Thanks for all who responded. I got some good info, took a while to
sort through it all tho. :)
Anyways, I suppose I'll start looking around to see if I can find a low
cost keyer kit, something that can be put on a small board and go
inside the radio, just to play with. (If I operate backpack qrp, I
don't need another box to carry with me--the 1340, ant tuner, and a key
already takes up enough room!) If I don't find anything between now and
then, that's ok, I do have a Bencher key already, I just need to start
using it.
Andrew Moore, I built my 1340 already. Went together well. My advice:
Go out and buy some stranded wire to replace the solid (single) strand
wire in the kit. After a few bends, I find my wire kept breaking, so I
replaced it with the same size stranded stuff, and found it to be way
more forgiving. Also, go find a 1n4001 or better diode. Either put it
into the +12V to the switch, or put it backwards across the power
terminals with a fuse (the fuse goes to the rca jack first, then the
diode, then the connection to the power switch). I smoked all four ic's
in my 1340 when I accidentally powered up with the wrong polarity.
I also have some notes that I took, but I forget exactly why on all of
them--they might be a bit more obvious to you as you build! One, put on
the so-239 ant connector before mounting board/heatsink assembly. The
connector wouldn't go on afterwards I found! Also, on page 26, pu int
the caps first, phasee 5--1uF cap is the one closest to the NE612 (???).
I had fun building the kit, and I need to bring it back into school and
retune it. I found that I had to tune all the inductors to get the
radio to work properly--for awhile I had no sidetone, I forget which
inductor it was that had to be tweaked but I did get it to work.
In the near future, I am going to add a multi-turn pot to replace the
one on the freq dial, for easier tuning. I wonder if I can make the vfo
have a larger range if I do that too? Also, there's enough room inside
the box--I wonder if some sort of keyer would fit? I plan on running
this guy out in the woods on my 4Ah R/S lead acid.
Oh yeah, it's set up for I think 7080 up to 7146; most of the novice
band (which I only can use currently).
Anyhow, back to school!
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**********************************************
Shawn Upton
Electrical Engineering Student
University of Maine at Orono
webpage: http://www.eece.maine.edu/~supton/
mail: supton@eece.maine.edu
KB1CKT Tech Plus
**********************************************
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