Sunday, November 18, 2018

Thats What Friends Are For

I've repeatedly said that the one thing I really love about this radio hobby are the people you meet and the friends you make. This is especially true in the niche areas of the hobby like QRP. 

We QRPers are linked by the challenge of doing more with less. Not only is it a challenge to pursue ham radio at the 5 watt (or less) level, it is a character building exercise. Add homebrew equipment into the mix and you have a facet of the hobby that is a great place to be. 

In order to become a successful QRP operator your operating habits have to be honed and your knowledge of antennas, propagation and station engineering have to be top notch. This is where our fellow QRPers come into the picture. 

No one in this hobby has all the answers. We can all learn no matter our experience level or the overall time in the hobby. As a collective body QRPers are an open and sharing group. In the spirit of ham radio we gladly share our knowledge and provide help and guidance for our fellow low power operators. 

On rare occasions one meets some really astounding people in this hobby. In my instance two of those people are Paul Stroud, AA4XX, and Fran Slavinski, K3BX, formerly KA3WTF. I have known the two of them for well over 25 years, starting with their attempts to shatter the miles-per-watt record on 40 meters in mid-1990s. At the end of a two year period Paul and Fran had proven it was possible to communicate over several hundred miles with microwatts on an HF band that was crowded with high power ham radio operators along with massive shortwave broadcast stations! This saga is outlined in my QRP books for the ARRL. Suffice it to say that these two QRPers are legendary in the annals of low power operations. 

Recently I had been offered a chance to procure a Ten-Tec Argonaut II (Model 535) in exchange for my Kenwood TS-130V station. I jumped at the offer as it dove tailed nicely with my plans to downsize my station. The deal was struck and I now had a very nice digital Argonaut. 

I took the new rig home, fired it up and started tuning around the bands. All went well until I tired to go above 15M (21 MHz). The rig would display the frequency but no receive and no transmit. I finally decided that it was the synthesizer that was coming unlocked above 21 MHz. 

I contacted Fran (K3BX) and he advised since that rig had a number of header plugs and cables, it might be prudent to go inside the rig and, one-by-one, pull the cable headers off the pins and apply some DeOxit (an electronic contact cleaner/lube that has been sent from Heaven to alleviate corrosion on electrical contacts and clean up controls) then re-seat the headers several times to spread the DeOxit around. This technique I have used on other rigs, most notably a second hand Yaesu FT-726 VHF/UHF multi-mode transceiver. 

I have put this on "hold" due to an unforeseen development. In addition to QSOing Fran, I also contacted Paul, AA4XX, for his advice or to see if his Argo II had exhibited similar problems and what he did to resolve them. 

At this point in our conversation Paul said he hadn't had any similar problems but his display back light had failed (a common theme with the Argo II) so he'd placed it on the shelf and hadn't used it for several years. He was looking to off-load it, would I care to have another Argo II?

Say what?!?!?!

Long story short: Paul sent me his Argo II in exchange for the shipping costs! It works just fine except for the back light. This gift was totally unexpected. Thank you, my friend, it will be front and center in my shack. 

I have located a replacement back light which will be the subject of another blog entry. As for the other Argo II, it will be put back into full service and find a new home.

My thanks to Paul and Fran for a long and fruitful friendship. This is what good friends are for. 

All for now. I gotta go make an appearance on HF during the 2018 CQ DX WW CW test. Using the new Argo II of course. 

Vy 73
Rich K7SZ

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