We got the ZIA rebuilt just in time for all the bands to go DEAD! That is that amazing Cycle 25 that we all know just plain sucks.
A quickie review on the ZIA which was built a decade ago and put in the closet. I have simply forgotten the why of the closeting and in the interim I have been stealing parts from that rig.
Step one is to make it whole and fix a few things along the way. One of those fixes was to install a larger Color TFT and the problems cascaded from there. I had to do a serious rework of the front panel and move a bunch of controls.
My 1st thought was to just make a new front panel, but the existing one was a custom size and so I resorted to a small overlay on the existing panel. That involved a lot of machining and squeezing 10 pounds into a 5-pound bag.
Love Those Drake Knobs
In the photo above you see the back side of the original panel and the machining I did for the moved controls which are on the new panel overlay.
I actually found a way to anchor the color TFT, so you don't see the mounting holes. In some cases, panel controls have a short shaft and so the original panel was cut out, so those controls are mounted directly on the new front panel. In the case of the Mic jack and volume control their shafts were long enough so they could penetrate both the old panel and new panel with a bit of room to spare.
A few stations were on late yesterday afternoon, but one of the very stations I heard, N8OO, commented that all the bands were dead. So, I still don't know the original issue with the ZIA.
When I first powered it on, the receiver was DEAD. Oh, Oh -- but then I saw an empty LM380N-8 socket. I must have filched that for another project. A replacement installed and I heard lots of noise but only one or maybe two signals!
This is the third and last posting on the ZIA.
Them that know can make it go.
This is but one or two of my rigs that do not use an IRF510 but an MRF260. Wish I had a bunch more of those devices.
73's
Pete N6QW