Wow! Now THAT is a shack! This morning I heard Butch K0BS and his friends on 40 meter SSB. I knew I was listening to the voices of kindred spirits when I heard them talk about a drifting VFO and the need to heat up the filaments of an ART-13. As the group was shutting down to begin their preparations for Thanksgiving dinners, I gave Bruce a call with my BITX 40 Module. He was on a KWM-2 (the rig that had been drifting a bit) and a homebrew 4-1000 amplifier. I told him that I think a bit of VFO drift is a sign of good character.
You really need to check out the pictures on Bruce’s QRZ.com page:
https://www.qrz.com/db/K0BS
Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating the holiday.
Would anyone offer advice on best practice in using ladder line? How to run the cable etc etc. Might be a good topic for a soldersmoke episode?
Nothing wrong with a bit of drift. I agree, I have been using the Bitx 40m quite a bit, 100% bog stock, so it drifts, a lot. Call in to the odd net, or someone calling CQ, and often get the: Them: Sorry OM your audio is distorted. ME: No mate I am just a little off frequency, try using your RIT THEM: Whats RIT? ME: Shakes head in wonderment, moves the vfo a little and talk again. THEM: oh thats better how did you fix it? I find it rather interesting, that many very experienced advanced operators do not know the difference between distortion and frequency shift. I guess my audio is lacking Sparkles and Polish due to the lack of zero oxygen copper used in the system HAHAHAH