[AMRadio] ICM crystals

[Larry Szendrei]

On 12/16/14 4:09 PM, Donald Chester wrote:
> Something I have noticed the past few years is that at hamfests, crystals
> for amateur  frequencies are practically non-existent. Plenty of 3 MHz below
> 80m, 5 MHz and 8 MHz, but rarely anything for the ham bands.
Many of the 8 MHz xtals were used to multiply up to 6 and 2M.

I still run into ham band crystals at the fests, although ones outside 
the bands are more common. At the fall NEARfest I found and purchased 
one for 1890 KHz, and there was a 2nd one I left there for someone else 
to buy. The asking price was only $2 each. Another table was selling ham 
band FT-243s for $5 each.
For a while I had been looking for a FT-243 for 7055 KHz (or at least I 
thought I was) in order to put my Central Electronics 20A on 1945 KHz 
with stability, and this guy had one. When I went to reach for my 
wallet, however, I came to the realization I no longer really needed it, 
as I recently constructed a DDS VFO to use with that rig, which works 
great. That plus the fact that a scribbling on the xtal indicated the 
true frequency was a few hundred Hz removed from 7055.000 KHz tipped the 
scales and I left without buying it.

73,
-Larry/NE1S