VJB wrote:
Funny it should come up on here about certain members of the Collins crowd and the horrible, sacriligious view they may take of making unintrusive mods that improve the enjoyment of a piece of equipment.
The one rig that -needs- the most modifications to better the enjoyment
of this particular peice of equipment, is the 75A series of recievers.
In particular, the 75A-4, and I'm not sure that enough can be done to
that reciever to bring it to be nearly as good as a properly aligned
phase-shift receiver.
Most of those who would criticise changes in the audio of later serial number
KW-1s fail to realize the changes actually may correct the transmitter back to
an earlier set of factory values that sounded better than the value of
components installed in later production examples.
Another 'good' mod (at least one that's acceptable by the 'in' crowd,
for a KW-1, would be to change out the 4-400's in the final, for
4-250's. The 810's would work better into those jugs, I think, as
opposed to the 4-400's.
These, of course, are my personal opinions.
It's also very true that a broadcast transmitter of any significant age is likely to have been 'changed' by the station's engineering staff to an extent ranging from functional modifications to repairs. These changes typically involve some interpetation with available components and how they're mounted.
We, as the Providers of Good Homes when these transmitters reach private hands then have
to decide whether to "restore" an already modified transmitter back to
original, or functionally bring it up to the application where it can best be used.
I prefer the latter. Just because it 'could' be a museum peice, doesn't
mean it 'has' to. It was designed to 'work', by golly, WORK IT!
The useful life of a broadcast transmitter
...or any other peice of equipment that's fixing to be 'tossed'...
can be extended many many more years by making it useful on the ham bands. Interpretation must take place among us, too.
Are we, or are we not licensed Amatuer Radio Operators? Aren't -we- the
only group of people who are allowed to use Type Accepted equipment, *as
well as* create our own, or modify any other peice of equipment to work
on the frequencies allocated to us by the FCC? Even the johnny-Novice
is allowed to work on their own equipment. You can't say that about the
introductory level ham-license in either Canada or Australia (heard a
guy from down there talking about it. *I* wouldn't talk to him beacuse
he signed his call as "VK3FELA" Sounds bogus to me, but he explained
that it, too, was an intrductory ticket. Curious that QRZ doesn't list
that call.
As hams, if we build it, and it meets "good engineering practice", we
can operate it on the air.
Who else can say that?
the idea of 'buying' a show-peice of equipment, and then not using it
because you don't want to damnage it is counter-productive to the
activity of Ham Radio, in general, and not just the Boat-anchor crowd.
I'm agreeing with you, Paul :-)
--
73 = Best Regards,
-Geoff/W5OMR
