G'day all,
Last night I sat down in the shack to start the resurrection/modification
of a Drake R4C. The receiver had been cleaned up from top to toe, all
switch contacts meticulously cleaned., the power brought up slowly with a
variac to reform the electrolytics and now was the moment of truth - and it
worked.
Instead of sitting moaning about how poor conditions were on 160 on the
internet (which I have done a lot of lately), I actually tuned around for
about two hours testing out the receiver's performance. What I learnt was
the receiver performs pretty well, even in its unmodified state (although
the audio amp is truly terrible and hums/buzzes worse than a hive of bees)
and, more importantly, if you listen for a while there is still topband DX
to be had.
The first thing the R4C dragged in was John K9DX - RST 589/599 at his
sunrise. Then JT1CO calling repeatedly on 1824.3 at 1145Z - worked Chak on
the FTT100MP in the end at 1151Z. Then a whole pack of JA's called me, so
went up the band and worked them - then back to R4C for more tuning around.
Other stations heard included AA0RS and UA0ACG.
>From now on, I am going to do a lot more listening - and a lot less
internetting.
Vy 73,
Steve, VK6VZ
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