The KEØVH Hamshack For March 2013

By Jack Roland, CBRE, CBNT, and AMD

KLove /Air 1 Denver Engineering.

Greetings for the month of March!  I hope you had time to have a great Valentine’s day with your loved one as I did.  Now, how does this relate to ham radio for an article like this?  I can answer that!  My lovely bride and I had a wonderful trip to Florence CO and spent the evening having a fabulous dinner, a night at the Florence Rose B&B, and then the next morning visiting the shops in Florence, known as the “Antique capitol of Southern Colorado”.  My wife really loves Victorian lamps, and I of course hoped to run into some really cool tube radios.  I am the owner of a couple of tube Zenith Transoceanics and at this time a Royal 3000 solid state TO.  So I thought that while she looked at lamps I might find a radio or two to catch my interest.  Well, sure enough, there was!  For me it was a find of a lifetime.   A fairly rare Zenith Transoceanic Royal 7000!  I have wanted to find one of these for a long time after reading the book “Zenith Transoceanic, the Royalty of Radio”.  These radios cost around $270 new and to find one at all is a rarity.  Well the one I found in this antique shop was not only working but with the exception of a little dust was in pristine condition.  The cabinet had no scratches or other issues from the years.  Even the original shortwave logs and information were there and intact. 

 

Zenith Transoceanic Royal 7000

This was the third in the Zenith line of solid state receivers, 11 bands, a BFO for SSB reception, and a crystal controlled weather band, along with AM, FM, and Shortwave bands.  This radio was the precursor to the even more rare R-7000, the last in the TO line.  My radio here was manufactured as near as I can tell late 1970-71.  I am really thrilled with this find and it will be in the family for a long time I hope.  And, the sound from this radio is tremendous.   Now, my lovely bride said when she saw me looking at it “get it!”, just like that .  I am married to a wonderful generous woman that is for sure! J  And this radio sure looks good in my office.

And that wasn’t all that was that was there in Florence!

 

This console style radio

           

                                                                                                                                 

                        A Packard Bell Tabletop Radio                  

                                                                                         

 

                                                 A J-38 Morse code key

 

 

An Admiral “companion” Tabletop radio, and this beautiful Zenith “Entertainment Center” (back in its day!)

Now the lady who owned this shop didn’t know if the Zenith TV set worked, but thought it might.  She was selling this for only $150!!!  I wish I had the room to carry it home and at home, so this one is still down in Florence.  And, the lady said “someone could turn the TV into a fishbowl”!  I said, “NO!!! SACRILEGE”!!!!!  If the tv was working, or could be restored to working condition, since it receives VHF tv you could feed something into it with a VHF RF feed.  So I hope that if I couldn’t get it myself someone will take it and restore it.  If working it could be worth a lot to a collector.  Maybe even as it is.

One of the ham radio projects at the shack of KEØVH is measurements and adjustments of my vertical 5BTV antenna and a new 75 meter antenna I am in the process of finalizing as of this writing.  It sure helps to see what the antenna is really doing with the Field Fox I have handy from work.  Plus a little practice and teaching time on how to use this wonder instrument.  Here are the measurements I have been looking at so far with my antenna system at home.

 

The KEØVH 5BTV HF antenna

And yes, I have it in an “RF enclosure”.

Here are the screenshots on the measurements I did on the vertical.  I will be working on optimum adjustments

 

      The 10 meter reading       

    

                                                              

                                                                                                                   15 meters

                                                                                                                       20 Meters       

                                                                                                                       40 Meters

 

And the current setting on the 75 meter antenna thru the tuner.

I like to check into the Colorado Columbine Net on 3.989 MHZ in the evening so I have to use the antenna tuner at this point for the wire dipole I have as it resonates at 4.6 mHz right now.  I need to raise it and lengthen it to be optimum on 75 meters.

SHACK OF THE MONTH!

 

This is our buddy Harvey, WØHLC, in Cedaredge CO.  I met him thru the 7.195 bunch of guys on 40 meters after hearing about him from Cris, W5WCA.  Harvey lives right under  one of my KLove translators and will listen to it from time to time to check on it for me.  I talk with him and Mark, W5REC, Edmond, OK  on 7.166 frequently.  And Patrick, my co-worker here in CO for KLove went out to install a remote monitoring system at our station there and had a great visit and lunch with Harvey and his XYL at Harvey’s QTH.  Catch Harvey and Mark on either one of the frequencies early in the mornings.  They are great folks to QSO with!

And as always don’t forget the SBE IRLP (and Echolink) Hamnet, the first Saturday of the month.  Details on how to join are at  http://www.qsl.net/ke0vh/sbehamnet.  I hope you will be able to join us and share your engineering and ham exploits!

73’, God be with you, & see you next time!  KEØVH