a more solid base, it might also have a nice thunk-y-er sound. I’ll have to look around for something heavy to attach the J-38 to now.

The Camelback is hefty enough that it doesn’t move around while I’m keying. The Vibroplex bug is also pretty hefty, but will slide around a bit while I’m using it. I probably need to replace the feet or put some grippy pads on them to keep it from sliding around.

Power supply: Updated schematic

I’ve updated the schematic for the power supply. Made a few corrections and rearranged a few things.

Still haven’t figured out why the outputs are behaving like they’re shorted out. Putting a my DMM across the output terminals gives me about 148Ω, which seemed on the low side to me.

Power supply schematic 20170716
Power supply schematic 20170716

A quick check of the SCR shows that it seems to be ok. I think I’ll check the pass transistors next. Looks like they should be easy enough to remove for a quick test. I should probably check the big filter caps too, although I wouldn’t expect those to be bad.

In the process of troubleshooting, I’ve removed the 6 pin connector and large capacitor (1.4 mF) associated with it. I’m planning on replacing them with Powerpole connectors. Three of them will fit nicely in the space occupied by the 6 pin connector. Just need to figure out how to secure them in place.