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June 16, 2024. Regret Rigs!

 

A 40M CW Transceiver.


I call this a "regret rig" as this jewel had some really nice features. It was a Trans-receiver and used a Varactor Tuned Oscillator which was shared between the Receiver and Transmitter. 

The receiver is a Superheterodyne with a 4 pole filter and of course the now unobtanium 42IF123 10.7 MHz IF transformers (BPF) padded down to 40M. It had a IRF510 in the output stage and a sprinkle of NE602's for the Product Detector and Transmit Mixer. Single Sided Copper Vector Board was used as the main circuit board.
 
Now the regret part. I gave this to a new ham who had no station equipment. In short order he smoked it and then salvaged the parts.
 
This design was not documented and few photos were taken. It was a small footprint and operated much like Mary Jo after a Bob's Big Boy Hamburger. 
 
I believe in trying to help out fellow hams, but my eagerness must be tempered with what I call an appreciation factor. 
 
The new ham just didn't appreciate what he had and I didn't even think that someone who was given such a rig would not have my appreciation of what it took to design, build, test and get it working. 
 
Both of us would have been better served if I had just given him the parts, with a documented design and offer of help. This would have been a better learning experience for him and no regrets that my effort was smoked and permanently damaged. Well at least this ham didn't trade the rig for an RC car like one ham did with the homebrew Bitx20 I gave him.   
 
It is biblical in a sense  -- give a man a fish or teach him how to fish. I keep seeing how I have failed to realize that as an OT it is better to not give away radios/rigs but to encourage those who have no rigs to build one. Building this radio could have been such a great learning experience for the new ham. Likely now he has an ICOM IC7300 which he would never open up.
 
73's
Pete N6QW

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