Regrets November 7, 2005
Posted by n9ik in Uncategorized.add a comment
These days I’m regreting selling the Elecraft K-1 radio that I built from a kit. The K-1 is a fun qrp cw radio, covering 20, 30, 15, and 10 meters. I’ll have to save my pennies to order another kit to build.
Off the air November 7, 2005
Posted by n9ik in station.1 comment so far
I’m currently off the air. I need to repair my antenna, replace the feed line, and obtain a power supply. The antenna on my roof is a Butternut HF-9VX, about 12 years old, and this last year the insulator at the bottom broke, so the antenna is laying down over the edge of the roof. I’m going to replace all of the insulators, and the bottom coil as well, since it was damaged when the antenna folded over.
The feed line got cut when the house had new siding put up. Besides it was pretty old and I think that it was holding some moisture, so would have to have been replaced anyway. I’m going to use a 50 foot lenth of flexible coax from Cable Experts.
For a power supply, I orignally had a 25 amp power supply make by Diamond, but it gave up the ghost years ago. Since then I had been using batteries, but my last battery failed last year – I let it get completely discharged, which destroyed the battery. So, I’m not sure whether to get a new power supply or to get another deep-cycle battery. Or both.
My main rig is an old Kenwood TS-130s that was originally my mothers’ (KE7CM) first rig. She and my stepfather (N7GTC) were cruising on their boat, and got ham licenses and set up a station on the boat to keep in touch. Ultimately, the TS-130s was replaced with a TS-440, and about 12 years ago I inherited the TS-130 when I expressed the desire to get my ham license. This simple radio has been good for contacts all over the world, using a variety of antennas.
