[Boatanchors] Viking Ranger Station back on the air.

[Philip B Atchley]

Hi All,
Yesterday I brought the Ranger back "home to papa". This rig spends more
time being transported back and forth than it does on the air <grin>. 
Anyway, I interfaced it to the Hallicrafters SX-71 receiver, using my
homebrewed TR relay.  First I had to replace the damaged ceramic Xtal
socket that is used as a relay socket (It's needed it for some time) as
the Xtal housing I used for a plug kept falling out.  

First QSO?  Approximately a 15 minute cross-mode (AM/SSB) QSO with Duane
on the Global Glow Net last night.  The transmitter appeared to work
flawlessly.  That is, except for the one time I reached up and gave the
"buffer tuning" knob a twist instead of switching from STBY to Operate
8^(

Since I set the TR relay up primarily for CW operation, rather than
muting the receiver completely, it puts a 5K variable resistor in the
mute line so I can monitor my sending.  So, in AM operation this requires
two handed switching from transmit to receive and vice-versa.  One hand
on the Ranger Operate switch and the left on the Receiver Audio Gain.  NO
PTT in this set-up!  but then, isn't that what Boatanchor Fun is all
about with them Old Buzzard Transmissions? 

The SX-71 also seemed to work well with just a slight tweak of the tuning
a couple times (It'd been warmed up for 2 hours).  It has much better
selectivity than the Hammarlund HQ-110 that I used with the Ranger
before.

73 from the "Beaconeers Lair".
Phil, KO6BB

Where DX begins at the noise floor!
Merced, Central California, 37.3N  120.48W  CM97sh

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