Amateur Radio and Shortwave

Amateur Radio

My amateur radio endeavors are gaining a little bit of momentum. At this moment I am on 2 meters and 440 FM with a Yaesu FT-5100. I have replaced the old Heathkit SB-401 with an SB-102. Pictured below is the SB-401 lurking on a shelf in the garage. The old Heathkit SB-301 receiver is working great as an auxillary for split operations. I have a shortened dipole for 75 meters and a random wire, with a home brew tuner, hanging in the yard, pictured on the left. My old Taylor 4 band verticle has recently come out of the garage to its new home on a short pole fastened to the fence. It's been a lot of fun making contacts and exchanging QSL cards on the 3905 Century Club Nets. (click on images for larger pictures)

With the computer, I am developing an interest in running RTTY and slow scan TV on HF. I need to get out in the garage and dig out my old 386DX 40. The software I would like to run on rtty and slow scan is DOS based and will not run under Windows on the main machine. I guess it might be best to get all of my ham software on a seperate machine.

Short Wave and Broadcast Band Listening

I enjoy listening on the 30, 41 and 49 meter shortwave bands and DXing the AM Braodcast Band. I have replaced my Norelco Type B5X04A/54, pictured on the left, and my old National Type RCP with a TEN-TEC RX-320 computer controlled receiver. It was past time to upgrade the listening station. PC control of the receiver and the digital signal processing makes this a wonderful receiver. The biggest downfall of the RX-320 is it's lack of sensitivity below 500 KHz.