If you use headphones on the air, as either a short wave listener or radio amateur, you’ll appreciate the advantages of a comfortable set of headphones with a frequency response tailored to speech. The Kenwood HS-5 headphones have been around for many years and receive rave reviews on places such as eham. The HS-5s are […]
SSB Products of Derby Cannonball Transmi...
On behalf of a friend, I’m trying to find someone who has the details of a transmitter known as the Cannonball, produced by SSB Products of Derby. Back in the 1960s, Norman Birkett G3EKX, created a range of products for the radio amateur. Most were available as kits and ready built. He had an interest […]
Maplin Ranger 160m Receiver
Maplin produced another little receiver, in addition to the famous direct conversion project from 1988…it was called the Maplin Ranger. The 160m receiver covered from 1.8 to 2.2MHz and was designed for AM, SSB and CW. This time the receiver is a ‘proper’ superheterodyne design with an IF of 455KHz. I obtained one of these […]
Yaesu FT-897 Ceramic Filter Problem
The Yaesu FT-897 has been around since about 2002…they’ve sold thousands of them and they are still popular today. The FT-897 is pretty much a ‘shack in a box’ covering all the HF bands plus 6,2 and 70. Yaesu, at the time of writing, still have all the details on their website here…so I won’t […]
Kenwood / Trio TS-900 Extender Card
If you have one of the older classic transceivers, servicing and repairing them can be a real pain without the service manual…and the necessary extender cards, to lift your desired board clear of the others. Service manuals are normally easy to find on line, but the extender cards are rare. I’ve managed to assemble sets […]
Blekok Micro-40S SSB Transceiver
The Micro-40S is a single board SSB Transceiver by Indra Ekoputro YD1JJJ. I didn’t buy one of these thankfully, but a friend brought one for some TLC. These things are supplied rather badly, ready built and working. The one that came to me had a short circuit IRF510 output PA MOSFET. An easy fix but […]
STE (Milano) 2m VHF Tx and Rx Modules
I recently acquired a homebrew transceiver from the Angel of the North Radio Rally. It’s a 2m / 145MHz FM unit with crystal control, that outputs a heady 1W of RF. Crystals are installed for the local repeaters and simplex channels used in the 1980’s, when people actually used 2m before upgrading to a class […]
Kenwood TR-751E 6v Inverter Fault
The Kenwood TR-751E is an ageing but still fantastic 2m (144MHz) multimode transceiver. Like all things, me included, as they get older parts start to fail. The TR-751E I had to repair had been dropped, which meant the RF Gain / RIT dual concentric potentiometer needed straightening…the main VFO knob had already been glued. It […]
3B/240M Tube on HF
Has anyone out there ever used a 3B/240M (CV2214) valve / tube in an HF amplifier? I came across one of these, new and boxed, amongst my collection of treasured family heirlooms…it looks like a miniature 5B/254M but isn’t. The 3B/240M or CV2214 is a small grounded grid triode for use up to 200MHz. It […]
SEI Crystal Filter Data
Some years ago I acquired some superb…and originally very expensive…SEI Crystal Filters on 1.4MHz. I knew I had a USB and LSB pair, but didn’t know which was which and had no idea about the correct termination impedance. What I needed was SEI Crystal Filter Data…which no one had. There have been lots of questions […]