So the box arrived Monday just as the 'fridge decided to give up the ghost. Today the new 'fridge is in place, kitchen back to normal, XYL happy. I unpack the box and start red-lining changes/corrections into the build manual.


Holy *BLEEP!* What have I gotten myself into? That's a lot of parts!


Since the build is broken up into several phases, maybe I better sort the parts accordingly.
(Turns out that's what they did for one of the complex phases.)


Damn, those resistors are tiny for old eyes! Better drag out my magnifier (Actually an old zoom optics assembly from copy machine. I think I paid a buck for it and it has color-corrected lens assemblies.)


I've done several kits in the past few years, but I don't remember the parts being this small. My last project was a from-scratch vacuum tube transmitter using point-to-point wiring.

There goes all your free time for a while.  

Dumping all the parts out in a new kit and doing an inventory is always a little overwhelming, to me.  I usually think:  "What have I gotten myself into?"  But then I think about that old joke...How do you eat an elephant?    One bite at a time.

Enjoy!

three things...

1. your eyesight has gotten worse.
2. your memory has degraded.
3. your fingers shake more.

now then, ordinarily i would add

4. the parts are smaller

BUT

what you have spread out on your desk there does not qualify as "small parts".  
if the component leads go through a plated thru-hole in the board, it's a large part.  








good luck with your build.  measure twice, cut once.  

ar-jedi

Thank Heaven for that copier magnifying lens.

My last SMT project was a from-scratch SCAF filter about 10 years ago. That was before two cataract surgeries and having an epi-retinal membrane removed from one eye. My close-in depth perception is just about gone. I tend to solder the tips of my fingers occasionally.

Another few years and the smallest things I will be able to handle will probably be 6AG7 and 807 transmitters.

Wouldn't you know it? Three critical parts missing! The kit is assembled and tested in phases, and these parts are in Phase 2, the VFO, upon which everything else hinges. They can't ship the parts until Tuesday.

Oh, well, maybe the bands will be open.

Enjoy! I've built a few of the little Rockmite radios, and more recently a KD1JV MTR. Kits are fun, and a little addicting!

Okay, missing parts in, numerous other obligations out of the way, VFO stage finally complete, so now comes calibration:



Do they have a trimmer capacitor or a slug-tuned inductor you can twist a tiny screw on? No-o-o. There's a toroid about the size of the tip of your little finger that you've wound 32 turns of #28 enameled wire onto and now you have to spread or compress them while listening for the oscillator in a calibrated receiver. And they are touchy! Compressing the turns lowers the VFO frequency which raises the tuning range, and turning the VFO control to the left raises the VFO frequency. Mass confusion ensues, but 45 minutes later things are as they should be and the coil ends are secured with tiny drops of epoxy from the tip of a toothpick. I just hope I didn't shift the turns while applying the glue.

Do I understand that you have to have a working HF radio to build this kit?
thx

You need access to a radio or a frequency counter. It's not in the assembly manual but
I think you might be able to get away with setting things after assembly by listening
for a known-frequency beacon signal. There's no question that part of the frequency is determined
by the coil windings, so you're definitely going to have to calibrate and tune the thing
before hitting the toroids with wax.

The radio only has about 60-70 KHz of tuning span, and I want it to cover at least the 7.055 MHz SKCC frequency plus about 10 KHz and as much of the Extra portion of the band as possible, so I don't have a great deal to play with. The tuning is accomplished with a  potentiometer and a Varactor diode, and there's no vernier drive on the pot. The 60-70 KHz span is going to be touchy enough as it is.

A counter can be used, but my transceiver was handy, so I chose to use it. If you don't have a receiver or counter, another ham would surely be glad to help you out.

Looking good!  

On a few occasions when building the K2, I ran across some fiddly type of assembly procedure, and  the the first thing I thought was "Who the hell designed this?"    But then I would remind myself that 7500+ other people had managed to build one of these radios.  I figured, if they could do it, then I could too.  

Things like this can be aggravating as hell, but once you "win the battle", it makes you feel good.  A few weeks from now, when you are racking up the QSOs, you'll have forgotten all about it.

Heck, they told me the number of turns to wind. On my "from scratch" projects, the number of calculated turns is just a starting point, especially with air core coils.

HINT: Just because the wire spool says it's #22, you better check it with a micrometer or vernier caliper. Things often ain't what they're claimed to be, especially if the wire came from a hamfest or Radio Shack.

After many interruptions, I finally got the receiver section wired and aligned. The first thing I heard was W1AW/0 in Missouri loud and clear with 3' of test lead as the antenna. It's going smoother than I expected and I'm giving more and more though to that K1 kit. Sorry for the poor picture quality, but it's a Kodak point-and-shoot that's getting pretty long in the tooth.



The winding on the VFO toroid shifted a bit while I was wiring the rest of the receiver, so I re-calibrated it and stabilized the winding with several coats of clear fingernail polish. Now it's rock solid.

Looks good but it appears there is a bug in your project.  

Forgot to tag this, appears to be coming along nicely.
I know what you mean about the eyes and the jitters.
Sure is tough for we older 'Gentleman!'

I thought I had a bug for sure part way through the assembly. There was a stopping point and a receive test/alignment using the rig into a dummy load as the signal source, The sensitivity was very poor and the instruction manual didn't comment on it. I did some thorough back checking, looking for mistakes but found none. As soon as the rest of the receive circuitry was complete, it came to life.

That bug was given to me shortly after I got my General (mid '50s) by a great uncle who worked for the Seaboard Airline RR. It was in very bad shape so I sent it back to the factory to be rebuilt and it was essentially new when they returned it. I put it away in the mid-'70s and switched to a keyer, but brought it back out of retirement last winter and re-learned how to use it. According to the serial number, it was made in 1922. Now I prefer it over my keyer.

It's always great to hear it actually working for the first time! !  It looks like it's coming along nicely!

HINT: Don't try to align a receiver using off-the-air signals during a solar flare!

Circumstances conspired to cause me to have to move the transceiver off the bench several times in the past three weeks, but finally got it assembled and proceeded to final alignment and testing. Figured SS would provide plenty of signals to use for alignment, then about five minutes in, everything went dead. Fooled around with it for a bit, then checked the Solar Flux. You guessed it! A level C9 flare! Things came back quickly, so finished receiver alignment. It's a fairly sensitive receiver with true single-signal selectivity, but the tuning is very non-linear. Don't know if they used a logarithmic pot, or if its the tuning diodes, but it's useable.

Now there's no transmit output. Back to the bench!

You'll figure it out.
Call it fun.
Not frustration!

I enjoy troubleshooting, but this project has been snake-bit from the start. I'm still seriously looking at that K1.

The 1340 kit is still on the bench with the no-output problem. All voltages check but the drive is low. One of the tunable inductors is acting funky, and I'll have to disassemble the radio to remove and check it out..

Regardless, the Ten-Tec kit proved that I can still put a complex kit together, so I ordered the K1 kit this afternoon. It'll take several days to get here so I'll continue trouble-shooting the Ten-Tec. Once it's operating, I'll sell it. If it's not operating when the K1 arrives, it'll go back into the box for a later date.

11/14 EDIT: No time to do more trouble-shooting on the T-T due to numerous winterizing projects -- including the antenna. The K1 arrived yesterday so Ten-Tec goes back in the box. I spent a few hours yesterday evening reading through the K1 manual. It's very well written with detailed instructions and trouble-shooting procedures. Above all, it has resistance and both AC and DC voltage charts! And it's spiral bound and a 1st generation copy, unlike the stapled and barely readable smudged Nth generation copy T-T supplied.