Radio AI7R

Welcome to my station.

Here is a story about my tower installation...

I enjoy QRP and portable work.  Give me a wire antenna in the trees, a solar panel, and my QRP rig, a breeze in my face (and my wonderful wife who is also a great cook) and I'm a very happy person!

I have a Yaesu 817 and an Icom 703 to play with as well as a K2 with all the trimmings.  Actually, I enjoyed the K2 so much that I traded it for a kit and built it again.  Nice little rigs.

I finally broke down and bought a big rig...a Yaesu FT-1000 Field.  I was amazed that the prices had come down so much since the last time I looked.  It was over $4K a few years back and now they are less than half that.  I looked at everything available out there and the 756Pro II was the most popular.  But, being a fan of clean audio like you find in the classic tube gear I was interested in something that wasn't as digital as the Pro II was.  DSP really sounds bad...even if it is helpful at times.  I'm a rag chewer and the hollow sounds that DSP generates is hard on my ears.  The FT1K is a great radio and came with a Collins mechanical filter and also has a little DSP to assist.  It uses a light hand on the DSP so the quality still seems to be there.  I am having a ball with it.

I'm a Collins Radio buff.  I administered the Collins list for many years and enjoy operating my two stations as often as I can find time.  I was lucky enough to obtain a specially built desk that was designed just for the Collins S-line gear...tilting it up and everything.  Here's the tour:

Here is the complete Collins station in all its glory.   There are actually two stations here as you'll see detailed below.  The bottom of the hutch that these are in is about an inch higher in the front than it is in the back, giving the gear a very nice tilt up towards the operator.
This is the S-Line consisting of a 75S3C receiver and a 32S3 transmitter.  Above them you'll find a 312B4 station console.  The console has a watt meter and phone patch along with a speaker.  These phone patches probably were the most used during the Viet Nam war over the Amateur and MARS freqs.  What looks like a speaker on the right is actually the power supply.  The 75S3C is a 'round emblem' and the rest of the station is winged.  It has filters for AM and CW (800 + 500)
Here is another popular combo.  This is the KWM-2A transceiver and the rare but cool 312B5 vfo to the left of it.  This combo is a must for CW operators.  And, to the left is the 30L1 amp that runs about 500-800 watts depending on the band.  I only use it when it helps the other guy...mostly when on SSB (rare) and for DXing.  Again, above there is the power supply for the radio and rotor and tuner. The 30L1 is now used at the mountain QTH with an FT1000 Field and the 40 meter loop.  Of course, I only turn on the amp if I need it.
And, this is a Drake 4B line.  It's not the military spec construction like the Collins, but these were made for Amateur use and not the military.  It's a great looking station and has all the filters and other adjustments anyone needs to have enjoyable contacts.  Above there is the power supply/speaker and watt meter.  The far left top has a EICO 717 tube type keyer.   I found this at a hamfest and it was in 100% perfect shape...just like the factory built it and sent it through time.  I don't think it had ever been plugged in!!

Most of the older radios have trouble with their caps before anything else goes bad. It's strange to replace them with today's newer caps because they take less than half the space. But these babies warm up the room and have a nice smell to them. These are REAL radios.

Here I am. Web pages are a real EGO trip. I'm also involved with the CADXA and the ARRL. I also act as repeater trustee for the 146.980/447.750 repeaters located on Belle Butte at Broadway and the I-10 freeway.

And here I am in the summer of 67 or 68 while visiting a very good friend, Stan, WB6WFI (now AA6SC), that I had met over the radio.  We were so close that I could wake him from a sound sleep by the sound of my fist....of course the slight chirp helped.  Check out the B&W 5100 and SP 600.  I took these everywhere...that's how I stayed so thin.   Of course the socks kept me safe when I was playing in traffic.