Nothing really exotic here.
Mostly it is old stuff that nobody else wanted that has been
restored, or rebuilt, or modified, or homebrewed and then
pressed into service. The station equipment operates on
all bands between 160 meters and 440 mhz with all available
voice and digital modes. Amazingly, the little lunchbox sized
FT-897D which has been retired to 2 meter sideband duty can do
everything the huge mass of iron below can do and more.
W1AEX "Big Rig"
W1AEX "Big Rig"
The first few pictures
show the old AM station in Studio B which is in the
basement. On the left is the Johnson Viking which has been
built into a 6 foot rack to accomodate additional audio
and power supply components. The final of the Viking was
originally a 4D32, but this has been replaced by three
6146B tubes. The original 807 modulator has been scrapped
and replaced by a deck with a pair of 811A tubes and a 300
watt Thordasen transformer. Below the Viking RF deck is
the audio deck, which is composed of two 6550 tubes in a
push-pull Williamson configuration. An audio compressor is
installed just below the audio amp. The Variac above the
Viking RF deck controls the 800 volt plate supply for the
RF tubes and a separate 1250 volt plate supply for the
811A's, allowing power adjustment from milliwatts up to
about 150 watts of RF power. The zero biased 811A's sound
very clean at powers under 1 watt, making this a very
unique QRP rig! I have worked into Great Britain on
10 meter AM using only 1 watt from this rig! As I recall,
one evening back in the 1980's on 160 meters I was able to
work WA1KNX (Dean) about 100 miles to the north with a few
hundred milliwatts. In the fall of 2009 the old Viking rig
was rebuilt into a 3 foot rack and installed in the
upstairs station. On the right side is the 6 foot rack
housing the homebrew 4-400 rig which is bandswitched for
160 - 75 - 40 meters. The single 4-400 is modulated by a
pair of 833A's in a push-pull heising configuration (using
a multi-tap plate transformer as the reactor) suggested to
me by Steve - WA1QIX. This rig is also variac controlled
and can run cleanly from around 75 watts input to roughly
900 watts input. The 833A's have a regulated adjustable
bias supply that allows a wide range of plate voltages to
be applied without pushing the modulators out of class B
operation. The antenna for these rigs is an open wire fed
160 meter inverted vee fed by a T-Match made from an old
GPT-750 CU-658/UR ATU roller inductor and two
huge cardwell bread slicers which feed into a homebrew 3kw
balun. This station warms up "Studio A" very nicely in the
winter!
Studio A Operating Position
Fall 2011 - I love cable! Not a trace of TVI even at full legal limit!
Fall 2011 - The upstairs AM operating position with the resurrected Viking III and FRG-7700
Morning coffee on 40 meters with the Johnson Viking III. What could be better?
The modest antenna farm is shown below. The tower is a very old EZ-Way 60 foot crank-up and tilt-over galvanized steel monster. It was spotted by my good friend Joe, W1AIU, who tipped me off back in 1987 that it was being retired from commercial service and was available. Purchasing that tower was probably the best hundred bucks I've ever spent in this hobby! It has a 5 foot nosepiece on top and a 14 foot mast above that, which parks the highest antenna at slightly more than 70 feet when the tower is fully extended. Unfortunately, during the infamous snow and ice storm of October 2011 the tower was clobbered by a falling tree. That collision mangled the antennas at the top and put a lot of stress on the tower. During the summer of 2012 it took several weeks to get the tower back into shape along with the 2 meter and 6 meter beams, which were badly bent. A good friend in a nearby town, Bob - K1AO, also suffered severe antenna damage in the big storm. The Traffie Hex Beam that had served him well for 10 years was crushed by several large branches. Bob decided to replace it with a new Hex Beam and offered me his damaged one if I would help him raise the new one. I gladly took him up on his generous offer and with some expert support from Mike Traffie was able to rebuild the old Hex Beam. After some trial runs on a 10 foot pole in the backyard I placed the Traffie Hex Beam at the top of the tower and have been enjoying it ever since. The Hex Beam works beautifully at heights between 30 - 50 feet so out of respect for the age of the old EZ-Way tower I only extend one section of the tower and park the Hex Beam at 50 feet. The rebuilt 2 meter and 6 meter beams are mounted below the hex at heights of 45 feet and 40 feet respectively. With the big Hex Beam upgrade I now have directional coverage from 20 meters through 2 meters. It's been a long time since I've had so much fun on the upper bands!
The rebuilt Traffie Hex Beam cranked to 50 feet
The Hex Beam along with the 2 meter and 6 meter beams up in the clear and pointing south.
Thanks to a coat of Krylon black paint the tower and antennas blend right into the trees very nicely!
Studio A Operating Position
The station receiver
is a reliable old SP600 which has been restored and
works very nicely from the bottom of the broadcast
band up through the six meter band. An FM detector has
been built and added to the SP600 just for the fun of
it. The volume control wiper has been tapped and used
to feed audio to a pair of 6L6 tubes which drive a 10
inch KLH acoustic suspension speaker. Not shown
in these pictures is the "Deerfield Special" FRG 7700
shortwave receiver which is used for AM, FM, CW, and
SSB on 160 through 10 meters.
The slightly more modern station in Studio B is shown below. It runs all bands from 160 meters through 440 Mhz in all modes. A Yaesu FT-8900 is used for the FM modes on 6 meters, 2 meters, and the 440 MHz band. I ended up selling my ICOM Pro III after adding the Flex 5000A to the station, but decided that an agile backup rig would be useful to have on the bench. So I picked up a Kenwood TS-590S that I now use with the digital modes and CW. It's an excellent little rig that handles most tasks quite well. The FT-897D has been moved across the room and is casually used for 2 meter and 440 MHz sideband. I also picked up a heavily modified Kenwood TS-440S that can be seen to the right of the TS-590S in the picture below. The TS-440S was beautifully modified by Dave W2VW a number of years ago. It sports a 9kc Collins TX and RX filter in the AM mode and takes balanced line 600 ohm audio right into the back panel to directly modulate the AN612 modulator. It sounds bigger than the big plate modulated rigs when it's followed by the AL-82. On the top shelf is a Flex 5000 which has provided more entertainment than anything else on the operating bench. It lives up to its reputation as a reliable and outstanding performer on 160 through 6 meters. The transmit and receive audio produced by the Flex is top notch and with the AM mode it surpasses all my plate modulated rigs for fidelity, bandwidth control, and asymmetry. To the right sits a Dentron DTR3K tuner and an Ameritron AL-82 which keeps the room nice and warm during the winter months!
The slightly more modern station in Studio B is shown below. It runs all bands from 160 meters through 440 Mhz in all modes. A Yaesu FT-8900 is used for the FM modes on 6 meters, 2 meters, and the 440 MHz band. I ended up selling my ICOM Pro III after adding the Flex 5000A to the station, but decided that an agile backup rig would be useful to have on the bench. So I picked up a Kenwood TS-590S that I now use with the digital modes and CW. It's an excellent little rig that handles most tasks quite well. The FT-897D has been moved across the room and is casually used for 2 meter and 440 MHz sideband. I also picked up a heavily modified Kenwood TS-440S that can be seen to the right of the TS-590S in the picture below. The TS-440S was beautifully modified by Dave W2VW a number of years ago. It sports a 9kc Collins TX and RX filter in the AM mode and takes balanced line 600 ohm audio right into the back panel to directly modulate the AN612 modulator. It sounds bigger than the big plate modulated rigs when it's followed by the AL-82. On the top shelf is a Flex 5000 which has provided more entertainment than anything else on the operating bench. It lives up to its reputation as a reliable and outstanding performer on 160 through 6 meters. The transmit and receive audio produced by the Flex is top notch and with the AM mode it surpasses all my plate modulated rigs for fidelity, bandwidth control, and asymmetry. To the right sits a Dentron DTR3K tuner and an Ameritron AL-82 which keeps the room nice and warm during the winter months!
Fall 2011
Fall 2011 - I love cable! Not a trace of TVI even at full legal limit!
Fall 2011 - The upstairs AM operating position with the resurrected Viking III and FRG-7700
Morning coffee on 40 meters with the Johnson Viking III. What could be better?
The modest antenna farm is shown below. The tower is a very old EZ-Way 60 foot crank-up and tilt-over galvanized steel monster. It was spotted by my good friend Joe, W1AIU, who tipped me off back in 1987 that it was being retired from commercial service and was available. Purchasing that tower was probably the best hundred bucks I've ever spent in this hobby! It has a 5 foot nosepiece on top and a 14 foot mast above that, which parks the highest antenna at slightly more than 70 feet when the tower is fully extended. Unfortunately, during the infamous snow and ice storm of October 2011 the tower was clobbered by a falling tree. That collision mangled the antennas at the top and put a lot of stress on the tower. During the summer of 2012 it took several weeks to get the tower back into shape along with the 2 meter and 6 meter beams, which were badly bent. A good friend in a nearby town, Bob - K1AO, also suffered severe antenna damage in the big storm. The Traffie Hex Beam that had served him well for 10 years was crushed by several large branches. Bob decided to replace it with a new Hex Beam and offered me his damaged one if I would help him raise the new one. I gladly took him up on his generous offer and with some expert support from Mike Traffie was able to rebuild the old Hex Beam. After some trial runs on a 10 foot pole in the backyard I placed the Traffie Hex Beam at the top of the tower and have been enjoying it ever since. The Hex Beam works beautifully at heights between 30 - 50 feet so out of respect for the age of the old EZ-Way tower I only extend one section of the tower and park the Hex Beam at 50 feet. The rebuilt 2 meter and 6 meter beams are mounted below the hex at heights of 45 feet and 40 feet respectively. With the big Hex Beam upgrade I now have directional coverage from 20 meters through 2 meters. It's been a long time since I've had so much fun on the upper bands!
The rebuilt Traffie Hex Beam cranked to 50 feet
The Hex Beam along with the 2 meter and 6 meter beams up in the clear and pointing south.
Thanks to a coat of Krylon black paint the tower and antennas blend right into the trees very nicely!
A GP-15 Tri-Band
vertical sits at 30 feet with an eave mount to
offer omni-directional coverage with a Yaesu
FT-8900 for the FM sections of 6 meters, 2
meters, and the 440 MHz band. A Grove Scanner
Beam at 30 feet handles most of the scanning duties
for public service and aircraft listening. I
can easily hear all the ground control
frequencies at Bradley Field as well as some of
the Military aircraft stuff up north at Westover
and Westfield.
190 Foot Open Wire Center-Fed
For 160/75/60/40 meter operation, I use
90 feet of homemade open wire feedline to a
center-fed 190 foot inverted vee. If you
look closely at the upper center of the
picture, you can see the feedpoint and the
open wire line trailing off at the top of
the picture. The apex is sitting at just
under 70 feet, and the ends are tied off at
45 feet. The open wire feedline is very easy
to construct and superior in several ways to
the commercially available "window line"
commonly sold by antenna product vendors.
More details about how to construct your own
homemade open wire line can be seen here.
190 Foot Open Wire Center-Fed
The
feedline is connected to a W2FMI 10KW
balun that is bolted to a 15 foot TV
mast which is pounded into the ground
and staked out with several eight foot
copper clad electrodes. It works well,
doesn't pose any RF problems in the
station, and when the lightning season
comes, I think it is a good thing to
have the balun sitting outside with a
low impedance straight shot to ground.
Time will tell...
