random acts of snippage below:

On 27 Oct 2003 13:29:38 GMT, (N2EY) wrote:

In article , Leo
writes:

Well, the Heath SSB transceiver was the most complicated piece of
radio equipment that I've tackled so far for restoration.

Which one?

SB-400.

That's a transmitter, not a transceiver. ;-)

Oops, that's correct!

@#$* - you know, one of these days I'm going to get through an entire
post without screwing something up! ;-)


Cosmetically OK, but a disaster inside - corroded rotary
switches, poor solder joints, wiring errors (17 of them - including
one which shorted out the LSB crystal - somebody must have been less
than happy with this set ...) and of course a complete set of high-ESR
electrolytics. Almost 50 hours on the bench to get it up and
running....

That's probably more time than it took to build it in the first place!

Absolutely - once I got into it, the more stuff I found, the more
determined I became to get it fixed....

Side benefit - I understand the functional blocks and circuits
comprising an SSB transmitter much better than when I started the
project!



Looks like Canada may be the next to simply drop Morse testing, though.

Haven't heard much on this so far! I posted the results of the survey
condusted by the Radio Amateurs of Canada a while back - it has been
submitted to Industry Canada (the FCC equivalent), but nothing since
then. No idea how long a decision will take - we have a system of
NPRMs here as well, and we're waiting for some indication one way or
the other.

Check out the RAC website..

Yup, the report that RAC submitted pretty much followed along with the
results of the survey that they did (which was pretty poorly
advertised, and consisted of the votes of less than 1500 of the
57,000-plus licenced amateurs up here.

I was surprised at the three licence levels proposed, though - wonder
where that came from?

I suppose a Basic could homebrew a transmitter, but not use it until the
Advanced license was in hand...

Correct. And, the radio skills acquired to enable one to successfully
design and build a homebrew transmitter would more than prepare one
for the Advanced exam.


73 de Jim, N2EY

73, Leo