{"id":8396,"date":"2019-11-09T12:03:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-09T01:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2019\/11\/09\/sprat-the-feter-dlr-headphones-and-recent-qsos-on-the-et-2\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T00:34:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:34:18","slug":"sprat-the-feter-dlr-headphones-and-recent-qsos-on-the-et-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2019\/11\/09\/sprat-the-feter-dlr-headphones-and-recent-qsos-on-the-et-2\/","title":{"rendered":"SPRAT, the FETer, DLR headphones, and recent QSOs on the ET-2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yesterday we had QSO #13 on the ET-2. This was with Jim W1PID. In an earlier contact Jim told me I had some chirp. I fiddled with the coupling cap and the bias pot and am now T9! These days, chirp is an endearing, nostalgic problem to have. Thanks for the report and QSOs Jim! <\/b>

<\/b> Contact #9 was with Fred K9SO. He is in Wisconsin and QRZ.com put our distance at 633 miles. That is our DX record so far. Not bad for 92 milliwatts to a dipole on 40 meters. <\/b>

<\/b> Most of my contacts come as a result of pleas for assistance on DX Summit or the SKCC Sked page. But I did make one “random” contact: Contact #6 with N2VGA. He just heard my CQ and gave me a call. FB. <\/b>

<\/b> I checked to see if OM Glen Yingling W2UW — the guy who started all this with his ET-1 — is still around. He became a silent key in 2012. But his ideas live on… <\/b>

<\/b> SPRAT 137 (Winter 2008\/09) has a great article by QRP hero G3XBM. Roger built a version of the ET-1. His was for 80 meters and he called it the FETer. FB. I was struck by his estimate of the sensitivity of the ET-1 receiver: -100 dbm. I measured the N0WVA receiver (the one that I am using) has having a minimum discernible signal of -93 dbm. Pretty close. We may be at the limit of what you can expect from a single transistor receiver. <\/b>

<\/b> SPRAT 137 had something else that really resonated with me. G3YVF had an article on a minimalist rig using only one 6V6 tube. Geoff opened the article with this warning “Don’t try this unless you have a set of balanced armature type DLR ‘phones as they are really sensitive.” I have a collection of old headphones that I picked up at hamfests in London years ago. When building the ET-2, I checked all the old phones for sensitivity. A set marked DLR was the most sensitive. So Geoff’s observation had been independently confirmed. QRP Quarterly had an article comparing the sensitivities of old headphones — we should dig that article up. <\/b>

<\/b> SPRAT #137 is a reminder of what a great resource SPRAT — The Journal of the GQRP Club — really is. As we say on SolderSmoke, if you are not a SPRAT subscriber you are just wrong! Here is how to join GQRP and subscribe to SPRAT: <\/b>http:\/\/www.gqrp.com\/join.htm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we had QSO #13 on the ET-2. This was with Jim W1PID. In an earlier contact Jim told me I had some chirp. I fiddled with the coupling cap and the bias pot and am now T9! These days, chirp is an endearing, nostalgic problem to have. Thanks for the report and QSOs Jim! … Continue reading “SPRAT, the FETer, DLR headphones, and recent QSOs on the ET-2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,192,85,100,87,148,17,119,383],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-40-meters","category-gqrp","category-minimalist-radio","category-old-radio","category-qrp","category-regens","category-sprat","category-uk","category-w1pid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8398,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions\/8398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}