Forum Discussion
Any Amateur Radio Operators (AKA "Hams") Here on The HughesNet Community Forums?
I was a Ham when I was 12. Had a Technician Class license, WA6ZHL. Fell out of it when I got into high school. Wish I had stayed in. Now, I'm studying to take the tests to get my license renewed. Bu...
Let the rest of us "Ham's" know what you purchased with your $2000.00. This way we can salivate a little.
73's
Bernie KD2JYU
Not an operator but lots of friends in the military when I repaired vacuum tube Collins KW2-MA transceivers. Boy, they could punch out the power. Very touchy to tweak, lots of band adjustment capacitors that took a jeweler size screwdriver and very small turns. I finally discovered injecting the appropriate 1st, 2nd stage frequency with a freq generator and adjusting worked miracles. Wasn't in the technical manual at the time.
Old man digressing, solid state has killed off need for technical repair and adjustment at such low levels. All board replacement now. Old dinosaur who's time is history but do have fond memories of the HF shacks most military bases had.
Collins was the box everyone wanted. Now they're like vintage guitars ~ $1,500 on EBay
El Dorado Netwo wrote:Collins was the box everyone wanted. Now they're like vintage guitars ~ $1,500 on EBay
Lol..sounds like me except doubt I'd bring $1500 if even wanted.
Saw that on EBay......wow! Don't see tranceivers though. Doubt many people left to tune them plus the vacuum tubes. Also they did have spurious frequencies on transmit so maybe gov banned them. They could punch through even hurricanes though. :smileyhappy:
EDIT: OK, did some more brain refreshing since so long ago. Maybe never a tranceiver but seperate units even on military side. Now that I think about it was two different boxes. Just remember working on the transmitter more. Shoot, been 37 years since I worked on them, give me a break. :smileyhappy:
I always wanted one of those.
That, or one of those georgeous, green Heathkit boxes.
While some of my buddies were (air quotes) "reading" Playboy, I was drooling over the latest HeathKit Catalog:
That was nirvana. Unfortunately, at 12 years old in the sixties, I didn't have a job, or the money to buy one.
Dang, Heathkit what a techie nerd time that was. A bag of parts, boards, solder and time. Ended up with a piece of working electronics if done right. A few radios, oscilloscope, multimeter and TV here.
The nerd kids are doing drones and robots these days. Good on them. Just was a bit different when you had to build the board instead of just hooking it up. Time marches on.
