Due to the move to the UK most of the goodies below have been disposed of. These days I own a Icom IC-Q7E transceiver and half a home-built Norcal-40A. The Norcal is actually receiving quite well at the moment. My CW needs a bit of brushing up though.
I sold the Astron two years later for exactly the same price I bought it, just because it is such a good little piece of kit!
My newest addition is an Astron SM-30 switch mode power supply. I ordered it via internet from the USA after reading some favourable reviews in the January 2000 issue of QST. This means I can now operate HF 'high power' (100W) without taking my car battery out of the mobile.
The Astron works fine, even with my old KDK-2025 2m set which is able to pick up hum from a battery! On the air reports never point a finger at the power supply. I used it for the SARL (South African Radio League) HF SSB and CW contests. Unlike last year where I could only put out about 15W into the longwire due to my homebrew power supply this year I could work QRO with a whopping 100W into a longwire.
The recent review of the Alinco switch mode power supply in the September 2000 QST is also something to consider. The Alinco features include variable output supply and variable switch mode frequency.
My HF station consist of a Kenwood TS430S (second hand of course, I was about 8 when the TS430S was built!) and a Tokyo Hy-gain antenna tuner. Somewhere in a dusty garage a three element, tri-bander TH3-JNR is stored until I have a permanent residence to put it up.
Recently (about 3 months ago) I bought a second hand Hustler BTV-4. Tried without too much success. Spent an entire Sunday afternoon at the saltmine trying to tune it with the help of a Network analyzer. The 40m section SWR just would not respond to any tuning. Any ideas? In the meantime I will stick with the longwire.
These are all gone now, *sniff*.
I own a variety of commercial VHF sets that have been converted to the 2m band. These include the Motorola MCX100, a Tait T500 series II and a crystal based PACE that will probably be used for packet someday. I also have a Motorola Radius P110 2 channel handheld VHF set that has been reprogrammed for 2m. My only true 2m HAM set is an old KDK-2025 Mark II. If you need info on modifying any of the above rigs for 2m please feel free to email me.
Recently (this time only 1 month ago) I received email from Rob Denton in the UK. He had a Tait he wanted to convert to 2m. After several emails back and forth he started working on his. I am thinking of placing those emails here for other hams to reference. Watch this space (for a couple of months if you know me).
I also picked up three Kyodo VHF trunk radios at the last Boland amateur radio klub meeting. Two of these are already capable of 2m operation. This was done with the help of Johann ZR1CBC (http://sunsat.ee.sun.ac.za/~lochner). A couple of handy webpages and a friendly ham at Key radio UK helped us convert these. The goal with these radios is a local 9600 TCP/IP gateway.
There is also a PYE electronics 70cm repeater under my workbench that was used in some kind of marine navigational system. Someday I want to convert it to a 70cm HAM repeater (any tips or ideas are welcome).
The PYE repeater has been donated to a fellow ham (Ben ZR1AHB) with more spare time than me. He is also into collecting military radios and gets a gleam in his eye for anything with that military green colour...
For myself I would still like to get my hands on some ex-commercial UHF rigs for voice/packet/satellite use. The amateur stuff is just too expensive in SA due to our weak currency.
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