Eddy, Yes, there is nothing better than running homebrew gear. Building is where its at for me, I enjoy all the stages, the planning, the selecting of parts, the design, the construction, the operation, and sometimes, the improvement of performance.
I find all the other stuff very poor, poor style (military), poor performance, poor reliability when pushed, poor to try to improve, no space for bigger parts. Since I now have two homebrew receivers, I am selling the R390A (Jay, N3WWL says he wants it for $300.00), the like new SX17 ($250.00), and the Drake T4xb (with 160 meters and the power supply)($200). I will keep the Scott SLRM as its so cool, and the G76 which I never use but love, and the two 32V3's, as they also work very well. Very little non home brew stuff left in the shack! Still working on the design of the homebrew 40 meter transceiver. I think it will be a 4d32 modulated by KT88/KT90 tubes, no space on a chassis for anything bigger with the power supplies included. I may think about remoting the power supplies, may be able to run two 4D32 tubes modulated by 4 KT90's! 200 watts of carrier... Should be loads of fun combining the receiver and transmitter in one package, along with the exciter and speech amp. I figure something like a crystal oscillator (5763 or 6c4), cathode follower (6C4), driver (5763), two 4D32 output tubes, 12AX7 mike amp, ? phase splitter (6sn7 equivalent), four KT90 mod tubes, plus something for tone control like what is in the back of the RCA tube manual. Crystal controlled rx and tx, one switch, 7280, 7285, 7290, 7295. (should be very stable!) No front panel rx preselect, no front panel grid tuning, no tuning control, but maybe an rit/xit. Mike gain, bass and treble, grid drive? maybe inside, plate tune and load, lots of meters, receiver rf gain, S meter, frequency switch (channel). Fun fun fun! Brett N2DTS > > What a joy! I can't describe to you the feeling one gets when > a rag tag > collection of ancient bottles & components like this come together & > facilitate communications-quality signals like that...why > EVERYONE doesn't > homebrew even a simple item for daily use in the shack is > lost to me. Ham > Radio just wouldn't be Ham Radio without the ability to > "...roll my own" in > this manner. > > ~73!~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ >
