[TenTec] Century 21

[dslosty]

I finally got my basket case Century 21 back together.
This is the one that had the dial gear drive troubles.
A new main shaft gear plus a complete PTO rebuilding solved
the problem. I also had to replace the main tuning shaft in the
PTO. The worm gear for the piston had burrs on it - probably
from the pervious owner's attempt at a PTO rebuild. He may well
have gripped and scored the shaft with his needle nose pliers
while removing the end retainer pin.

In any event, the Century 21 now works well.
I've made about a half dozen DX QSO's with it with a dipole up 35 ft.
It took me some time to get used to zero beating with a direct
conversion receiver that hears the signal on each side of zero beat.
I found that to zero beat another station required tuning down
from the high side on the lower bands and up from the low side
on the upper bands, while using the pushbutton front panel zero beat
control. 

I must admit that having no AGC or S-meter does bug me.
I've got a 73 mag reprint of an op-amp AGC mod.
Has anyone tried adding AGC to their Century 21?

I'd think that by using diode switching, the original current
meter could also do double duty as an S-meter once AGC was installed.

Also does anyone have a spare crystal calibrator, originally
offered as an option for the C/21?

tnx es 73,

Doug/WA1TUT


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