Passed my element 4 General test this evening! I’m looking forward to getting into HF!
KD8RIB/AG
All posts by mrfitzer
Ash Cave Fire Tower Hike
Enjoyed a couple of days in Hocking Hills. We hiked the Ash Cave trail up to the buckeye trail and visited the Ash Cave fire tower (the tower photo is from the wiki) After the stair master hike up i tried out my 2 meter roll up pole and talked to a local ham on the hocking valley arc repeater. I had hoped to spend more time up there and see how far I could I could reach out with my 5 watt ht, but Mona was getting cold and we were loosing light.
Ten Tec 1253 – FIN
If you were listening to radio in the 1920s you were probably using a regenerative receiver or “gennie”. The simple design made construction relatively easy and they could receive radio signals from all over the world. The superheterodyne receiver quickly became king in the 1930s but gennies have lived on as kits and diy projects. I understand why, there’s something amazing about tuning in a station with this radio. You can “hear” how the radio theory works as you tune in and jump onto a carrier frequency and listen the transmission that rides along.
The instruction manual is well written and pointed out the snags you find in a set of plans once you’ve coached a few people through the build. There were a few checkpoints to test the project along the way, the tests gave me confidence in the work I was doing.
Ten Tec 1253 Construction
Tec Ten 1253 SW receiver parts sort
I’m impressed! The instruction manual seems excellent, a lot of attention to detail.
I settled into part sorting and labeling, I like to use index cards and a cigar box to keep everything organized. I usually use a meter to sort resistors, the color bands are very hard to read. The inductors were a little tricky. I’m hoping to have the kit together before I go back to school in January.
Calling Toledo
Installed the discone antenna in the attic this afternoon. A scrap section of closet rod mounted to a board made a good mast. Amazing how my reception has improved. I was able to hear the KB8YVY repeater in Toledo 146.835MHz (pl103.5) . I’m wondering how far my 5 watts will travel.
bluetooth telephone
Two component AM transmitter
Shack 1.0
Radio Shack Pro-94 Scanner
Grundig YB400PE Shortwave Receiver
Yaesu VX-8RG HT
2 Meter roll up j-pole
Discone Antenna (4 ground radials, 6 disc radials, 1 vertical whip) 30-1300 MHz Rx 2m and 70cm Tx
The discone will be going into the attic some time next week.
Ten Tec 1253 Kit
UPS dropped off another cool project. I spent a couple of hours on Friday sorting components, checking values, and taping them to index cards.