Text Box:     Ssssh... Welcome to the shack of...   EA4BB    Para ir a la página en español, pincha aquí              Who am I * My station * Old Receivers * Music * My antenna * Other hobbies * Something about myself * Sign my guestbook@qsl.net   Who am I Fernando R. Arroyo, EA4BB I was born in 1964, and I became interested in Amateur radio in 1979. I started as a SW listener with an old Philips 5-tube receiver. One day I discovered some strange signals around 7Mc. It took me sometime to find out that those transmissions were coming from a neighbor of mine, EA4JV. I immediately felt like knowing more about private individuals communicating with friends around the globe, using very simple means. That is how I was introduced to ham radio. I soon got a VHF novice license, EB4AHJ, and a year later I got my general class license, EA4CPX. In 1985 I changed my call to my present EA4 Bugs Bunny. My home QTH is Madrid, the capital of Spain. I live in the heart of this wonderful town. My station My main station consists of a Drake TR7A transceiver and some Drake accessories, including a R7A receiver and a L4B linear amplifier. I have a separate Collins station, composed by a 75S-3C receiver and a 32S-3A transmitter, with a matching speaker, station control and power supply. This is a 1970s vintage. Other Collins gear in my station includes a KWM-2A transceiver, 51S-1 receiver and an older “S-Line” (75S-1 receiver and 32S-1 transmitter). I "adopted" that one back in 1990, during a hamvention in Stone Mountain, Ga., while visiting my dear friend Billy, N4MHQ, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I have indeed been collecting some Collins and Drake equipment over the years. It looks very nice to me and it works even better, and I find very pleasant getting on the air with this classic, somewhat old-fashioned radio-gear. In a way, making a contact over the radio becomes nearly as much of a thrill as the fact of using this specific equipment to make it possible. I guess we could establish a parallel with classic cars. I suppose driving an Austin Healey nowadays must be a rather unpractical thing to do. But gosh, what a wonderful impracticality that must be!    Collins “S” Line: 75S-3C receiver + 32S-3A transmitter   Have you ever noticed how beautifully designed the KWM-2A was? The "grey line" was introduced in the late 50s to replace the old black rack-sized Collins radios, and comprised items such as the KWM-2/2A, the "S-lines", the 30L1 amplifiers, and many others.  These wonders were not common in Spain at the time they were made, because of their astronomic price and restrictions to their import. For the price of a 51-S1 receiver you could, in 1959, buy a three-room apartment in Madrid, just to give you an idea. Collins radios represented an impossible dream for most amateurs in an era in which it was customary to build one's own transmitter and, often, the receiver too. In the words of the master of so many Spanish hams Juan Aliaga (EA3PI), “a Collins was to ham radios what a Rolls or a Mercedes were to automobiles”. Nowadays a Collins is still an expensive item, for there are not too many of them around this side of the Atlantic, but its high price will be fully justified once the lucky owner fires it in the dim light of the radio shack to discover its amazing performance, starting at the same time being lured by the magic that goes together with old tube radio equipment. If you want to take a look at the details of a KWM-2A front panel, click on the thumbnails below.                     Click on the thumbnails to make them BIG My first transceiver was a Yaesu FT 101ZD, which I still keep and use from time to time, together with its external VFO FV 101. Finally, I use a Drake CW keyer and a pair of Bencher iambic paddles for the CW part of the fun. You can see below some other photos of the station and its operator. Both Collins and Drake discontinued the production of ham radio gear a long time ago, as well as their customer support services. There are some user associations in internet which enthusiastically “keep them glowing”. Many of these have web forums which are a priceless source of expertise and information when it comes to repair or alignment, and indeed represent a wonderful realm of comradeship and support. When buying a used piece of equipment, the original manual is frequently missing. Many of these have been scanned and posted on the web by fellow amateurs. Below is my small contribution for some of the less frequent Drake radio equipment. They are high-resolution scans in pdf format, so you will need a high-speed internet connection or some amount of patience to download them: Drake L7 Linear Amplifier Operator’s Manual (8 MB pdf document) Drake MN2700 Matching Network Operator’s Manual (4 MB pdf document) Drake CS7 Coax Switch Operator’s Manual (2 MB pdf document) Drake CW75 Electronic Keyer Operator’s Manual (1.3 MB pdf document) Drake WH7 Wattmeter Operator’s Manual (1.9 MB pdf document) AUX7 Installation & Manual (1.3 MB pdf document) NB7 - Noise Blanker Installation (0.5 MB pdf document) NB7A - Noise Blanker Installation (0.4 MB pdf document) R7-TR7 Accessory Filter Installation (0.9 MB pdf document) Old receivers I love old communications receivers, and have collected them for years. Not that I have a very important collection, but still I've managed to get a few nice ones I am very proud of. The first "boatanchors" I had were a couple of classic National receivers. These were the HRO 50 and the NC-183D. Sure they were very impressive pieces of equipment, although it took many hours of hard work to bring them back to life. I got them from a fellow amateur in Madrid, but traded them a few years later for a Collins R390A in very good condition. This receiver had been, for a long time, a dream of mine. Kind of the ultimate tube receiver. It is, in fact, one of the best receivers ever, which largely surpassed my expectations and may still comfortably compete with any of the newer receivers I have come across. I have missed my Nationals ever since, though. You can see the R390A in the photos of my shack, holding a very central position in my station.                         Used Sailor receivers are relatively common and inexpensive, although it is not so easy to find one in a good condition. In case you get hold of a dead R109 and feel like restoring it, click here for a scan of the original instruction manual with schematics (5.6 Mb pdf file). This booklet is otherwise a marvellous lesson on radio basics and the art of direction finding.     Another outstanding marine receiver in my collection is the Drake RR3. This is a commercial version of the Drake R7. It is rack-sized, and has a white face. This particular one has an interesting story behind it, for it was in use for many years at a Norwegian oil platform in the North Sea. It came to my hands a bit sick, but it has now been carefully restored to its original characteristics and specifications, and it is one of the very best I have.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      73! Fernando EA4BB ea4bb@qsl.net  

The next addition was a somewhat older Collins 51J-4. This is also a beautiful rack-sized general coverage receiver from about 0.5 to 30 MHz. Mine was manufactured in the late 50s. Alongside there is an Eddystone 940, which is a wonderful British-made marine receiver of the 1960s. It was widely used on  those days as the main communications receiver in the radio room, or as a broadcast receiver for the recreation of crew and passengers in liners.

The Danish-made Sailor SP 46T and R109 are also marine communications receivers. Back then, Sailor radios had a very distinctive green splash-proof case (which the newer models have kept) and a large, round black dial framed by a chrome ring. Both are all solid-state radios. The R109 pretty much follows the design of its predecessor, the SP 46T, but it incorporates the commercial FM band (88 - 108 MHz) and a built-in loudspeaker. It has a few nice filters,  and a very good-sounding audio. Both can receive in long and medium wave (they were used, among other things, for CONSOL direction finding) and short wave up to 4 MHz.

R&S EK56

Drake RR3 + Drake TR7A

        Sailor SP 46T                Detail of the dial                 Sailor R109                                  Detail of the dial                        Connectors

The Collins 51S-1 replaced the 51J-4 general coverage HF receiver at the end of the 50s, as the S Line was being introduced. It quickly gained a reputation as simply the best receiver available at the time. Although it was known and talked about by hams, to think of laying your hands on one of them when they were in production (and then still for quite a few years) would have been reaching for the moon for the average radio amateur.

the 51S-1 was (and it still is) a superlative piece of equipment, meant for commercial or military use. 15 or 20 years ago it was still common to find 51S-1 receivers at the radio rooms of many embassies this side of the Atlantic. The 51S-1 has also seen quite a lot of military action alongside the R390 or R390A. This is probably one of the reasons why some units have shown up in recent years at hamventions and specialized dealers in Europe (not in alarmingly high numbers, though). 

Mine is in fairly good condition, but it could use some alignment I haven't had the time to do yet.

Collins 51S-1

S-Meter detail

R7A

The National HRO is a classic receiver if there is any. When it was first introduced in the mid 1930s it was an immediate success, and it went through successive upgrades and modifications until the 1960s, when the last version (HRO 60) was produced. HRO stands, according to radio historians, for “Hell of a Rush Order”. This is because the National Company got an order from the Army to produce many of them in a relatively short lapse of time. The HRO was widely used in Europe during WWII in all war scenarios, but perhaps had its most prominent role as the backbone of the British intelligence services. Mine, which is an early version, comes from the UK. As you see it has a very distinctive tuning knob which holds the mechanism to count the turns of the VFO, to establish the operating frequency in combination with a scale stamped in each of its interchangeable coils. When properly aligned, HROs are very sensitive, selective and produce an astoundingly nice audio output. And yes, they are beautiful machines to look at, too.

Need the original 1939 manual for this one? Just click here: National HRO Manual pdf

  

 

 

                   BC-348R                                                                                Dial detail                                                                         Swissair ID tag

The BC-348 receiver is a real piece of history. It was developed during WW II and installed as the main HF receiver aboard different types of war planes, especially the B17 and B29 bombers. At the end of the war about 10,000 of them had been built in some 5 different versions, and they soon flooded the surplus market and made wonderful receivers for the post-war amateurs. The 1948 edition of the Radio Handbook describes how to modify them for amateur use, the main modification being the replacement of the original 28V dynamotor by a standard AC 110/220 transformer. My BC-348 is the model "R", and there is an interesting record to it. It started flying in a B-17 bomber in 1944. In the early 50s it was retired from the army and installed aboard a Swissair commercial plane. I believe it was fitted then with the micrometric VFO skirt scale which is not present in other units I have seen. It made many more flight hours in peaceful skies until it was finally decommissioned in the early 1960s. I have kept it in its original condition, and have left in it the 28V dynamotor. It still performs wonderfully today.

My Braun T1000CD doesn't probably belong in this section, but I have decided to include it anyway because its performance is close to that of some receivers specifically designed for the demanding Short Wave Listener. It was produced in the mid 60s for the general public as a multiband "world receiver". It is a single conversion superheterodyne which covers the entire SW range in 12 bands (has a BFO control for SSB detection), plus the commercial FM band 88 - 108 MHz.

If you are lucky enough to find a Braun T1000 receiver and need a Service Manual (in German), just click here: Braun T1000 Service Unterlagen pdf (5.8 MB file).

What I find unique about this receiver is its design, a masterpiece of the German architect Dieter Rams.  The T1000CD is in exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, so the night guards can do some DXing if bored in their shiftt :-)

HF equipment can be turned into a work of art, and the T1000CD is a good evidence of this statement.

Braun T1000CD

Saba Freudenstadt F18

Music 

 

And now a little mention to the radio I listen to my music with. It couldn't, of course, be just a normal, compact-sized, practical stereo... Instead, I use a tube radio, a 1967 Saba Freudenstadt F18, to which I have connected my CD player and two large loudspeakers. The cleanliness and quality of the output audio is just beyond description. And as a plus, you can hypnotize yourself now and then looking at the names of distant broadcasting stations stenciled on the glass dial... This is actually something quite fascinating old radios had, and modern ones don't. These beautiful wooden radios can still be found for nothing at many flea markets. All they may need to come back to life after years of silence are a few new tubes and some fine-tuning to restore them to original specs, and you will find yourself with a commercial-grade tube amplifier with a sound quality transistors can hardly match.

This particular one was "hunted down" for me by my friend Javier, keen collector and "restorer extraordinaire" of this type of beauties. 

My antenna

 

The antenna used to be a 2-element cubical quad which worked fine… until a heavy windstorm destroyed it a few years ago. It was a Cubex Skymaster, and the most wonderful antenna I've ever had. I didn't have the time yet to put up something again, but I am planning putting up a more "conservative" 3-element yagi... It will be on top of a 10 meter tower placed on the roof of my QTH. I live in a 9 storey building in downtown Madrid, quite a nice location for radio purposes, in spite of eventual heavy urban QRM.

Other hobbies

 

I love amateur radio above any other hobby. In this category I include SWL listening and my compulsive habit of collecting any piece of electronic equipment, no matter how junky it might look like.

But I love old books too. I am quite a voracious reader, and I enjoy the feeling of reading any book in a nice old edition. I like very specially old travel books, guides, maps and atlases. I find a strange pleasure in guessing how traveling was in the old days, in a world in which internet, fast airplanes or mobilphones were not yet invented.

One of the books I am most proud of is a copy of the "Times Atlas of the World" from around 1890. I can stare for hours to the beautifully printed pages, looking at the blank areas yet to be explored, or finding the names of places that don't exist anymore.

I am very interested in Arctic and Antarctic exploration. I once wrote an article for the Spanish version of “CQ” about the last voyage of the "Italia", an ill-fated zeppelin that crashed in the Arctic ices back in 1928. It was only thanks to Amateur Radio that the survivors of the wreck could be rescued. You can read the story in Spanish clicking here. For the English version please click here. You will need the free Acrobat pdf files reader. Get it here.

Finally, I am an ardent motorcycle rider. Betty and I have seen many roads and countries already. If love and understanding is at all possible between man and machine, that's us.

Betty, "the" love of my life, is my motorcycle. One day we will publish some of our adventures on this site.

Something about myself

 

I am 41 years old, and I am an Architect by profession. I obtained my first license in 1980, and have been quite active since, but for study or work reasons.

I have been working in other countries for most of the time. These include the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire), Kenya, Tanzania, Ivory Coast  and Angola.

I managed to get a ham radio license in some of those countries. Thus I have signed 9Q5BB, TU5JL, D2BB and ST2BF (my present call), enjoying pile-ups now and then but, most of all, keeping in touch with ham friends wherever. My QSL manager is Joe, W3HNK.

I am presently living and working in Sudan, where I am quite active on ham bands.

I still regard Ham Radio mainly as a powerful friend-making tool.

   EA4CPX

Madrid 1982 

With nearly an identical electric circuit, the Drake R7A is the amateur counterpart of the RR3. This wonderful general coverage receiver is indeed difficult to find. If you come across one of them, it is likely that the seller will want a pound of your flesh for it. This is probably because R7s are so good that few hams are willing to part with theirs. The R7A has a special reputation (which I find fully justified) for being a superb listener in the tropical broadcast bands.  I have put some extra filters in mine and use it as an external VFO to the TR7A. 

R7 receivers are solid state, and built in a modular way. They are quite robust and keep their alignment for ever. They are complex things at the same time. Therefore, the principle "If It Works, Don't Fix It" applies very well to them. Take a look at the User Manual clicking here (2.2 Mb pdf file). 

Another marvellous solid state receiver in my collection is the Rohde & Schwarz EK56. This is a professional radio I have seen some times in maritime coastal stations and laboratories. It has 20 (!!) filter positions, from 75Hz to 6KHz. The EK56 covers the entire HF spectrum, from 10 KHz to 30MHz. The weight is in the region of 50 Kg, not exactly the most portable of receivers, but it is absolutely unbeatable once you find a place for it on a solid table in your radio shack.

    D2BB

Angola 2003

   EA4BB

Madrid 1998

    ST2BF

Sudan 2006