WDØDXD

I have been busy blowing up the Ham Shack and re-building it this summer.  More on that later.  

One of the primary goals in doing this, was to make sure as much as possible everything in the shack served a purpose and got used.  We live in a small house and space is at a premium.  I looked around the shack this spring and realized that all but a few things I had in it where basically just for decoration.

One of those “Things” was an old Astatic D-104 Mic.  I got it when I purchased a Heathkit HW-101 about 3 years ago.  The PO threw the mic in since I didn’t have one for the HW-101.  I kept it because the XYL and one of my daughters thought it looked “Cool”.  Well if I could get them to show at least some interest in may obsession, I wasn’t going to complain, so it just sat on the desk.

So, I decided to see if I could make it useful again.  It wasn’t wired to work on any of my new Kenwoods and from what I researched, the original mic elements where pretty tinny and this one had been replaced at one time with only god knows what.  I did a little more research and found the Heil Sound made a retro fit kit to put one of their elements in the D-104.  I was excited about that and went to all the usual sources to order one.  unfortunately, no one had one and one site said it was discontinued.  I then went to Heil’s website and sure enough, I couldn’t find it listed.

So in desperation I emailed Heil and asked if I could at least by the components to rebuild the d-104.  I was surprised to get a response back almost immediately from Bob himself.

“Allen

Finally made it to 300.  I have to give most of the credit to JT65-HF

I just read a really informative article interview of  Neal DeGrasse about our space program.  I agree with a lot of what he says.  It seems the last couple of decades we have invested money in making money out of thin air.  Wall Street, the financial markets you know the “Services industry”.

While that is important, we seem to have lost our way in the world and ultimately the universe.  If we won’t or can’t make investments in science and technology, we will just have to accept the fact that we will eventually suffer the fate of all great empires.  Mediocracy.

The ham shack has been pretty quiet since Field Day. Getting work done, other hobbies and vacation.

At the beginning of October, I got to work again and made some changes on my antenna. I added a Comtek W2FMI balun from DXengineering and changed to using a LDG AT-1000Pro antenna tuner. What a difference! No rf in the shack any more and instant tuning.

I have been running JT-65 HF mostly and I am playing with the latest version of JT-Alert. It’s a great upgrade and Laurie, VK3AMA is doing a wonderful job with the upgrades on the program.

That’s all for now, as winter sets in I will post some more info on the various projects I will be working on.

For all of you that are fans of the old Heathkit products, finally you have hope.

Take a look at heathkit.com and you will see they are launching two new kits this August with more to come.

They are asking for ideas for new kits, so email them at info@heathkit.com with your Amateur Radio ideas.

I have been a big fan of Heathkit for a long time and love building kits, so this is great news to me.

How about Switching Power Supplies, Antenna Tuners, Small SDR Transceivers?

I have listed a Kenwood TS-820S, AT-200 and a Heathkit SB-630 on ebay.  You can go to the odds and ends page to see more info and a link to the ebay listings if you are interested.

I finally got the eQSL eWAS award.  I have been waiting on South Dakota since about March or April.  Sunday night after field day, I came down to the shack to turn the equipment off and noticed a Ø call sign on JT65-HF.  It took me a couple of times, but we made a connection.

So in a matter of about 2 minutes I made that last contact needed to get the award.  Thanks, KØJV I really appreciated.

SOLD

I added a Kenwood TV-502 Transverter to our Odds and Ends page in our store.

I am including the rare 12pin connectors to make the interface cables.

I am selling my LD-1B SDR receiver.  I played with it for awhile and now have several other projects going, so I need to make room.

If you are interested, go to my Odds and Ends page in my new under construction online store.