Figure 1: The ball bearing assembly, extracted from the old keyer
The old TenTec Ultramatic Keyer is still used today by many amateurs, including myself. Its Ultramatic keyer mode was born in 1953, and later overtaken by the Iambic A and B modes. I still use the two of these keyers that I own, but one recently needed a repair … In the video shown in figure 2, you can watch a 35 second walk-thru of the disassembly and repair.
Figure 1: The Ten Tec 540 is playing love songs again
Four times I courted her. Three times I dropped her. This time it’s forever. Over the years, I’d managed to find myself paired with the one whose songs were so delightful, whose voice stuck in my memory for the whole day long.
Impressionable and easily infatuated, my young mind learned of the CW siren, that seductress of the airwaves. Long into the night, I listened to her soft messages, sometimes drifting off to sleep with my hand on the key, eventually slipping into one of those sweet dreams of hamdom.
Figure 1: Unboxing another Alda 103
Another Alda? I’ll admit to having an affinity for them. The one I already have is the 80-40-15 tribander (the 103A) – and the one I’m unboxing is the 80-40-20 tribander (the 103). The package came in a solid little Home Depot box, and no shaking or rattling could be heard during a shake-test next to my ear. The question on my mind? Would I hear more from the speaker of the actual 103 when I finished opening the package and plugging the little gem-from-the-past into my supply?
Figure 1: Rough diagram of remote (TX end) for old analog CW rig.
Posted 02/11/2017
I have a couple old analog rigs here in the shack, and I thought it’d be nice to remote them to the easy chair in the living room, or the dining room table, or the back porch deck. Just to complicate things, I decided that I couldn’t revert back to Windows to do this task, and additionally I wanted it to be at least *feasible* to use the remote radio capability from an internet connected place (like a hotel in another state).
Figure 1: CW oscillator level control on the Alda 103 (see text).
I had been operating the Alda 103 CW/SSB triband ham radio, a gem from the seventies, for a couple weeks on the SSB end of forty meters. I received nothing but good reports, such as “very clear and clean” – and “an easy to listen to signal” since I resolved an issue with the microphone input impedance, which on the Alda is slighty different than *any* other amateur transceiver. This was done by putting a Triad audio impedance transformer between the Alda and the Shure 414A Hi-Z microphone…
Figure 1: An almost forty year old Alda 103A amateur band transceiver. Click to enlarge.
The Alda 103 has a very interesting history. It was manufactured (IIRC) in 1977 and 1978, which means it has a nice complement of the discrete bipolar transistors that are fairly common (now, almost 40 years later) – and thus replaceable. Readers of some of my other articles may have observed that I like to have the ability to fix …
For the curious, my Alda 103A rig is on youtube:
I have always been a Ten Tec fan. As a kid I dreamed about the PM-1, but had to settle for home brew and (eventually) an old (even then) DX-40 transmitter / Lafayette-HA350 RX combo. When I was older, I purchased a Triton 4, and fell in love with the quietness of its noise blanker assisted audio, its filters, and its fabulous QSK. Some time ago, I decided to find another Triton (I’ve had and subsequently sold several, when I wish I’d kept them all!) The prices have crept up, as the numbers dwindle, and Ebay resellers have ascertained that hams will give blood for these units. They are made primarily of discrete transistors, with a smattering of commodity ICs, and so are relatively easy to fix in a pinch.
A younger me, as part of a collage pic made a number of years ago. This is WB8LZR / CW aficionado extreme.
This WP blog is dedicated to the author’s amateur radio hobby, and related pursuits.
WB8LZR 