[CQ-Contest] Was: Zero Beating Now: Larger Knobs

[Steve Harrison]

At 11:41 AM 6/1/2007 -0000, Paul J. Piercey wrote:
>Yes, I noticed this as well. I had a couple guys call me over 200Hz off my
>freq and it was a miracle I got them at all. I was using the RIT to sweep
>the area looking for anyone not right on my freq but never thought to go
>that far out of my passband most of the time.

During recent contests, twiddling the little tiny dinky RIT knob on my
TS-680S has become a bear, fatiguing my fingers and making me not want to
run sometimes. Setting up a run freq by using split with VFOs A and B is
also awkward.

So I replaced that little, tiny RIT knob with a much larger one from an old
Hewlett Packard test equipment, about 3/4" diameter. While it may violate
someone's sense of aesthetics, twiddling the RIT knob was no longer a
problem during the last contest  ;o) The RIT pot's shaft is about 1/8" and
my choice of larger knob was actually dictated by whatever larger knob I
had in my junk box that had a 1/8" shaft hole. I've also replaced the stock
RIT knob on my secondary radio, a TS-130S, which helps considerably while
using that radio.

Similarly, years ago, when my TR-9130 2m all-mode was my main 2m radio for
contesting, I found its somewhat-small main tuning knob to be awkward over
many hours of twiddling, and just a plain hassle when I needed to do large
frequency excursions. I replaced it with a spare knob from a surplus AM1178
432 MHz tube amplifier which also had a bell crank. At first, I worried
that using the crank would damage or destroy the digital tuning mechanism
within the TR-9130 but it has withstood the test of time just fine. It sure
looks odd but boy, it sure is a lot easier to tune around now.

Steve, K0XP