[Boatanchors] FT-101

[EP Swynar]

On 3rd September it was written:

"...I think a barefoot SB-102 into a cantenna talking 130 miles on 75mtrs
 beats a commercial station with 2KW worth of light bulbs on the roof..."

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Harumph...! I have you ALL beat...

Back in the mid / late 70's --- when I was still young and foolish(!) --- I
was visited by a local Ham buddy, and I proceeded to give him an on-the-air
demonstration of my station (Hallicrafters S-77A receiver, Heathkit SB-400
transmitter, homebrewed "Ultimate" transmatch from the '75 ARRL Handbook).

Well, it was the middle of the afternoon, and as I started to say, we were
both young & foolish, so naturally the radio demo was "intro'ed" by way of a
few fairly stiff and potent "813's". I finally managed to copy and work a
"VE2" in Montreal, but signals both ways were only 559.

"Conditions aren't so hot," said I, the expert.

It wasn't until the next day that I noticed the reason for the rather poor
conditions: my antenna had not been connected to the transmatch! Yet
somehow, by judicious tweaking & twiddling of the roller inductor & the two
air variables therein, a setting was found where there was zero reflected
power back to the rig, & the tuner somehow absorbed all of the RF from the
'400...

So hmmm...that was about 300-plus miles on a "transmatch" dummy, with two
other dummies sitting google-eyed in front of it all (I just thank heavens
we weren't into tower-climbing back then).

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ