Jason Bonnough <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> made an utterance to the drakelist gang ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello all, I have been watching the list-serv for about a month now and I have a question for all that can help.
I have been an amateur radio operator for a number of years but mostly active on 2M. Never on HF... I bought a R-4B and T-4BX a number of years ago in hopes that I would start to explore HF more than just the random perhaps yearly scan through SWL. But then I joined the Navy, (Became an ET whose primary duty was the URT-23Ds on a ship, HF Transmitters ironically...) and put my Drakes pretty much into storage. Also, in this time became an inactive ham due to my command being in Japan and I had no place to operate. Well, I am back in the states, have my own place and pretty much the first thing I did was pull the Drakes out of storage, set them up on a cheap coffee table (I have no furniture now and am slowly buying more.. no desk!! gonna build one soon...) and attached a ~75' wire as an antenna through a MFJ-16010 Random Wire Tuner. And to save space because I have no room in an apartment that doesn't like things hanging out of their apartments (even on the 2nd floor) I spun the wire in a somewhat diamond shape using supports from a cardboard box that I cut up so the cardboard supports look like an "X" with an inward spiraling wire. Anywho, after that detailed setup, here is my situation. I can hear some stations just fine, I even got a SWL QSL card from the Canadian Time Standard station CAN. but I'm afraid to test TX, especially without a dummy load. A hamfest will be coming up in September in my area and I plan on getting one there unless I can get one that I bought that is in storage in Oklahoma sent to me. (Rargh, I digress again.) I would like to try to make this system back into full operation both TX and RX. I have no test equipment other than a pocket mulitmeter from Radio Shack and well, on very limited budget. I have seen comments here about replacing caps and such... how can one tell when that is needed exactly? I have so much RF noise in the area, I cannot tell if its just ambient noise or bad equipment... Working on this stuff is no where near as easy as working on the modular designs of the URT-23D and really without an o-scope.. I feel lost... I like to see signals... Any suggestions on how to test and if necessary replace components on this stuff would be greatly appreciated. I really want to learn my system inside and out and am willing to do everything it takes to get the Drakes 100%, budget willing... Thanks!!! 73s Jason Bonnough AD5IY ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Submissions: drakelist@zerobeat.net Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - unsubscribe drakelist in body Hopelessly Lost: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - help in body of message Zerobeat Web Page: www.zerobeat.net - sponsored by www.tlchost.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------
