[Milsurplus] Bendix Skipper 135: OOPS! and Opinions

[Robert Nickels]

On 10/26/2021 8:03 AM, MICHAEL ST ANGELO wrote:
> I used to repair and tune Marine MF (2 to 4 Mhz) radios on boats when 
> I was in college 45 years ago. I had to adjust the output series coil 
> to resonate the 20 foot whip antenna. My memory is vague but the coil 
> was used to resonate with the fiberglass whip on board the boat; the 
> load was not necessarily 50 ohms.

I've converted a bunch of them to 75 meters and just set the loading 
coil clips to short it out or remove it (good item for the junk box) and 
bypass it, since I'm always going to be using an antenna that provides a 
50 ohm load.   Depending on the radio it's sometimes necessary to fiddle 
with the tank circuit to get full output as high as the AM window.

I did set the loading coil up on one boat radio for a 30 or so foot wire 
thinking it would be usable on portable setups, but unlike on a boat 
where the short vertical is asways in a consistent position and the 
ground counterpoise is the same, there was so much variability in my 
portable setups that the pre-set coil taps were way off.   I found it 
much easier to set it as described above and use a small conventional 
antenna tuner to resonate whatever piece of wire I was able to throw up 
at hamfests, etc.

73, Bob W9RAN