Quote:
Originally Posted by JBL GUY
Congratulations on your progress and your new to your radios, both new and used.
I have had a number of 7950s back in the day and they worked very well. The only thing I ran into is issues with printed circuit board connection failures due to the heat produced by the final RF power amplifier section, simple fix.
If you are not already doing this, spend some time listening to you local repeaters. This will help you understand the sometimes arcane operating practices employed by some. 
And by all means continue your study for the higher classes of license.
My first rig was a DIY single tube CW power oscillator transmitter (with all of it's inherent instability ) and a DIY receiver.
Your CW key is what is known as a J-38. There are special events set up on the HF bands for the use of a straight key as they are known. Then there are mechanical keys known as bugs, that will make and complete a series of dits and dahs. The next step is what is called an electronic keyer, that forms the dits and dahs electronically and may even contain character memory.
Good luck with the tests. |
I pulled the 7950 apart and checked that; read about that issue elsewhere; this one didn't appear to have any issues.
I've kept my Baofeng on the local repeater; but I've only ever heard anything during nets. I'm not sure if they just don't get used much. Plus the reception is pretty lousy indoors and my computer equipment produces noise that's above squelch level. I'll ask some of the club members when the best time is to listen to the repeaters; I'm pretty confident someone will help me out there.
My first DIY rig will likely be a QRP rig of some sort.
It's not a true J-38, best I can tell it's the Japanese "JJ-38". I took it off the base to verify and saw "Japan" stamped on the bottom of it; so it's one of the straight keys RadioShack apparently sold in the 70s. This one has been slightly modiified; the key was bent a little to make it lowerto the table and someone very carefully notched out for the bottom piece of clear plastic.
I actually sat and looked up the different types of keys and paddles about two months ago because I was curious as to just what the difference was. A straight key made sense, but the paddles didn't. They still don't make a lot of sense...and I have no clue if I'll ever use one. But, a lot of guys apparently said the same thing, then after getting proficient with code they were able to swap.
If I completely wanted to cheat; I could use a PC to generate and decode CW.