Topband: Boring Report

[Bill Cromwell]

On 12/24/2013 09:52 AM, Tree wrote:
> After about two years of no QSOs with Europe - the band started showing
> signs of life a few nights ago.  Over the past three days - I have made six
> QSOs with Europe. Last night - some of the signals were pretty
> encouraging.  9A5CW was getting copied by my K3's CW decoder occasionally.
> S51V showed up with an amazing signal around 0600Z which I initially
> thought had to be from North America.
>
> Hopefully - this is a sign that conditions will be good for the Stew Perry
> contest coming up this Saturday.
>
> Here is that link for the rules again - www.kkn.net/stew
>
> 73 Tree N6TR/7
> Boring, OR
>

Hi,

I sure hope so. When I set out to recap the power supplies in my DX-100 
I waded into a huge *mess*. The power supplies are good now but other 
portions of the ancient rig are not so good. I have a reasonable signal 
at QRP levels (around 8 watts) from a pair of 2E26s where the 6146s used 
to live. The plate supply has been rerouted to the low voltage power 
supply and the negative bias for the 6146s NOT reduced for the 2E26s. I 
have full break-in QSK now (a silver lining in a very dark cloud). If 
the propagation faeries are playing on top band that will help me a lot!

I might have a different transmitter working on top band in two or three 
weeks and then I'm pretty much stripping the DX-100 down for cleanup and 
a rebuild with a big sack of new parts and wire. Band-aids and cold 
patch just ain't doing any good any more.

73,

Bill  KU8H

See you in the Stew (even if you don't see me)