[Central-Electronics] Lakshore 'Band Hopper' VFO

[George Maier]

Hi Jim:
You are absolutely correct about the Band Hopper.  I bought one about two
years ago, and I'm very impressed with the stability.  The downside of the
one I bought is that the plastic window deteriorated quite seriously, and I
believe that it out-gassed in the process. The net effect was that the dial
scale was heavily damaged just behind the window. It must have stayed at one
frequency setting for a very long time. 

To date, I've removed the dial and scanned it into a .jpg file. I'm slowly
restoring the scanned image with photoshop, but I'm not an expert with that
software, so it's taking forever. The winter is coming, however, and I'll
get back to it soon. 

The lesson here is; if your window is yellowing, replace it immediately.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, and all on the CE reflector. Nice to see some
activity here.

73, George - W1LSB

-----Original Message-----
From: central-electronics-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:central-electronics-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Jim
Candela
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 11:02 AM
To: central-electronics at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Central-Electronics] Lakshore 'Band Hopper' VFO


Hi group,

  I recently won a auction on Epay for a lakeshore 'Band hopper' VFO. This
thing has a built in power supply, has 6 tubes, and will connect to a 20a
with no modifications. It looks like my Converted BC-458 goes on the shelf
to stay!

  I got the VFO in when I came back from my business trip. I had some
 issues with the dial, and the switches, and then the calibration. After
 several hours of messing with it, I got it working pretty darn well.
 In fact this thing is fantastic!

   The output is ~ 20v P-P into a Hi-Z load (12v p-p for 40m), and is a pure
sine wave on
 all bands. With the thing out of the case, and given a 5 minute
 warmup, it drifts ~ 20hz over the next hour. In the case is a different
story
 since the heat is trapped. Here it drifts up 300 hz in 30 minutes
 after a cold start, and thereafter it is pretty much like a crystal. The
 tuning rate on 80m is about 15 Khz per revolution of the dial.

  I did some SSB last night on 80m with my Lakeshore VFO into my 20A,
 and this thing really does a great job. I wonder how good the Lakeshore
 SSB transmitter is?

Regards,
Jim
WD5JKO

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