[Elecraft] Elecraft gear relative IMD

[Grant Youngman]

I honestly don't understand why this keeps coming up, or what it has to do with Elecraft. 

I'll operate my DX-40, or Viking II, or 100V or other vintage rig anytime and anywhere I please, thank you. These radios don't generally chirp wildly or have substantial phase noise. If phase noise is a concern, be concerned about some of the infamous 80's import all mode solid state, with a hundred tiny knobs, impressive looking expensive radios that could well clear out a band. Fortunately that junk doesn't show up very often. 

A well built tube transmitter, vintage or not, is a good thing. A modern receiver is a great tool and we wail when it's S-meter reading is off by .01dB or it drifts 2 HZ or there's something wrong with a Windows driver or whatever.   A vintage one with a pair of 6V6s driving a large loudspeaker and an operating manual that doesn't require a search engine has character, soul, and audio that has to be heard to be believed, even if it can't read freq out to a few milli-hertz :)

And other than contest weekends, I keep searching and searching for crowded bands ...

Grant NQ5T

Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 31, 2015, at 8:22 PM, Don Wilhelm <w3fpr at embarqmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Being New Years Eve, it is nostalgia time, and I think it appropriate to discuss those antique stations.
> 
> If you want to hear how bad some of those antique transmitters were, do listen tonight for SKN.
> Bad chirps, bad keyclicks and lots of phase noise that spread the signals out over a large portion of the band.
> The bands today are more crowded than they were back then, and while it is legal to use those antique transmitters and receivers, I do not think it should be an everyday event.
> 
> Yes, I know several hams who are into 'boat anchors', particularly those old AM transmitters.  Fortunately, that crowd concentrates on 80 meters when the band is not full of signals, but listening with today's more selective receivers and hearing signals in a 'net' so spread out and off frequency, it amazes me that we were able to communicate easily back then.  BUT we did, and had fun doing it.
> 
> I would not advocate using those transmitters and receivers in a contest today, but they did work for us back then.  BTW, I was first licensed in 1955, so you can perhaps understand the advances in technology that I have seen over the years.  There has been a LOT.
> 
> I have often considered building again my Novice transmitter which I assembled from the article in the 1955 ARRL handbook (a 6CL6 xtal oscillator and a 6146 final), but obtaining the parts is almost impossible.  Can you find 1 1/4 inch diameter, 4 pin coil forms these days?  Maybe, but they are prohibitively expensive, and the power transformer is almost impossible to find although back then, they were quite common because they were used in TV designs.
> 
> I pass by the flea market areas at hamfests and get enough of my nostalgia satisfied by looking at those old transmitters and receivers that I drooled over 'way back then' knowing that as a teen with limited income I could never afford them.  I don't have time nor energy to restore any of those 70 pound radios, nor does my hamshack have space for them, so I look and marvel, but do not take any of them home with me.
> 
> I do have my homebrew receiver, a version of the HBR-16 and an old NC100 receiver that I may someday bring out of the attic and bring back to operational status, but that is pretty far down on the priority list for me.
> 
> Enjoy SKN and listen to those old transmitters (and even listen on your vintage receiver).  It is a telling story of the history of ham radio and the gear available in the years gone by.
> 
> Happy New Year.
> 
> 73,
> Don W3FPR
> 
>> On 12/31/2015 7:30 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:
>> Sure the rules apply, and rules for spectrum bandwidth provide no numbers,
>> saying only "... in accordance with good amateur practice."
>> 
>> Right now, New Year's eve, there is an on air event taking place, Straight
>> Key Night, that encourages the use of antique rigs on the air and is
>> sponsored by the largest association of Radio Amateurs in the USA, the ARRL.
> 
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