| WY7W |
Rating:      |
2003-08-03 | |
| 1320 |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
This was my first transceiver kit, so I took my time, about 4 to 5 nights to complete. A few trips to N5ESE's website fixed all my problems, which were: Clicks in side tone-remedied by using a mylar capacitor in place of an electrolitic. Scratchy output-remedied by repositioning output toroids. No vfo drift, no chirp, 4.5 watt output, 70 khz coverage, silky smooth qsk. Can't beat this rig for 95.00!
Tom WY7W |
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| N8NM |
Rating:      |
2003-07-21 | |
| Great rig for the $$ |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
When I saw that T-T was discounting the 13XX series for the month of July, I figured I had to take a chance on one, I mean, a functional CW transceiver for $83? No way!
The kit arrived in about 3 days and was assembled in about 8 hours. Following the supplied instructions, which are well done (though the quality of the printing wasn't the best), the rig fired up and worked as advertised on the first try. In the weeks since, I've made literally hundreds of QSOs with the rig and have had no failure of any kind.
A first time kit builder would probably find this kit a little challenging, but only because of the number of parts involved. There's nothing particularly difficult about the assembly, nor any "gotchas" to look out for. Anyone with reasonable soldering skills and the ability to follow directions should have no problem building and aligning the kit. The only test equipment required is a multimeter and a general coverage receiver with decent dial calibration. A frequency counter would be nice, but is not necessary.
Additionally, the straight forward design lends itself well to experimentation and modification. With a little effort it's possible to really improve upon the performance of these rigs.
While it's no match for my IC-765, I'm having more fun working people with the 1320! I think that it's because with the '765 I expect to be able to work most anyone I hear, but with the 1320 and it's 3.5 watts, I tend to look at every QSO as an accomplishment! |
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| WJ5MH |
Rating:     |
2002-04-06 | |
| A Small Struggle |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Guess I have a love/hate relationship with my Ten-Tec 1320... I love the radio, but hated the problems I had to resolve. (But, troubleshooting is part of the fun of building your own gear, isn't it?)
The radio actually worked the first time I turned it on, but I had QSK clicks and thumps I wasn't happy with. In addition, L7 in the receiver Mixer didn't peak properly, and L6 and L18 in the receiver front-end didn't appear to peak, either. Yet, the receiver was hot, hearing signals my FT-847 was copying.
I also noticed that the AGC wasn't to my liking. Signals had to be relatively strong to kick the AGC into action, but I attributed that to a possible front-end/mixer problem. Poor AGC action was causing me to play with the volume more than I normally would.
The alignment instructions could be a little clearer also. It is very easy to set the BFO to the lower-sideband when most rigs copy CW on the upper-sideband. No big thing. I just wanted the CW pitch to change in the same direction, with clockwise knob rotation, as on my BIG rigs.
After making a few on-air contacts, considerable drift was noticed after transmitting for a couple of minutes. Suspecting heat from the final causing VFO drift, I checked it, but I couldn't detect any significant amount of heat. It was definitely the VFO, because I tracked the 7.918 MHz VFO signal on a second receiver.
After a rather lengthy inspection of the circuit board, component values and solder connections, I found nothing suspicious, so I searched the WEB for help. I ran across several suggestions on curing QSK clicks/thumps, plus a couple suggestions on placement of the low-pass filter toroids. A cure for LM386 hiss was also found, so I suggest visiting http://www.io.com/~n5fc/ prior to building your T-Kit. You'll find some very useful information.
A call to Ten-Tec also helped. I was informed that I could have some incorrectly marked shielded coils. After speaking with two very helpful Ten-Tec staffers, 3 new-shielded coils, and a 910-pf mixer stage capacitor were in the mail. I was also given another cure for QSK clicks, but nothing to fix the VFO drift, outside of checking my workmanship, so I was on my own.
Since I suspected the VFO toroid was a little too sensitive, I followed a suggestion in the ARRL Handbook. I rewound the toroid (a little tighter than I had), and boiled it for 6 minutes, letting it air-dry. (I further suggest that you let it air-dry for 24 hours before installing it. My 1320 toroid wire, with the proper number of turns, covers 1/2 of the toroid.)
After installing the newly made and cooked toroid, I inspected the component side of the circuit board, and did find some lead shavings (with my magnifying glass) around the hot side of C28 (VFO ploy cap). This could have been part of my drift problem as the shavings may have been changing the resistance on the emitter of Q2. This point wasn't shorted to ground, but any foreign objects in and around this area of the board WILL cause problems.
Well, the radio now seems to be working as advertised. I did change a resistor value in the AGC amplifier to increase its gain, and I added a Jackson Harbor PK-3 keyer inside the case, as well as a few other modifications. Would I buy the unit again? The answer is, yes. The design is good, and the support from Ten-Tec is great
To keep this short...if you need additional information, feel free to contact me directly.
73,
Joe
Wj5mh@arrl.net
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| KA9TPD |
Rating:      |
2002-03-22 | |
| A pleasure to build |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I recently was in Sevierville, TN to visit the Ten Tec store and purchased the Ten Kit 1340. One week later after reading the manual thoroughly I started building the kit. The manual is great. You get plenty of info to walk your way through the assembly. The circuit board is excellent quality. After building the PSK80 "Warbler" the Ten Tec quality is very appreciative. Winding the toroids was no problem for me. One mylar film capacitor was missing but with a phone call to TT, they were very helpful to send the part to me ASAP. I did follow the check-ups and alignments as described in the manual. Everything went very well. The 1340 has a very sensitive, selective receiver with a good 3 watt transmitter at 12 volts. I really like the built-in speaker feature and the RIT. The 1340 cabinet enclosure is rugged and sharp-looking. I would recommend this kit if you love the smell of hot solder-rosin on those cold winter evenings. You will be rewarded with not only the pleasure of building one of these babies, but the pleasure of using it as well. |
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| KA5KXW |
Rating:      |
2001-10-06 | |
| Great kit |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I just completed my 1330, and I found it to be almost too easy to finish. It took me 3 nights, and I ignored all of the circuit checks along the way. What fun is it building a kit if you can't spend days debugging it? Well, this one is not much fun in that regard. I basically populated the board, applied power, and it worked right off the bat. The instructions were well laid out and reasonably clear. I would prefer a larger page size for the assembly manual, but it was sufficient. Alignment was a snap, and it works just as advertised. The parts were all first quality, as is the top notch case. All in all, it seems to be a rugged little rig.
I get 4.5 watts out at 13.8 volts, and operation is very smooth. Unfortunately, now I have no excuse not to get my code speed up to par.
I've built an HW-8, an Oak Hills OHR-40 and many other non radio kits. This is the first one I have ever built that was so easy to go together, and worked straightaway. I've seen other folks say that this kit might be much for the beginning builder, but I disagree. With the exception of winding toroids, it's no more difficult than putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Winding toroids is not difficult either, it just takes patience and attention to detail. |
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| W2VD |
Rating:   |
2001-08-23 | |
| Good Rig (...After Modification) |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I finished construction of my 1330 30 meter transceiver kit several days ago. Here is what I noted:
The Pros:
-Sensitive, quiet receiver
-Nice QSK
-Almost 5 watts out
-Stable VFO (less than 100 hertz drift over an hour)
-Solid construction
-Good instructive manual, with only several minor obvious errors
-Kit is assembled in phases, testing each subsection as you go along
The Cons:
-VFO alignment is touchy (but once done is very stable)
-A phono jack is used for power (a coaxial jack would have been nicer, but this is my personal preference)
-Filter selectivity could be sharper
-The power amplifier (output filter)...
I could not match the 1330 to my antenna, even through a tuner. I noted equal forward and reflected power readings, even after resonating my antenna with my LDG auto tuner (using my Icom 746). I also noted a bad sounding CW sidetone. Before I could contact Ten Tec, I received the Summer 2001 issue of SPRAT by the G-QRP Club. This issue of SPRAT contained an article by DJ1ZB detailing the exact problem that I was having. I modified the first low pass filter section per the article, which resolved the problem. Now the 1330 functions nicely on transmit, and I have received good reports regarding transmit signal quality.
If I didn't have to modify this kit, I'd have rated it a 4 out of 5. But since I had to modify the kit to make it work properly, I have to give it a 2. I'd I'd be interested in hearing from others who may have experienced the same transmit problem.
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|
| M0CQG |
Rating:     |
2001-02-11 | |
| Very nice monobander |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have built three of these rigs - two 1340's for 40m, and a 1330 for 30m. Both 1340s have since been sold, but the 1330 has only just been completed.
I don't think this kit is ideal for first time builders - the parts count is high, and there are plenty of steps where problems can occur. For a builder with no experience whatsoever, there is some risk of failure, unless you're careful.
The quality of the kit is excellent - nice board, good parts and an outstanding chassis / cabinet. This one looks like a real radio when it's finished! The manual is good, though not without one or two minor errors (which you can figure out by looking at the circuit schematics). QSK is first rate, receiver is very good indeed (filtering just a little bit too wide, though?), and the AGC better than most in this price range.
All in all, a very good monoband rig. Like I said, I'm onto my third - every time I sell one, I end up buying another. It's one of my favourites, without a doubt.
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| KC4TXR |
Rating:      |
2001-01-24 | |
| Best o' Breed |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
After futher reflection on last review of this product and a bunch of inquiries from other Hams, I need to add the following. I have gobs of monoband CW QRP rigs. 5 or 6 kits and a similar number of homebrew projects. The Wilderness SST and Small Wonder DSW are among my favorites. They're fantastic for what they were designed to do. But my Ten Tec 1320 is the rig I use most often at home. The reason you ask? Great, clean, sensitive, selective audio. Boat loads of volume out of the speaker. Nice roomy cabinet, well laid out, easy to modify. TX puts out a clean 4 watts. All this for under $100. If I hit the road or go backpacking, then it's the SST or DSW I take along.
The Ten Tec does have a few quirks that I mentioned before but all are easily remedied. The most common issue that I got gobs of mail on is the QSK thump. Easy to fix, remove C1, and it works beautifully. I thought the AGC was a tad slow and that can be tweeked by changing C47 or R28. After a couple of years using the 1320, I changed them back to Ten Tec's original values, they had it just about perfect in hindsight. I use a Vibroplex bug and that brought out a wierd idiosyncracy in the keying circuit. The dots were a different frequency TX) than the dashes. There were a couple of reasons for this. One is that the dot resistance on the Vibroplex tends to be a bit higher than the dash contact resistance. There is also a lot of switch bounce on the dot contact (in addition to the intentional bounce). The Ten Tec doesn't like that. Just add 510 ohms in series with the key line and all problems vanish. It is also very important on the 1320 and 1330 versions to keep the coil windings on L8, L9 and L10 as physically far apart from each other as possible. This is just a matter of orientation during construction but they are easily moved even after placement. When the windings are too close to each other, the TX can break into oscillation, is harder to peak the power and is very sensitive to reactive loads. Keep them far apart and these issues vanish. I re-adjusted mine recently and as a bonus, the slight chirp I had vanished. The power output also came up a little to 4.5W Ten Tec may be pointing all this out in their manual, my rig is almost four years old now.
So the almost perfect rig I had is now a perfect rig. This is truly a great radio, great documentation, a fun building experience and an education all wrapped up in one package.
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Earlier 5-star review posted by KC4TXR on 2000-12-29
I've had the 1320 (20M) version for three years now. It's a good solid fine unit. Ten Tec puts out what is arguably, the best manual in the business. If you build this rig, you will learn a thing or two. The audio is great, superbe in fact. Super sensitive RX with good filtering. The AGC was a tad slow to recover so I modified the time constant. Mine has an ever so slight chirp but not objectionable. Great documentation and easy to modify. It's not the smallest, lightest, cutest thing out there. It does have a very stable VFO and 50KHz tuning range whihc is better than a lot of rubber rock rigs out there. Puts out 3 watts and works the world! |
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| KB5NAB |
Rating:      |
2000-11-11 | |
| 1340 nice little radio |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
It went together just fine. I had a problem getting the vfo to oscillate but once fixed just fine.
It puts out a solid 5 watts, RX really quite good but an agc might be nice..Anyway, the price of the complete kit is very reasonable, and the radio will make a dandy camping rig, along with a SLV..... 3 watts out with a 12V source.
I think it is a fine radio for a novice who wants to build his own rig and has a pretty tight budget. TenTec makes nice stuff! |
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| KG9HV |
Rating:      |
2000-11-11 | |
| 1315 kit |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I had been waiting for TenTec to come out with
their 15M version of QRP kit and when it came available, I ordered one. This is my first TenTec
and I was impressed with the quality of parts and
well written manual. It went together without any
problems and was easy to align. It puts out 3W and
my first contacts were in Germany,Bulgaria, and
Lithuania. The metal enclosure is of very nice quality also. I think this is a great rig for the
money and I am having as much fun running it as
I did building it. |
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