K2AS Ham Radio

I have an Hammarlund HQ-100 I bought several hamfests ago. It is identical to what was my first novice receiver. I had worked a few years ago, but last New Years Eve, when I tried to use it on straight key night, the main power transformer had a meltdown. It has no fuse, and besides the mess in the radio, the transformer needed to be replaced. Likely the filter caps as well, which may have been the original culprit, not sure. So I tried looking for a drop-in replacement, but could not find one. Some were close, but often were lacking a 5V secondary for the rectifier, or the high voltage was wrong, or the current capacities were off, etc. There also were no used ones for sale. So I contacted Heyboer in Michigan, and thought I had agreement via email for them to build a new one. I sent them the specs, and didn’t hear back. So after a few weeks I called them, oh, he found my email. Ok, they will build it. 10-12 weeks worst case he said. After about 20 weeks, I emailed them agai...

I’m in the process of putting up a new antenna. I have used a Hustler 5-BTV trap multi-band vertical for over 10 years. It has bee showing some signs of aging, the plastic top covers on the traps are disintegrating, the screw connecting the center conductor of the coax to the antenna isn’t tightening properly anymore, it was damaged by a large tree branch falling on a guy rope, and the 17 meter add-on coil creates enough wind resistance that it spins the antenna depending on the wind direction. Additionally, after several years of working a lot of FT8, it was a chance to get some empirical data on my signal strength. I haven’t looked at the data recently, but maybe 80% of the time I hear people better than they hear me. Often by substantial margins. Replacing a vertical with another vertical isn’t maybe the best idea. But the radials are already in place. I had been looking at the DX Commander range, and picked out their Classic version. It does 40-30-20...