Ken, KA0W wrote:
> Would anyone care to share any good or bad comments about their Model
> 1340 40m QRP transceiver kit?
On a whim, never being a serious QRPer (I built an HW-7 back in the
"good-old-days" and it never worked very well, hence my QRP-shyness),
last year I purchased a 1340 and put together my first kit in over 20
years. No, it wasn't a HeathKit, by any standards (they always had the
*best* kit-building manuals), but it was a kit nonetheless, so I was
attracted by that one fact alone (notwithstanding Ten-Tec's nearly
flawless reputation).
When I opened the box, I was immediately impressed by the quality of the
circuit board and the chassis parts and I went right to work on it. Two
days later, I was dripping candle wax on the VFO coil, to finalize the
alignment, still curious as to how it would play. I used my IC-736 into
a dummy load as my signal generator and finished the RF/IF alignment
without a hitch and connected it to my 40-meter inverted vee. Signals
jumped out of the headphones and, out of curiosity, I connected a 2-pole
antenna switch to be able to connect the dipole to the Icom and the
Ten-Tec alternatively and I could discern no great difference in their
sensitivity, in a word: AMAZING!
Since the Ten-Tec has a 1kHz crystal filter, it's obviously wider than
the Icom, but I had no problem differentiating between stations using
mental DSP and it didn't seem to have a problem with front-end overload
wiping out weaker stations, a plus. I have a 13.8vdc power supply that
I use for my 2-meter rig but I wanted one I could dedicate to the
Ten-Tec, so I scoured my junkpile and found a laptop NiCd charger/power
supply that I no longer used and adapted it to the Ten-Tec by installing
a large electrolytic across the output terminals. The laptop power
supply outputs 15.6vdc, not excessive enough to fry the Ten-Tec, but
high enough to increase the output power from 5 watts to 7 watts, not
that the additional 2 watts makes a difference at the receiving end, but
then, I'm not a *serious* QRPer either.
I have worked about 30 states, into Europe, Canada, Mexico, the
Caribbean and as far south as Argentina using this rig, so that pretty
much speaks for the ability of this *less-than-$100-rig* to perform.
I'm sure that Ten-Tec is not losing money on this kit, but I can't
guarantee that they are making much either, considering the value of not
only the parts and the design, but also their well-written kit-building
manual. Like I said, it's not a HeathKit, but then it wasn't intended
to be.
OBIE, WA4DOX...
--
mailto:wa4dox@vt.edu
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FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/tentecfaq.htm
Submissions: tentec@contesting.com
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Problems: owner-tentec@contesting.com
Search: http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm
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