Recent content by Shadetree Mechanic

I am going to point my four element Sirio at the UK in the AM and see what I get. South Carolina is doing really good.

Great talking to you 898, you are sounding great on that old radio. I am talking on my Ares 2 with 40 watts into my Sirio 4 element, pointed at the Northwest corner. Great QSO and minimal interference, it's always great to talk to forum members. I will be on 37LSB this evening and 40 USB...

This is from the website:

Sorry you missed it, this one is over. There might be one in January you could enter.

Yeah, the GNF feature was better than nothing. But the DSP noise reduction that these new radios have is like night and day. I usually run mine on level 2 and occasionally turn it off to see the difference it makes, it has spoiled me. Now it is hard, almost painful to listen to my old radios...

I got one for my Madison a while back thinking that I could drive my Texas Star DX500 with it. Turned out that the Madison does just fine on the 500 by itself and was unusable with the kl-60 as a driver. I keep it inline for taking local, does just fine on SSB. But for a little bit more, get the...

That is a nice looking antenna, almost bought one. I ended up getting a Sirio GPS 27 because I didn't want any radials at my mother in-laws house. For the antenna tubes, I always slit the ends with a hack saw and use stainless hose clamps. Between the joints, I use anti size with metal in it...

I didn't get any pictures of the element, but it goes in super easy. Basically you take the old dynamic one out, then put the electret under it. The electret pushes down into the foam, and it all goes back together like normal. This also keeps you from losing the dynamic one incase you ever want...

Power is going to the element through a 1K resistor. (If you dont use a resistor, you will blow the tiny diode on the back of the board) The two electrolytic caps are to isolate the amplifier board from the element power. They are wired together negative to negative, but a non polarized cap...

The new element is powered from the PTT switch where it switches the 9v battery power to the amplifier board. You can see the red wire attached to the bottom row of double pins at the bottom right of the board. The two pins on the bottom left were to switch the audio wire on and off, but this...

I bought one of these a while back because it is one of the few desk microphones still available. Unfortunately I found that the audio has no bass. Great for DX, but not what I was looking for. The solution was to put an electret element from an old telephone handset in it. The electret elements...

Copying the mail and made a contact with Texas off the side of my beam with the house in the way. And that's with 40w on an Ares 2! Don't forget to take the batteries out of your unused power microphones.