JCARA Needs YOU!

 The Jennings County Amateur Radio Association is looking for an insured / bonded tower climber for two upcoming projects in southern Indiana.

Allied AX-190

 I picked this rare bird up from some estate items that were on Marketplace. The AX-190 is a "ham bands only" reciever. This is one of the least likely to find recievers, compared to its shortwave oriented version, the SX-190. Overall, it initially looked pretty good, but dirty from storage. The preselector was seized and wouldn't turn, it had a power supply hum when I brought it up on a variac, but otherwise seemed OK.

I gave it a good cleaning, unfroze the preselector, lubricated all shafts and controls, cleaned all pots, replaced the electrolytic caps, and gave it a full alignment. Wow, this is a pretty sharp reciever and the Q-multiplier is a gem! This is probably the best looking reciever Allied ever made. Here's a few pics and videos...

Kenwood TS-530S, pt2

 This is a friend's Kenwood TS-530S that I brought out of the mothballs for a friend, last year. Another minor bug had developed, and I resolved that. This radio wasn't completely recapped, and that was the cause of this instability problem. 

Once repaired, my friend had an Astatic D-104 microphone that he wanted checked and wired for it. I cleaned the gain control pot in the base of the mic, installed a 4-pin plug to mate with the 530, and a new battery. This radio uses pin1 for audio in, pin 4 for audio ground, pin 2 for ptt, and pin 3 for ptt common. With this mic, no processor is needed. I set the rig's mic gain to full, adjust the mic's gain control up until background noise begins to rise, and hold the mic a foot or so away from my mouth when talking. Fine tune with the rig's mic gain to taste.  

Tower Sidearm, Full Vid

 This is the full video, assembled by Chris Hockaday, from a bunch of my poor cell phone videos. He's helping me outfit the workshop to produce much better videos from my projects. 

I've built many of these over the years, and they're much stronger than they look. Here's the video...

Tower Sidearm, pt1

 This is a simple and sturdy antenna mount / tower sidearm for Rohn 20 & 25. I've been building these for around 40 years, and have some that are 30 years old and still in operation. This first part is the part that clamps to the tower leg. Using a 1" PVC "T", cut the back side off so the round part that goes around the leg captures a little more  than 1/2 the tower leg diameter, like maybe 190°. It's not critical, watch the video below...