Amateur radio anyone
I do very little anymore. Mostly some friends on 160. Since I'm getting old, and 'the estate' did not produce quite what was expected, and I'm getting quite "lame" LOL, it turns out I won't be moving "out to the country." The upshot of that is that the local "QTH" is VERY noisy and not one thing can I do about that. (Actually I'm considering building another small tunable receiving loop) You may have seen the thread I took most of the tower apart. I'm actually sorry, now, that I did all that, in some ways. But the noise level here is quite high, nearly S9 at times on some lower freq. bands.
The OTHER issue is the lack of real enjoyment. Seems like the only time things get "jumping" much is contest weekends. I want no part of them. Plus, there's been a few years now, the sunspot cycle has simply not "opened" as it once did.
I've had a few projects. Once had a homebrew 4-1000 that a BLIND GUY built, I still have a homebrew desktop 8877, and one of the best "bang for buck" was an old Hallicrafters HT-41 that I got nearly for free.......photo stolen off the internet......
This used some oddball tubes that were really a bored-out sweep tube. The tubes were bad, the choke was open. I replaced the choke with an 813 filament transformer. The 813 sockets used the same mount spacing as the original tubes, and I had to carefully recess them for height clearance. Used a big "medical" cap for a cap only filter, which boosted the plate voltage. A pair of 813's would put out at least 700W on 40, 'it's best band." Unfortunately it suffered smoke damage in a house fire, and I may never get it restored.
Another VERY interesting project amp was built/ designed by a broadcast engineer who wrote lots of stuff for the Bill Orr (W6SAI) handbook series. This was a welded aluminum cabinet using a 4cx-1000. "All I got" was the basic empty cabinet of the RF deck. it would make a GREAT layout for another 8877. Like the Halliscrathers, it is smoke damaged.
yet ANOTHER cool little amp I own is a Delcon T210, built for the military. Uses 3 4CX-250Bs, grid driven across a 50 ohm load. Has vacuum cap tuning and loading
Another photo off the internet:
I do very little anymore. Mostly some friends on 160. Since I'm getting old, and 'the estate' did not produce quite what was expected, and I'm getting quite "lame" LOL, it turns out I won't be moving "out to the country." The upshot of that is that the local "QTH" is VERY noisy and not one thing can I do about that. (Actually I'm considering building another small tunable receiving loop) You may have seen the thread I took most of the tower apart. I'm actually sorry, now, that I did all that, in some ways. But the noise level here is quite high, nearly S9 at times on some lower freq. bands.
The OTHER issue is the lack of real enjoyment. Seems like the only time things get "jumping" much is contest weekends. I want no part of them. Plus, there's been a few years now, the sunspot cycle has simply not "opened" as it once did.
I've had a few projects. Once had a homebrew 4-1000 that a BLIND GUY built, I still have a homebrew desktop 8877, and one of the best "bang for buck" was an old Hallicrafters HT-41 that I got nearly for free.......photo stolen off the internet......
This used some oddball tubes that were really a bored-out sweep tube. The tubes were bad, the choke was open. I replaced the choke with an 813 filament transformer. The 813 sockets used the same mount spacing as the original tubes, and I had to carefully recess them for height clearance. Used a big "medical" cap for a cap only filter, which boosted the plate voltage. A pair of 813's would put out at least 700W on 40, 'it's best band." Unfortunately it suffered smoke damage in a house fire, and I may never get it restored.
Another VERY interesting project amp was built/ designed by a broadcast engineer who wrote lots of stuff for the Bill Orr (W6SAI) handbook series. This was a welded aluminum cabinet using a 4cx-1000. "All I got" was the basic empty cabinet of the RF deck. it would make a GREAT layout for another 8877. Like the Halliscrathers, it is smoke damaged.
yet ANOTHER cool little amp I own is a Delcon T210, built for the military. Uses 3 4CX-250Bs, grid driven across a 50 ohm load. Has vacuum cap tuning and loading
Another photo off the internet: