Ten Tec PTO kits are not really difficult projects. With a modicum of supervision, and a little basic soldering instruction, almost any normal person can do that job. So do yourself and a neighborhood kid a favor. Hire a fifteen or sixteen year old to do the fine work for you.

And while you are at it, talk up ham radio. Because once the rig is back on the air, most kids will think "Hey, I can do that!" And many will follow through.

So you get your rig tuning properly, you may have a convert - and most important of all, you have found another pair of good hands the next time something comes up.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

Components, transmission lines, antennas, and almost everything else works  exactly the same way now they did in 1935. But much of what was commonly taught in 1935 has become forgotten knowledge.

While some relatively minor changes may be necessary to account for solid state devices; silicon rectifier stacks instead of 866's, and integrated circuits instead of octode vacuum tubes; most hams would be the better for studying Terman, Perry, or Weaver to begin with, instead of the relatively opaque texts so common today.

73  Pete Allen AC5E

John, they all have advantages - and warts. The truly tiny Autek is as handy as a pocket in a shirt - but the ten turn pots could be better. Up the tower, I usually don't care if I am 10 kHz off - I want to know what the antenna is doing. The Autek gets the job done.  And it fits in a cell phone holster and you never know it is there.

There are three MFJ's on the shelf, and none of them have given anything but satisfaction. You will definitely notice the weight going up the tower, though. And you will want to rig some way to carry it without turning it on.

The AEA works well, but it's a bit like a using 12 gauge for sparrows for most ham uses. And I do not need a Smith Chart to find out if the 17 Meter loops are interacting with the 20 and 15 Meter loops.

Of course, you will read a lot of knocks in the reviews. Perhaps they are justified, perhaps not. I use each of the several I own fairly regularly, and all of the ones I have mentioned do what they are intended to do and have been reliable for me.

The best thing to do is ask around your neck of the woods, find out who has what, and pay them a visit. Look the gear over, ask the questions, and make your decision.

73 Pete Allen  AC5E

John, they all have advantages - and warts. The truly tiny Autek is as handy as a pocket in a shirt - but the ten turn pots could be better. Up the tower, I usually don't care if I am 10 kHz off - I want to know what the antenna is doing. The Autek gets the job done.  And it fits in a cell phone holster and you never know it is there.

There are three MFJ's on the shelf, and none of them have given anything but satisfaction. You will definitely notice the weight going up the tower, though. And you will want to rig some way to carry it without turning it on.

The AEA works well, but it's a bit like a using 12 gauge for sparrows for most ham uses. And I do not need a Smith Chart to find out if the 17 Meter loops are interacting with the 20 and 15 Meter loops.

Of course, you will read a lot of knocks in the reviews. Perhaps they are justified, perhaps not. I use each of the several I own fairly regularly, and all of the ones I have mentioned do what they are intended to do and have been reliable for me.

The best thing to do is ask around your neck of the woods, find out who has what, and pay them a visit. Look the gear over, ask the questions, and make your decision.

73 Pete Allen  AC5E

Once you have one, they are about as handy as a pocket in a shirt. I have used mine for many odd things such as checking coax loss - lossy coax gets warm, and SWR - high standing waves will result in hot spots. And checking wire wound resistors without burning my fingers, etc., etc..

Is that pot boiling? Check it! Is the car's water temperature too high? Check the upper radiator tank's outside surface. Thermostat not opening? Measure the hose temperature as the car warms up. Etc., etc., etc..

One caution - most glass is infra red absorptive, so don't try to measure through glass.

73  Pete Allen

Back in 1956 I heard my own CQ after a short, few seconds, delay. I have heard credible, witnessed, reports of a two minute delay on a San Fran to VK commercial circuit that included severe fading of the delayed station. But two years?

Either recorded - or didn't happen. Simply put, the volume of a space four light years across (that is, two light years with the square cube law operational on the way "out" and two more years of the same on the way "back in" would reduce any feasible signal to undetectable) is so great that hearing a reflection after that time would not be possible. Not unless Einstein was rather spectacularly wrong.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

As I recall the problem was a driver transistor - that may very well last until the next century. Or that may fail today.  If the radio works when you buy it, it is likely to keep on working as long as you keep it. But there are no guarantees, no insurance policies, and no replacement for the part.

Meaning a tech will have to find the closest electrical replacement and then figure out a way to shoehorn the substitute into the radio. Something that is not likely to be cheap, and that may not be feasible. Further, I do not know. I do know that Yaesu dropped support of the rigs in a remarkably short period of time.

The rumor mill had it that Yaesu was given an "End Of Life" (we will not make that device after _date_) notice well before the FT-1000 and other Yaesu rigs that use the same part were put in production. When the initial purchase of devices was exhausted, and no more could be found, they moved on to new models. Given the number of EOL notices I see that is credible - but I have no clue to accuracy.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

Generally speaking, the 271H will run you out of the shack if you turn the volume up.

For "low audio output" the most likely problem is in the audio amp. And, considering the 20+ year age of an IC-271H, the problem is quite likely to be an open coupling cap. Electrolytics do dry out, but they are cheap and usually easy to replace.

Considering the cost at Mouser or DigiKey, I would pull the schematic, make a shopping list of all the 'lytics on the audio board, and change them all. The sound will be the better for it.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

Antennas are much like everything else. Simplest works best. From the description, I suspect the original was intended to be a G5RV or a variant. At 56 feet a side it will be much too long for 40 - and inductive as - well.

If you ONLY want to use it on 40, run coax, preferably RG213, to the center and shorten it to 65 feet, 6 inches overall, 32' 9" on each side.

If you are lucky with elevation and ground you will be resonant around 7.15 with 1:1 SWR, and within 2:1 everywhere on the band. Whether that will let you forget the tuner depends on your rig.

You will also be able to use it on 15 with few problems. On 10 and 20, the feedpoint impedance will be out of sight and coax losses will be a problem. On 75/80, feedpoint impedance will be very low, and coax losses will be a problem.

But it will make you one good 40 Meter dipole.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

If you can remember formulae, particularly 6.28 X f X whatever, the five buck variety from the big box stores are perfectly adequate.

The VE Team should inspect your calculator and make sure you have nothing helpful in memory before you test, and some VE's keep cheap calculators to hand out before a session.

The proper calculator to buy for a VE session is the very cheapest one you can find with a square root and reciprocal function. If it does not have a memory so much the better.

That said - I never bothered with a calculator. Work most electronic formula a few times and you should get a sufficient understanding of the relationship between winding diameter, coil length, and TPI to allow you to estimate inductances, reactances, etc., closely enough to select the proper answer without bothering with calculations.

After all, any question that involves more calculation than you can do on your fingers is a multiple choice question, and only one out of fifty. Don't sweat the exams - and after the exam you can use whatever suits your fancy.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

The original Citizens Band was up on 465 mHz. I remember one that used a single 955 triode plate modulated. Which worked OK across the street when you could get the regererative receiver on the same frequency as the transmitter.

I cannot say about anywhere else, but here the CB boom started with imported 1 to five channel rigs. You carried extra crystal sets to change channels. The '23's came soon after that. And then, of course, there were the 40 channel rigs.

I very well remember the trade journal hullaballo when the FCC mandated 40 channel rigs. Several "big names" had container loads of 23's on the way and Uncle Charley would not allow them to be given away, much less sold.

To make matters worse, the FCC would not type approve any conversions, no matter how it was done. So there were several (failed) lawsuits against the FCC demanding some equitable resolution.

I understand 23 channel rigs were really cheap in Mexico at that time. The 23 channel version of the Cobra 29 was, as I recall, about ten bucks.

And yes, when I made two to three thousand miles a week in the mid 1980's I was on CB quite a bit. I quit when I succumbed to habit and gave my ham call on channel 19.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

The "classic" way to do that is to cut a slightly short 80M dipole, say 58 feet on each side of the feedpoint, add a substantial loading coil at each end, and then extend the antenna as needed to hit wherever you want to operate on 160.

As I remember from 1948, that was normally 200 turns of #12 enameled on a 1.5" dowel, boiled in paraffin. OUTDOORS AWAY FROM ANYTHING FLAMMABLE.

However, QST had an article perhaps ten years ago on loading a dipole, and since I am a thousand miles or so from my library I will commend you to the arrl.org site's members only search function.

However, generally speaking the center section will do quite well for 80, or 75 if you further shorten it, and it takes perhaps 10 more feet of wire outboard of the loading coils. Overall, you can squeeze that into perhaps 140 feet.

At practical heights the feedpoint impedance will be low enough that I see no great advantage to ladder line. Nor would there be any advantage to feed the thing off center unless you just want to.

73 Pete Allen  AC5E

Well - the Bentonville Behemoth has a Windows 7 E-machines box with 6 gigs of memory for $398.00, sans monitor.  

While I have several hi-buck computers for business, the Wal-Mart cheapie keeps up with all of them. Win 7 is far less buggy than the older versions, especially the Mistake Edition and Vista. But 95 and 98 had plenty of problems as well.

It runs all my older ham radio programs; and with the latest iteration of Systweak and Kaspersky anti-virus I have less than $525 in it. Plus a monitor I had. That's a third or less of the cost of a Mac.

And - considering the average life of a computer these days, the E-machines will probably last a couple of days longer than that.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E

Since a 1.8:1 SWR indicates around 7% reflected power at the point of measurement, assuming decent coax any loss of antenna system efficiency should be trivial. (1 dB is a 22% power loss) If your rig demands a lower SWR even the worst of tuners should have less than .25 dB of insertion loss.

While you can do as you please, I would be pleased that it is as well matched as it is and go ahead and enjoy it. The more so in that very few of those you talk to will have a better matched antenna.

73  Pete Allen AC5E

When it comes to wire size, the smaller numbers are physically larger. Instead of negative numbers, it goes to /0 to indicate a progressively larger conductor. That is, #6 is larger with greater current carrying capacity than #12,  1/0 is larger than #2, etc..

While your area may vary, the usual wire size for a house electrical or telephone ground is #10. That is, one #10 from the electrical neutral to a ground rod, one #10 from the network interface box ("telephone box") to a ground, etc..

Now, LIGHTNING is something else. The rule is simple. No ground is adequate but the larger it is the better. That said, I would go with the #4 unless you are grounding a substantial tower.

73  Pete Allen  AC5E