The Complete DXer

Odds are that, if you're reading this, you're probably familiar with two other jewels from the ARRL bookstore: Solid State Design For The Radio Amateur and Emperical Methods of RF Design.  An equally important (and still available!) publication is Bob Locher's The Complete DXer.  In a nutshell, TCD is to operating as SSDRA and EMRFD are to homebrewing - essential reading, and a bargain at $19.95.

So, what got me on this topic?  Well, dialing around during this pandemic, it's obvious that some of you could use a little elmering. Since we're not supposed to be around each other, I can't come over and teach you what was taught to me, but reading OM Bob's book can! Read it, learn it, live it and you'll come to love it.

If you can't, for whatever reason, read TCD, I'll let you in on a little secret:  There's an old adage that goes "Can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em".  Most assume that refers to using a decent antenna or well designed receiver, but there's a non-hardware component as well: You can't hear 'em while you're transmitting. 

Here's an exercise: Next time you hear a pile-up, listen to it critically.  Who's he working? Why? Is he following a pattern, eg: listening a bit up or down with every QSO? Is he giving instructions?  Once you develop that sort of awareness, then you'll know where to call and when to do it.  Practice that, and not as many of us old QRP guys will be cracking the pile before you get your turn, certainly before the lids calling "Who's the DX?" get theirs.


Enough of the lecture.  Go get the book and start working to become a better operator.

Social Isolation and the Icom 735

N8NM/p, Lakeland, Florida

I'm not to proud to admit that my homebrew rigs sometimes don't travel well, so when my wife and I were planning this extended trip to Florida, I thought it'd be fun to reacquaint myself with an old friend: Icom's IC-735.  So, I pulled it down from the shelf where it's sat for years, and stuffed it under the back seat for the 1300 mile ride, never giving thought to whether it'd work when we got here.  

That's trust, and I wasn't disappointed.  Other than the meter's backlight being dead, the old rig still works as well as it did when it came over from Japan during the Reagan Administration.  Better, actually, thanks to some nice International Radio crystal filters that I installed years ago.

I was a part-time tech in a local ham radio store, they still had such a thing in the mid-'80s when the '735 came out, and I remember thinking that, with all that's crammed into that box, I'm gonna hate working on them.  We sold tons of them, and almost none made it to the bench for anything other than having options installed.  At nearly $800, they were out of my reach until the next new thing came out and they started showing-up second-hand.  So, it was probably about 1990-1991 before I could get one of my own.  I sold that one a few years later, regretted it, and probably bought this one somewhere around 2000ish.  I know I had it shortly after 2001, because it was unfortunately damaged by a hasty repackaging job performed by a member of a new branch of government called the TSA.  Luckily, the damage was cosmetic - the bottom panel was caved in - and the electronics were unharmed.

In the mid 2000s, I added a second IC-735 to the fleet and equipped both with the aforementioned aftermarket filters and tweaked them so they'd go down below 5W (the minimum was 10 from the factory).  Using them as a portable SO2R contest station and with wire dipoles, I won the QRP class in quite a few state QSO parties, including in-state wins in Michigan and Tennessee.  I beat the poor things like rented mules, and only managed to break one once when I blew some switching diodes out on the bandpass filters by accidentally getting my cables mixed and transmitting directly into it.  

I suppose that makes the rig Idiot Resistant rather than Idiot Proof.  Fortunately, 1N4148s are pennies and the repair took maybe an hour, and I haven't done that again.

So, here I am, enjoying my first winter someplace where the air doesn't hurt, and along comes this pesky virus from far away.  It looks like I may be here a while, but that's OK - the weather's nice and, as someone who spends his time building ham radios in his basement, I'm well adapted to social isolation.

I've got my '735 and soldering iron set-up out in the lanai, the sun is out and the weather is warm.  I think I'm gonna be OK.