I had an interesting QSO last night. K9TTM, very sweet CW call. He was running a Collins S-line and SB200 amp. His keyer was a homebuilt unit from the 1960s. paddles were Vibrokeyers. His tuner was a Johnson Matchbox. In other words, his whole station was classic - vintage stuff. I mentioned it and he said "it got old by itself. It was new when I bought it 35 yrs ago HI HI". And that got me thinking. In 35 years will be still be running our K3s and K2s? For that matter are any rigs being built today going to be considered useful 30 yrs from now? As I ponder the question, I come to the answer of "no". I believe they won't be but not because of any deficiency in the gear. On the contrary, I suspect the K3 / K2 rigs just as durable and able to continue operations for many decades, probably more. I believe they won't be applicable in the future because we as a group of hams have shifted our thoughts. We're largely caught up with getting the next thing. We're expecting gear to change yearly and are prone to dump what we have and upgrade. With that mentality, there is no rig that will stand the test of time because we won't keep it. I know I'm part of the "problem" here. My K2 is 1.5 yrs old and I'm considering selling to get a K3. The oldest piece of gear in my shack is my MFJ antenna analyzer and that is about 3 yrs old. Everything else is either new or is something I've bought in the last couple of years. I just don't stick with anything for long. Oh wait, I take that back. The aluminum from which I built my vertical antenna is about 10 yrs old. As K9TTM and I chatted back and forth I was thinking about how it would be to keep the same rig for decades. To always have that old friend ready to go. I listened to his signal and thought about relay-based semi break-in. I thought about tube warm-up. I thought about tuning finals. I thought about 1000 Hz side tone. I listened to his signal and adjusted my RIT to match his drift. I then looked at my K2 and was VERY happy to not be running an old classic rig. That silly little kit on my desk which cost far less than the S-Line when new, works much better and has more features that Art Collins could have dreamed of. - Keith N1AS - - K2 5411.ssb.100 - _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
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