Paul Taylor’s Quarantine “Summit Prowler 7” and some Radio Archaeology

Paul Taylor VK3HN has really outdone himself in this video (above) and blog post. He describes coming across a somewhat mysterious homebrew SSB exciter with some cryptic markings on it. Paul eventually figures them out. We still don’t know who the builder VK3WAC was — can anyone find him in their logbooks?

As Paul goes through the description of the transceiver he built around the mystery exciter, he mentions a number of hombew heroes including Farhan VU2ESE, Peter DK7IH, Eamon EI9GQ (I have to get his book!), and Don W6JL. Also, our beloved SSDRA book plays a prominent role in the story.

Paul’s video is really beautiful — at one point the camera pans the landscape and we see kangaroos in the field. It is also refreshing — as we suffer in the heat of the northern hemisphere summer — to see Paul and his friends out on the summits in their winter coats and hats.

It looks to me as if Paul built this rig during the current emergency, so I will list it as a Quarantine rig. Every dark cloud has a silver lining, and Paul’s rig has added a bit of silver to the dark COVID cloud. Thanks Paul.

https://vk3hn.wordpress.com/2020/07/26/something-old-something-new-a-four-band-5w-50w-ssb-cw-transceiver-summit-prowler-7/