The AM Forum

Sometimes it comes to a point where I'm itching to get on the air and after so many delays and frustrations, I just want to make some contacts. I feel like I'm a ham in license only, never making any independent contacts on my own.

So yea today I did the unforgivable - I picked up an SSB rig today, very cheap, along with a KW-E-Zee tuner. It's a KW2000B and it seems in very good condition. Previously it was owned by the Air cadets. Then given to a ham who lives about 2 hours north of me.

He had found and replaced bum tubes but he couldn't figure out how to run it. It has the manuals included but operation and troubleshooting information isn't quite as thorough as I'd hoped.

Alas, I'm doomed to be delayed even more. I don't have the original mic and even following the instructions, I'm unable to get the receiver or the transmitter to give any indication of operation. Everything lights up. I can get built-in 1500Hz tone. Relays respond to my voice. But my SWR meter remains unexcited.

I'm suspecting mic connections at first, since I don't have an OE mic. Can anyone tell me anything about it?

If the mic connections/keying connections are as straight forward as I believe them to be, can anyone give a hint of what quick little thing may be holding it back?

All of this aside, I'm still going to work on the homebrew stuff, that will never end of course!

73s
geo

I am not familiar with the rig, but the manuals and schematic are available for others to provide technical assistance here:

http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/kw/kw2000b/

If you suspect the mic may not be compatible or wired correctly, you might first try tuning it up into a dummy load on CW, this would test the RF circuits and determine whether it can produce any power.  Not sure how you are tuning it up for SSB, but if the mic is not working you will not get output in sideband operation.  Give CW a try first.  With schematic and manual, there should be plenty of additional assistance with all the folks on AMfone!

From what I can see (my manuals I find also came with schematics), the OE mic had a "key" switch - so if that's not working/connected properly, that might be why I'm seeing no RF out.

I've pulled it from it's casing and I'm going over things to be sure there are no obvious stupid faults, then I'll Ohm out the 1/4" stereo jack to see where contacts are made within the rig. If the OE 1/4" jack is NG, I have another I can fit in.

I've had my license for over a year now and I've yet to make any contacts in spite of trying to make my own gear. I can generate the RF ok, but modulating it has been a trouble spot.

I have beautiful modulation Xformers now, and I don't plan on spending too much time on this KW2000B. I paid $40 for it, the power pack and the tuner today. If it turns out to be a bum, it'll make a good parts supply for me!

And thinking about SSB, I've been thinking about turning my AM experiments into DSB experiments. It's too much hassle to worry about filters, etc...but generating DSB with suppressed carrier doesn't seem too hard for homebrew. It might help me get some contacts finally!

73s
geo
VE3GZB

I would suggest getting the receiver portion up and running first. A microphone is not necessary for receiver operation. Transceivers use common circuits in various parts of the receiver and transmitter. Dirty relay contacts in many of these old transceivers can be a source of problems.

George

Is this the rig?

http://www.ia.net/~wbsorsby/N5BU/KW2000/kw2000.htm

If we are to help you we need all the info we can get.  Yes, it looks like it's a 1/4" mic jack -- that's interesting.  Yeah, get the receiver up and running first then tackle the transmitter.  There are only 2 hot connections on the mic jack so you should be able to get it to go over to TX but do hook things up (ant or dummy load) and get a manual

Al

Yes, that is the rig!

I just spent all evening looking at it. I replaced the 1/4" jack (original one had a problem indeed, it wasn't making electrical connection with regards to keying, I Ohmed it out). And believe it or not, the fuse holder for the high voltage supply was defective! Fuse was ok, just the holder wasn't making decent contact.

Caps all Ohm out good, there's no apparent fault that I can quickly identify in a few hours on the bench. Everything internally looks nearly mint, no signs of mistreatment or abuse.

Opened up the Final cage, cleaned the varicaps with this spray contact cleaner stuff, did the same for the band switch, rocked the switch to and fro to work it in. Pulled the tubes out, spray cleaned everything there too, rocked the tubes back and forth, then buttoned it all back up.

Powered it all up? Nada. Zilch. Filaments and audio run. Glow tube regulators are lit, relays click ok. And that is all that happens. But there's no apparent generation of RF (I ran a scope probe single-turn loop within the cabinet to "sniff" for any RF, I found none.). SWR meter remains at zero during tune up or if I try to feed audio. And there's no telltale "buzz" from the Xformers which I should expect if I were drawing current under modulation.

No plate current either, and oddly enough, turning the RF gain control counterclockwise causes the S meter/current meter to ascend under certain conditions!

In other words it really seems to be haywire, and what makes it worse is that everything looks mint and unmodified, so it'll really become a big ugly hairy monster to try to get running, especially if it needs new Xtals or a new filter assy.! EEK!

At this point I was really hoping that I could land some kind of bargain - I put my ad up on Ontario Swap Shop - I was hoping to get something that would at least let me talk on the air (don't care if the Rx works because I have my own Rx). I spent my last $40 out of my budget of $100 and got a bench warmer!! Makes me mad and very disappointed and very broke!

If anyone in my area (nearest centre Orangeville, Ontario) wants this rig for it's parts and/or tube value, make me an offer? it's too much to ship so it has to be in pickup distance.

Or better, make me a trade for something that is a bit older but has a better chance of working, has more hope of working and letting me make a contact or two just so I feel like I really am a Ham and not just a junk collector at this point?

I don't mind a few problems to fix, but after looking at the guts inside this thing, at how many potential problem points there could be given the symptoms, the utter lack of reception or RF generation, looking at how many switch connections, crystals, mechanical filter complexity, relay contacts, how many tubes there are to develop intermittents or opens, well I'm afraid might require much more than I'm feeling like investing, given how much I've homebrewed already.

I'm simply getting mighty tired of it, it's darned exhausting to work and build and get no contacts as a result, and I've been trying for over a year now, still nothing!

You can PM or e-mail me if you're looking for something for parts value. I'm feeling tired - and all I wanted to do was just make a few contacts and keep encouraged while I build my own system.

73s
geo
VE3GZB

Geo,

This is how you learn.  Everyone who is proficient started out as a total dumb-ass knowing nothing. We all have Johnny Novice stories of the first rigs we worked on and how they blew up or never worked again. But little by little sticking with it wins in the end.

Consider it a challenge to get that rig working. Take one section at a time and take voltage measurments until it starts to make sense.

BTW, a ssb rig is a lot of fun. I spend at least half my ham time on ssb working DX. I find it pays to switch back and forth between modes (and groups of people) to keep things exciting and fresh. That ssb rig will be a great addition to your gear - especially if you pull it back from the grave.

Start with the VFO and see if there is a signal coming out of it when you key it up. If not find out why by measuring voltages and poking around with a scope - and a VOM looking for bad connections. Bang the components around with the plastic end of a screwdriver looking for intermitents.


For the receiver, inject a sig gen RF signal into the ant jack on 80M. With the scope, find out where it starts (RF amp) and ends. One section at a time.

Post your results and problems and we will talk you thru it over time.

Good luck -

Tom, K1JJ

UPDATE:  I just took a look at the rig pic posted above. That's a nice looking radio!  Looks like a British version of a Collins KMW-2. Heck, it's tubes so you shud be able to get it going. See those 3-4 relays? They can be unplugged and pulled apart from the plastic case. Clean the contacts with alky and use a burnishing tool to clean up the contacts. That cud very well be a big part of the problem. Clean any and all relays up first, then get into it. Got a tube tester?

On this rig, I don't think I'll touch it anymore, I'm plain exhausted from having to put so much in and get nothing out.

I work at electronics for a living, and I don't mind doing electronics for a hobby (I love it), Ham radio too.

But this rig looks like it's going to take me another 5 months to trace out. When I worked at a military/industrial repair house some years ago, we'd get jobs like this and it would take weeks of concentrated work 8-10 hours a day to get some of the military gear up and running.

I simply don't have that kind of free time or energy anymore to turn a can of worms such as this into anything usable. I used to when I was younger.

Heck I remember restoring a burned up 1948 Seeburg jukebox! It took me two years to do it! This was over 20 years ago when I could put in a 12 hour work day and still do another 6 hours of detailed work in the home lab. I figured out how to do the pain job, the colour wheel, everything on my own. Sold it some years ago too.

My offer still stands, if anyone wants to trade me for something that isn't so darned disappointing, pm me please.

73s
geo

I would also tend to want to fix that radio.

You could get on CW with what you have, cw is a lot of fun...

If you have something that generates RF, you could use the 807's to modulate it, using the VM2 mod transformer, just drive the grids of the 807's with some sort of audio amp.

I suspect part of your problem is that there is not much activity on 40 meters AM with the lack of sunspots.
I do hear ssb on 40, but not much AM.
Most of 40 meters is daytime only before the broadcast comes in.

Brett

The 6146 rig I have breadboarded on a sheet of copper-clad PC Board oscillates, drives the 6146 well. I was going to get to hooking up a better mod Xformer when the opportunity to get this KW2000B came up suddenly just yesterday evening.

It was a 4 hour drive in total just for the privilege of paying for something that doesn't work.  :D :o

From what I've been researching, it seems that 10 watts of SSB are worth 100 watts of AM, perhaps more? Perhaps part of the problem I've been facing is that trying to work with relatively little power on AM is only something that could succeed locally like Doc Cruikshank did years ago up in Wingham with a small AM transmitter on a butter box (http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/index3.php?url=http%3A//www.broadcasting-history.ca/personalities/personalities.php%3Fid%3D220) - except here there's nobody in the village who is a ham. Trying to work anything else on relatively low power AM is proving to be just a burden, a liability, a PITA.

Maybe DSB is something I ought to look at.

I could work CW - except I don't know it. I'm going over to Orangeville tomorrow, there's a ham there, retired, who has offered to start Elmering me towards upgrading my license for Morse code. Home study just won't work for me here, there are too many distractions and interrputions from the kids and the wife once I get on the computer - so I never get it done.

Remember that old rig I put together (shown below lighting up a pair of parallel 100W lamps)? It would be awesome on CW!

Jeez, Geo, you're exhausted, disgusted, and ready to quit with this radio after a couple hours on the bench?!  You obviously have *some* staying power if you restored that bad boy jukebox  ;D

40 bux is a steal for that.  It's worth a bit of time to get it on the air.  Several have offered good suggestions with regard to cleaning relays, etc.   If not that, it sounds like a dead oscillator somewhere, or perhaps a mis-positioned switch.

You're already experienced with this so I won't go into the obvious with voltage checks, etc.  If you've done all that already get at it with a scope and make sure the various oscillators are running.  Unless it's been hammy hamboned to death it won't be hard to get it running - it's just a simple matter of zeroing in on the problem by signal tracing and normal troubleshooting techniques.

Tom's advice with regard to Johnny Novice mistakes is right on.  My first rig ever was a HW-7 - never had a contact on that.  I started out in AM with a G5RV and a Viking II, what a disaster.  If I had been easily frustrated I woulda stopped there and said the hell with it.  The biggest imcremental improvement I made to my station was a flat top dipole fed with W7FG openwire line.  Even with a hundred watts the station came alive - that gave me confidence to upgrade the xmitter, tuner, etc.  I'm not in K1JJ territory, signal-wise, but I do OK.

Anyway, look at Tom's thread on the 4X1 rig - a defeatist attitude ain't gonna generate much sympathy around here  ;D

Geo said:
From what I've been researching, it seems that 10 watts of SSB are worth 100 watts of AM, perhaps more?

Don't believe that hype!!! Many "cliques" wont even acknowlegde your 100 watt SSB signal on 75m at night.  You have to be pegging their S-meter needle to the right for some reason to have that honor!  Maybe I'm stereotyping the good ole boys but you'll see!

But ssb can be fun when the band opens to DX, but lately I just feel so CHEAP when I work SSB.  I'm hooked on AM.  Is there an AA group? My name is John and I'm an AMaholic.  8)

100 Watts of AM into a full sized dipole, even if it isn't that magic 1/4 wave up in the air, WILL have you making contacts. You will have plenty of armchair copy qso's as well as plenty of not so easy to copy ones.  But there's no denying it will put you in the game.  I have been running these levels for a year now and my log is FULL of AM contacts.  In fact it's full of lengthy ragchews.  Ragchewing, technical discussions on transmitters, making friends, talking about everything from problems at the Broadcast station (plenty of BC engineers are AMers) or rounding up the cattle on the ranch or who's going to the superbowl.  These types of things are more of the norm on AM I have found.  SSB often involves exchanging a signal report (which for some reason all seem to be 59) , QTH, equipment used and MAYBE the current weather then 75% of the time comes the "thank you and 73".  Bleah.  

Sure, check out ssb if you must, it's fun working across the oceans sometimes, but don't give up on the AM Geo!!!  As an electronics experimenter, I know you'll find it to be "home".  BTW, your xtal will be in the mail Monday!  

If I can recall the KW2000 was the British answer to Collins KWM-2. I've only seen one and the person that has it, knows I like it  ;). But don't throw the baby out with the bath water yet. That thing uses a Japanese mechanical filter. I thought it was very well built.

When VE3AWA and I set up the antenna, he brought his Kenwood rig, 110W on SSB. Almost immediately he made contacts with it and the antenna in Indiana and in West Virginia, 20 over S9. I was extremely impressed!

I've made dilly squat contacts myself.

This rig uses tubes I can't get and don't have, uses many Xtals which are very hard to find. A failure in any one of them will spell death to this rig. Troubleshooting it will depend on assuming all of the tubes are good, something which will be a futile exercise in circular logic unless I have a verified working model for tube-by-tube comparison to weed out which components do and do not work in this rig.

So as nice as this rig appears to be, in reality it's a technical nightmare!

Relays all have good contacts, I pulled them, checked them with a power supply and a small incandescent load, I pulled the covers and applied cleaner just in case, then applied cleaner to the relay sockets, rocked them to work the cleaner in. Also I pulled all of the tubes one by one, sprayed cleaner into the sockets, rocked the tubes in and out to make sure contacts are scrubbed.

The only things which show life? The audio stage (I can hear the 1500Hz oscillator in the speaker), the relays engaging, the glow regulator tubes and the 1500Hz oscillator.
Absolutely nothing else shows any life at all.

Those sections which do run are far down on the electrical food chain in the rig, they get their juice from the +275DC bus but it's decoupled via 4.7k and 8uf. The manual has schematics. The +275 bus feeds all other circuits as well (mixers, oscillators, buffers), so because the audio and 1500Hz osc are getting their juice, the other parts of the +275 bus are electrified as well no doubt.

Wiring and general state of the rig's innards show no heat damage, no abuses, and I checked for shorted bypass/decoupling caps last night, every one I checked and every one demonstrated no shorts, no abnormal leakages.

This leaves tubes, filters, coils and Xtals, any/either one being the culprit.

Symptoms of the rig in spite of these preliminary tests haven't changed by one atom. I've learned the hard way when something is worth pursuing and when something is promising to be an endless tarball, I've been sucked into that trap before and have learned to avoid it like the plague.

If this rig is unwanted, then it's only value is for parts at this point.

73s
geo

George,
          The KW2000B is not the sort of project to start off with, so try something a bit less complicated. The KW2000 series were based on the Collins KWM-2 as someone on the thread has already mentioned, and the filter was indeed a Japanese Kokusai mechanical filter. One of the common problems with these filters is that the mechanical resonators were wrapped in foam to cushion them from mechanical vibrations, and this foam tends to degrade over the years, turning into a sticky goo which dampens the resonators so much they're ineffective and the insertion loss goes through the roof. So. you could spend ages sorting all the other problems out only to find the filter's an attenuator. Don't cannibalize the KW2000B, you might live to regret it later, just put it to one side for the day when you're ready to tackle it.

Try and get one of your AM projects finished so you can get on the air and yak with fellow AM enthusiasts. It's much better discussing fault finding over the air where you can get instant advice and ask questions more rapidly than BBs or e-mails.

On the subject of AM vs SSB, I remember back in the late 1960's or possibly early 1970's there was an article in CQ or maybe 73 on synchronous AM detection where the author claimed that some research done at Cambridge University in England showed that AM with synchronous detection was superior to SSB in the presence of noise. I haven't ever been able to trace this research, but who knows, it might be true!

Dave.
 

I know it to be good. At work (www.detectag.com) I came up with a noise reduction scheme for our new 8.2 Mhz swept board, I based it on synchronous detection but we've put a bit of a twist on it so my boss was able to patent it! :) It's helped a great deal on detecting a shoplifting tag through a very noisy environment!

I went back over some of my university texts and as far as transmitting goes, SSB offers a good deal more concentration of the available RF energy. Still it's a bear to work with!

You're right about the filter BTW, I've been researching this rig and it's the Achilles' heel of the unit. Not happy about that possibility.

I was working on it until about 1 am. Since the tubes were all verified and the bad ones replaced by the previous owner who I met yesterday, who also couldn't get the rig to run, and I know I'm getting the DC operating voltages into the circuit, then it leads to a worrisome conclusion that a coil or a filter has opened up. Since this rig uses the same RF heart for both Rx and Tx, this would explain what I'm seeing.

Not sure what I can do with it at this point now, I was hoping I could get on the air with it, but it's fighting me every step of the way. It's not what I wanted to see happen and it's drained me of my last $$. I think that is what burns me the most because I won't be able to afford to do anything at all until tax refund time.

In about 30 minutes I go to learn CW with another ham in my area. Then I'll try to get a nice good modulation Xformer connected to the 6146 rig and see what that does for my signal. The VFO on that rig really came out better than I expected, I'm rather pleased with it.

73s
geo

George,
About 1 year ago I was in the same situation with my 813 rig.  I was ready to take a match to it.  I had spent alot of time collecting, building, adjusting, tweaking, rebuilding, retweaking etc. etc. ( http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=18117.0 ).  I too don't have alot of free time, was anxious to get it done so I didn't throw in the towel.  Anyone who knows me, I'm  a glutton for self made punishment.  I don't give up easily but will get frustrated and lash out.  Some times that helps and causes me to refocus and absorb the advice of others.  .

Anyway, it's got to be something that is straight forward but is not jumping out at you.  Take a break from it then start poking at it again.  You'll get it.

Just got back from code lessons! What a refreshing thing to learn!! I learned 7 letters today, E, I, S, H, T, M, O! Next Sunday I'll get together with him (VE3CQH) and he'll tutor me on more!

He loaned me a small key and practice oscillator too! He said for now do not read any code, just memorize entirely by ear! Makes me feel very happy!

This Japanese Mechanical filter on this SSB rig.....is anyone familiar with it's technical specs (resonant freq., BW, Q, impedances)? If Digikey has some kind of filter which is similar, I can ask my boss to order one for me, then I'll try slipping it in under the chassis, not disturbing the OE filter, and see if this is the root cause.

EDIT:
The markings on this filter are:
Type MF-455-10CK
CVK2335X

From what I saw on this page the symptoms more or less match what I'm seeing:
http://www.sandrock.org.uk/radiostuff/KW/Kokusai%20Mechanical%20Filters%20in%20the%20KW2000%20Series.htm

quote: "So you think you filter is duff?

After many years of service, it is often found that the receiver goes deaf and the output on transmit drops off. There can, of course, be many reasons for this and the manual suggests various paths to follow in order to determine the cause. Valve degradation, particularly those that are hard worked, are likely targets as are cathode decoupling capacitors (notoriously although not exclusively Hunts). However, when the problems mount up on transmit as well as receive, the mechanical filter might be suspected."

Has anyone found a suitable ceramic or other replacement for this mechanical filter?

73s
geo

A simple way to test the filter would be to first check the continuity between pins G and E and then between pins P and B. Each should be some finite low resistance. If either side is open (infinite resistance) the filter is bad. If you get continuity, then just bridge a cap., .01 mfd or something similar, between Pins G and P to see if the signal from the preceding stage gets to the next stage. This test doesn't tell you the quality of performance of the filter, but can determine if you have a problem with the filter.

You seem to give up way too easily.  I've been rebuilding a DX-100 for over 15 years!!!

Those filters  can be easily restored.  I believe there is  a website that describes this syndrome and it's cure.  In any case, the repair consists of opening the filter case, washing out the foam debris with a solvent (acetone, trichlorothane,, etc.,) adding a new piece of foam and closing up.   Here is  a  site that describes this filter repair:
http://jlkolb.cts.com/site/koku.htm

Here is  a site that describes your KW rig and some problems and solutions, including a  munged up filter.
http://tibblestone.users.btopenworld.com/kw2000.htm

Another site on the KW2000, and it's issues (including filter issues):
http://www.sandrock.org.uk/radiostuff/KW/Kokusai%20Mechanical%20Filters%20in%20the%20KW2000%20Series.htm

Good luck.

No, I just too darned much on my plate and too little money to get things done. Plus I don't want to wait 15 years to get on the air.

.

If I asked my boss to order this part for me:

http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/403975-element-ceramic-filter-455khz-ltm455du.html

Would it be a suitable replacement for the mechanical filter in this rig?

73s
geo

Do you know if the one you have is bad?? Replacing parts for no rhyme or reason really makes no sense.

What is the bandwidth?
For ssb you want it about 3Khz.

Brett

George,

Your CW tutor missed one character in your first learning  session...

Yes, E, I , S, H, T, M, and O are the first 7 LETTERS but between the  H and T comes "5"...  From one to five dots or dits if you will and one to three dashes or daaws...

Memorize the SOUND of each character and do not count the individual parts of the letters... Do it in your head!  CW is great once you  learn all the characters...

Good luck  and just set the KW2000B aside for a while.  Even though it took all your available funds for Hamming right now, its  price was good, very good, as a matter
of fact.

Gee my first rig was a homebrew 6V6GT and a 3725 crystal

I jumped in and removed the filter, then using the big @$$ soldering iron (est. 300W, 4 pound copper tip, bought it from a flea market for $2), I opened up the filter can. Sure enough, the foam was all Orange goo, just like in this picture:

(http://tibblestone.users.btopenworld.com/kok_before.jpg)

And one of the wires to the piezo resonator was broken off.

I filled an old jar with Methyl Hydrate, dipped the filter in and let the Orange goo soak for about 5 minutes. That loosened most of it away. I used some clean Methyl Hydrate to tidy up things.

I'm going to resolder the very thin wires back now, then see if I can reassemble things tonight and try it out.

73s
geo

Good luck Geo!

estimated filter loss of -369 db on rx and tx.  :D

George - you are getting distracted by all of this junk - FOCUS!

Get your antenna situation taken care of. First we need to hear your signal.

Seriously, get your little AM rig on the air and make a contact.

Mike WU2D

I recall an article in one of the ham magazines a few years ago on how to clean and restore mechanical filters.

I just searched the ARRL magazine archive and could not find anything.  Maybe it was in CQ.  Anyway you might find something on the internet on this; the article I recall seeing addressed getting rid of all the dried deteriorated foam and getting the filter moving again.

George in some ways you and I are in the same boat.  I have forgotten so much radio and electrical fundamentals or never learned them that I have found I must go back and read starting with the very basic things.  Here are a few books that look good for addressing radio:

The Science of Radio by Paul Nahin
The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill
AMECO Radio Theory Course for commercial radiotelephone license


The ARRL Handbooks for the 1930s into the early 1950s and these two titles are good for radio and electronics with vacuum tubes:

Electronics by Jacom Millman and Samuel Seely (2nd ed. 1951) McGraw-Hill series on Electrical and Electronic Engineering

This book starts with the motion of charged particles in electric and magnetic fields.

In the same series:

Radio Engineering by Frederick Emmons Terman (3rd ed. 1947)

I get impatient also and want to be on the air with a big maul homebrew or restored boatanchor too but many of the hams in AM have been doing this for decades and we can't catch up overnight  ;)

What you are doing is worth doing.  It is important to get beyond the rut a lot of hams have fallen into over the past 20 or 30 years.  There has been a gradual shift to a majority of hams being consumers of electronics for entertainment purposes only.  Buy some black boxes and set them up with an antenna, turn them on and entertain yourself.  Then whine about the color of the front panel or something.  Technically it isn't that much different from buying a DVD player, hooking it up to a TV set and watching a movie.   Ham radio is supposed to be about doing things, learning and building; not just being a passive receptor of products used to entertain oneself with.   Taken that way you have accomplished quite a bit already in my opinion with your breadboard experimentation even if it has not produced much in the way of on-air contacts.  

How to get old radio books:  Besides on-line used book vendors, University libraries may be trying to get rid of the old books in book sales, or better yet, try contacting E.E. and Physics departments at any college or university near you as often retiring faculty will be cleaning out their offices and wanting to get rid of these old titles.  For most researchers they are considered out of date and not of much use.    The newer Nahin book you'll probably have to buy because it is still in print I believe.  http://www.abebooks.com is a great used vendor and is an aggregator of many small book shops so one search covers many inventories.  I have purchased through them with great results.   I just found the Terman book at Bank Of Books in Ventura Calif. for $6.75  

Good luck & 73

Rob
K5UJ

p.s. Just read Mike's post--a decent antenna for AM is pretty important.   Dipole up 50 feet or more works wonders.
  

yep, what mike said. You are dodging the real deal, and the real deal is that yer wife wont let you put up a effective antenna because of " looks".

you got that vm 2, thats the key to making a mess of plate modulated goodness. use that 805 you have and fire up the soldering iron. You know how to build and fix things better than I do, Geo, but none of that is doing you any good. You and the wife is gonna have to get together and find out what is the best antenna that she will accept. Do that now, then work on the gear. Put that damn slopbucket rig on ebay. You know thats not what you wanna do.  

Can you do me a favor and repost the photos of your place?

remember, I am not judging you on your domestic situation - it's none of my business. But I'm also not going to sidestep the real issue, and the real issue is that you haven't been able to put a effective antenna in the air for whatever reason.

Maybe after you and her have a convo, you can give us a idea of what she will accept? Then we can all go from there.

Also, have you got a paypal account? I would be willing to kick in some money for a new antenna that would work. But only if it is wife approved and follows accepted practice of being known to get out.

The antenna that VE3AWA and I set up does work, it's a 40m inverted V and with his Kenwood he got out to Indiana and West Virginia within a few minutes of firing it up.

I put one of the mod xformers to work last night, the ART-13. At first I must have gotten the screen grid leads reversed because it broke into self oscillation, proceeded to generate arcs near the plate RF choke.

I reversed the screen leads from the Xformer and that calmed it down. But I'm still not being heard. From the scope it lookin like it's only about 30% modulation that's happening.

The ham who I went to get CW lessons from yesterday, he loaned me a 40m Xtal from his DX-20. I fired up the DX-35, it ran for a bit then something else blew inside it, something related to the PA.

The KW2000B, I reassembled it. There is just a very faint hint of reception now but still no transmission. So I'm on the right track with this filter. I had a devil of a time trying to resolder the broken wire back to the resonator, the solder just wouldn't stick and it's such a small mass!

So I'm going to ask my boss to order some bandpass resonator from digikey for me, it's cheap and I can retrofit it under the chassis while leaving the mechanical filter still mounted, just disconnected.

73s
geo

Geo,
      this post is not a flame, but it is a boot in the ass to try to get you headed in the right direction. First of all your money is tight, so you have to focus your finances in one direction at a time. Complete one stage at a time.

You have mentioned in a previous post, you are using a homebrew one-tube regen receiver. The first thing you should do is bite the bullet and get yourself a good, descent receiver, so you can at least hear if someone is coming back to you, and figger out what frequency you are operating on. One tube regens are a lot of fun, but as a novelty, and not as your main station receiver!!

Like others have said: Take that defeatist attitude and toss it out the window!! All of us have had our trials,tribulations and bumps in the road to get to the point we are at now. All of us have also gotten lelp and "pointers" from those that we feel know more than we do. All (or at least most) of us have paid our dues to get where we are. One of them was perseveerance! ! ! ! If you read enough of the posts here,
you will start to figure out who does and who doesnt know what they are talking about.

Then decide which path you are going to take with your homebrew TX, and stay on it until you have conquered it!! Dont waste your time building a 10w piss weaker for phone. No one will come back to you if they CANT pull you out of the noise, you will get "squashed like a bug" and trampled over. Remember, it doesnt take that much more time (or money) to build a 100w rig than it does a 10 watter. Again a 10w piss-weaker is more a novelty than something you'll want as your main tx. Especially with current band condx.

Dont spread yourself any thinner than you can afford to (time or money). Stick with your PLANNED path and dont give up until you conquer it!! If you cant get something to work properly, instead of giving up, set it aside and dig out the books, some careful research will usually reveal what YOU've done wrong. The learning curve is more than 1/2 of the fun!

                                                           the Slab Bacon

George,
          Just put a 0.01uF capacitor directly across your Kokusai filter (P to G) and see whether that livens up your KW2000B on receive. If it doesn't, then you have something else wrong with the set. If it does, the filter is clearly the fault.

If the filter is duff, that LTM455DU is totally unsuitable as a replacement because it's 20kHz wide at the -6dB points. The original MF45510CK is +/- 1.0kHz (2kHz total) minimum, and usually measures about 2.6kHz total with up to +/- 0.3kHz centre frequency offset. The carrier crystals were usually matched to individual filters. There is a modification to replace the original filter with a ceramic type CFJ455K5, but this filter requires 2kohm terminations and needs transformers to match the KW2000B input and output impedances. The modification was described in a RadCom article by G3WCE some years back. It's unlikely that your old carrier crystals would be usable with the new filter and you might have to use 455kHz ceramic resonators in place of the quartz crystal ones. This project could get very involved and expensive.

Take the Slab's advice and concentrate on one of the projects you can more easily finish. Forget the KW2000B for the time being, but don't throw it away or scrap it. Save it for another day.

Dave.
   

George, you may be overdosing on advice by now but I did not realize you had antenna and rx issues -- yes you have to hear people to work them so the receiver and antenna may be higher priority now.

Here's a link to W3JN's page on receivers.  You can get an old National rx for not a lot of money.  Don't forget the newer software defined receivers; some of them are inexpensive and some of the guys here have had good experiences with the SoftRocks (I confess to knowing almost nothing about them though).   You can probably ask about them here and get some answers, and I bet everyone can tell you about the older boat anchor receivers  :D

http://amfone.net/ECSound/JNRECS.html

73
Rob
K5UJ

or

http://www.amwindow.org/tech/htm/slabrxreview.htm

Wished I had a working multimode transceiver to send to you and give that big boost, at this point. Anyone out your way that can let you borrow a rig? Keep for warm storage? The typical 25 watts from a plastic radio won't help your present situation to get on 75M AM at 9PM, but it's a start.
Early eve QSO's are possible with low power. But as DERB mentioned the antenna issue has to be fixed.

Fred

Yea, pretty much!!

Think I have it solved. I've made a temporary patch to bypass the narrow bandpass mechanical filter. Bandwidth is too high as a result but it's now receiving with good sensitivity and transmitting well. I can make the plate ammeter and the SWR meter dance quite nicely now!

The temporary bypass patch? It's a small AM 455kHz IF ceramic filter I salvaged out of my stepdaughter's dead alarm clock! He he!!  ;D

I tried to CQ this evening but there's so much noise, I couldn't tell if I was being replied to. I used the receiver in this KW2000B and my R1155, on both all I could pickup was noise this evening.

I'll try again some other time to make contacts!

For a more permanent patch, I'm going to design an active 455kHz filter to fit inside the original can using low cost ceramic filters and opamps/jfets.

I'm not going to waste time on trying to make this silly mechanical filter come back to life, some ideas (like that one) was just plain awful.

As far as the DX-35 goes, well something died in it last night related to the buffer and final. I looked at the schematic I have and I'm not nuts about the design. What I might do is reuse the sockets, power supply and chassis to make a transmitter of my own design. It does have a nice Pi network in place.

I can take the design of the 6146 rig I've breadboarded on copper board and adapt it to work in the chassis of the DX-35, including a decent built-in VFO too.

The current 6146 rig isn't modulating correctly - I'm suspecting I'm trying to pull too much current on the 500V bus to run both the final and the modulator.

73s
geo

Good going, Geo!

Judging from your last post, I think many of us underestimated your skills there. You did a good job getting to the root of the problem once you focused on it the following days.  You should have no problem getting that rig and the others working on the air.

I think the technical lesson to be learned from that rig is usually there is only one thing wrong... or maybe two - caused by incidental damage from the first.   Unless a hambone got into it and roughed it up badly, crap outs usually are limited to one area.  But not always, like say, a lightning hit... :o

Keep posting your projects and progress. I get a kick out of seeing what you're doing with the keen improvising you do there.


BTW, as already said, it's not a simple job to get a new filter working correctly with the carrier oscillator for good  sideband suppression, audio quality, etc. Make the carrier oscillator xtal variable with a trimmer cap and you will be in good shape to align the rig correctly. At least keep this in mind if you run into problems.
 
Later  -

T

George, cleaning up that filter will take more than methyl hydrate. Methyl hydrate is not vigorous  or a strong enough solvent.    You need something like trichloroethane 111 or similar, or at least acetone. Then you have to clean out all the foam debris carefuly so as not to impede the resonance of the  mechanical elements.    It must be clean, clean, clean when done!!!   

But you're on the right track.  Too bad you don't have an 80M antenna.   Put up some bird-houses on 30 foot poles and run an end-fed Zepp, like I did.  It can zig and zag all over creation (like mine did) and you'll get out like a bomb.  With my ziggy-zaggy EFZ I worked the UK  on 80!    Think about it.

A receiver, eh?    I have a basket-case NC-303 here in unknown condition. It's yours if you can get it going.   

I also have some crystals for you for 80 and 40M , including  3645/7290 and  some other real goodies. Let me go see what I have. 

I'm going to start working on designing a narrow bandpass 455kHz active filter circuit to replace this chunky mechanical nightmare soon. Car suspension should be mechanical, not IF filters.

Ed - If you're ever near Orangeville anytime soon, drop the receiver off and I'll take a look at it for you, see if I can find the root of the problem and fix it for you. I do electronics for a living.

73s
geo

So do I.  Been an electronics and RF technologist for over 35 years.  I could easily fix that receiver, but it's really surplus to my needs, and sitting in the garage.  I was going to get to it eventually, but already have  5 receivers ahead of it!   ;D

Orangeville, eh?    Not likely. I see that you're north of Toronto.  Since I avoid  the GTA like the plague, I'm not likely to be anywhere near Orangeville soon.  We'll try and get  the  '303 over to you via "Boatanchor Pony Express".  Unfortunately, you'll have to deal with the boys from VE3NTH's "Short Skip" - Al, VE3AJM, or Ken, VE3MAW,  who often visit here.  (I know you've had "issues" with them.)

No worries.

73s
geo

Here's a crude drawing I did on the computer showing the antenna as compared to the house (view facing north, antenna is stretched in an East-West direction).

VE3AWA came up and set it up with me, then he hooked his Kenwood up to it and almost immediately made contacts down in Indiana and in West Virginia.

None of the trees on the property are old enough/tall enough, the original trees/house were knocked down by a tornado back in 86.

There is a long clothesline (metal core) which has been slingshot over the top of the TV antenna about 25 feet from the ground, and that clothesline is used to haul up/down the inverted V by a separate insulator.

The tethered ends of the inverted V are tethered to young trees by insulators and more of this clothesline stuff. The tethered ends are about 9 feet from the ground.

RG/58 was used for the install.

Not shown are the villages high voltage 3 phase power lines and Cable TV lines which run directly past the house, in parallel with this antenna. They add wonderful colour to the signals I'm trying to receive, rather like trying to listen to Bach in a slaughterhouse.

73s
geo

that should do it for you on 40. nothing wrong with that antenna. What's the status on getting something going using your VM-2?  805 final modded by ???? Do you have plans for a speech amp/ driver?

oh, and what's the antenna tuner that you got?

I'm working on making the KW2000B get on the air in a finer business. It seems to be kicking out a signal. It's got a built-in tuner too (Pi).

Some ceramic resonators arrives for me today, 455kHz. I'll test them for bandwidth and see if I can fit them into the signal chain.

When I hook it all up I can get better than 1.4:1 SWR and plate current swings up to about 150mA.

That rig came with a KW E-Zee tuner, but the tuner needs a bit of work (dirty connections).

It's been so noisy lately on 40 and 80, so I'm not hearing much, just lots of noise.

The 805 rig? I'm learning CW now so I'm thinking it will make an awesome CW transmitter! It is still together and still runs! I do have most of the parts to start building a big modulator for AM, but it's -20 in the garage - that's where I'd be doing my metalwork.

I don't have final PA tubes for the modulator yet, so I'm waiting until they arrive, then I can start planning a modulator.

73s
geo

You're doing good George; got some irons in the fire.  Good to learn CW because then you can send and receive information with the most simple basic transmitter, a RF generator you can key on and off.

I used to think CW wasn't that important anymore but I was thinking of it by itself as a way of transmitting and receiving information.  I now realize it is still important in conjunction with basic homebrewing and learning.  I am starting out just fiddling with AF vacuum tube amplifiers--not much to go wrong.  No RF, no frequency control, no oscillator, just audio stages. Then I'll move on to VFOs.   Knowing CW lets a ham who is trying to avoid becoming an appliance operator learn how to homebrew a RF generator he can key on and off so it is important for learning electronics so a basic rig can be used on the air.

73

Rob
K5UJ

The fellow who is tutoring me in CW, he makes regular contacts down to West Virginia on just 1 watt!

And my friend Lou (VE3AWA) worked a VE7 on just 2 watts using a rig he assembled out of vintage British parts!

Now those are the kind of feats I learned of as a youth, and I wish to duplicate! But nobody ever told me that those were accomplished on CW. I naturally thought those could be accomplished on Phone at those power levels.

I'm working towards the goal now, I meet Lou today, he's loaning me another rig, we'll probably do some more CW together, then tomorrow I continue on lessons as well.

73s,
geo

geo, that tuner you got is a nice unit, nothing cheap about it. Should work FB for you.

I visited my friend Lou yesterday (2 hour drive, one way). The tuner needed some repair and Lou had the hardware to get it done.

I brought the KW2000B and we checked to see how it performs. The bandwidth is indeed too great, so I'm going to have to work on a filter design.

Later in the day Lou loaned me his spare transceiver for 1 year yesterday (Kenwood TS-520SE). Got home and hooked it all up - including the tuner - and within 5 minutes I made a contact in Plymouth Wisconsin, AA9VP on 7150.

It's my first contact from my location on my own in over a year! It felt very very good! :)

Today I came back from CW lessons. Now up to 15 letters - A D E G H I J M N O R S T U W

And another ham is there besides me, also wanting to learn CW! I wish this stuff was taught in schools, etc...as a youth so one doesn't have to go through so much to find a tutor!

73s
geo

Good going Geo.

Now that you are learning the letters - the fastest and easiest way to increase your efficiency is to get a hand key and practice oscillator. Get out a book and start sending what you see. Do it until you drop every day and before long you will be sending 15 wpm. The receiving is a little harder but comes quickly from getting on the air.

To really crank, build yourself a simple keyer. They have chips that will do it for you. A paddle is easy to make too, unless you buy a good used one. Bencher is a great brand for paddles.

On the air, the key is to talk with people (in CW) that send JUST a little faster than you can copy solid. You will get enuff to carry on a conversation, but will stretch to become even faster.

T

Yup, the fellow who is teaching me CW - VE3CQH - has loaned me a practice key and oscillator. He advised me to deliberately avoid any exposure to code literature, it all has to be an ear exercise.

So I'll get my wife to look at a book I have, tap out at random which letters I know and I'll tell her (in sign language because she's deaf) what letter I think it is. She'll let me know if I'm right.

She's watching a movie just now but I hope before bed time I can get more practice in!

If I only knew code now, I could get on 40m and make another contact. Last night was ok for a while. This evening was just awful, only the high power players running over 500W on SSB could communicate. So much noise tonight!

73s
geo

..geo...try listening on lsb on 7055...trans provincial net is there...alot quieter on that portion on 40...

..sk..

Geo,

CW is fun to learn. I picked it up in the Boy Scouts and made my first contact with a VE3 way back in 1973 using a command transmitter. I was raised in Canton NY in the Seaway Valley of northern NY.

CW and low power are a lot of fun, especially on the very forgiving CW segments of the 40 and 80 M bands. I worked Steve VE7SL in BC and Louis, VE3AWA in ON over the weekend on 80M CW with my 4 Watt UX201A Breadboard. We had the annual AWA 1929 QSO Party over the last two weekends. 

Have you got any modulation out of the ART-13 Mod Tranny yet?

Mike WU2D

Just checking messages, etc, before bedtime. Insanely busy day.

Yea, CW actually IS fun to learn! My wife is picking it up too, she's really enjoying it! :)

I hooked the ART-13 Xformer up, but got the screen winding hooked up backwards. A bunch of arcs off the plate RFC of the 6146 greeted me! YIKES!!  :o

Turned the screen winding the other way, no more arcs, 6146 is happy. But I've run into another problem, I'm trying to run RF and modulator from the same 500V supply and I don't think I can do that and still expect it to be 500V.  ??? I need more power then!

So the real thing to do is to build a separately powered modulator, something quite a bit stronger, more versatile - the tubes for that idea, however, are tied up in Customs, they won't let them through, not for a few weeks now.

This evening was a total writeoff for doing any experimenting on a narrowband filter for the KW2000B, I had to go pickup the kids from school (in this weather, total trip was over 1 hour just for that), then get dinner on, get the chores done too.

My friend Lou VE3AWA loaned me a Kenwood TS-520SE for a year, so I don't have to be so silent while I'm working on creating my own stuff! Made a contact a couple of days ago in Plymouth Wisconsin with it, but since then 40m has started to resemble a welding shop. Must be the weather!

73s
geo