KD5AMB is back on the AIR.

Today I made my first amateur radio (HAM) contact, on HF in two years.

It was exciting. I checked in to the Menno Net. I conacted WS6X Jim on

14.289.5mz at 21:05ust. Jim lives in Frenso CA.

The Menno Net (Mennonite Rescue Radio Network) meets every Sunday at 2000 utc on or about 14.290 mz. On this day I heard:

WS6X    Jim     CA
K7IGE   Dan     OR
VA3WIT  Wally   Ridgeville Canada
K4RBZ   Dan     VA
KF4BY   Stan    SC
W4PFM   Paul    NC

Besides new age Podcasting, I’m also interested in old school

amateur radio. And to be a “Real” old school-er ham you have to make

contacts on HF. Think of having our own AM radio staion.

 

My radio (ICOM-706) has been in operational for two years. The story goes

like this: This being my only HF rig it moved from the car to the house

often but mostly stayed in the car as my 2m rig. After about a couple

years of service in my hands and having serviced a couple of years in

another guys hands (I got it used) it needed to have the cob webs and

dust removed. So I opened and dissasembled it at the board level.

The cleaning went well and it was very needed. This can be very

important for the best operation of any electronics with service mount

components.

After disassembled the radio, I didn’t have time to re-assemble

it that day. I bagged it up in static bags and boxed it for re-assembly

later. Later turned into a cold day in November almost a year later.

When I got to it, I was of course somewhat fearful I would not be able to

re-assemble it. This turned out to be not quit true. The reassembly

went better then I was expecting. Good even. But the radio did have a

problem. It was deaf. Transmit was ok but receive was almost completley

gone.

Back in the box the raido went until yesterday. Yesterday I

took the radio back out of the box and cracked open the repair manual I

have for it. I used a hand held 2m as a signal injector (read below how

this was done) and tracked down where the signal was lost. Turned out

I had two internal coax lines reverse. Namely HF and VHF RF from the

filter board, feeding the IF board where reversed. After the switch

back all was right and I’m listening to a 80m chat on 3.875mz as I write

this.

To use a 2m hand held (HT) as a signal injector I connected the

HT to a dummy load and put it on low power. I then used a 1/8 wave

length of copper connecting wire to touch each point on the board. With

the dummyload right on the bench with the wire (antenna) the signal

should be strong. It worked very good for this problem and I found the

problem fast. I verified it in the service manual.

While I love all the new technoligy. And I’m very much a digital guy, part of me loves old school amateur radio.

73 KD5AMB