Thought some of you Ten Tec QRP fans might enjoy this story -
Back in '69 and '70, my dad used to go to the local radio store in
Peoria to get crystals for his police radio. While there, I fell in
love with a Midland 11-500 SW/AM table radio. That radio got me
going into the hobby of radio, and later, electronics in general.
After discovering "hams" on both of our radios, I started to
investigate that hobby. "Too expensive", said Dad. "Too weird",
said Mom. But I found an ad in the back of one of the ARRL
publications that Dad bought me at the radio store for a Ten Tec
Power Mite.
Man, I loved the looks of that radio. Simple, elegant lines. It
didn't do phone, but hey, I could live with that for a while. After
all, the price was right. So I sent away for the catalog. Even
today, I still have the booklet with the torn out coupon missing.
But it never happened. Unfortunately, I had no Elmer. I had no idea
what the theory questions were asking for, and I was unable to learn
more than a few morse characters from the series of vinyl records
that Dad had bought me during his latest trip to the radio store.
Eventually, motorcycles and girls came on the scene, and the ham
radio dream got put on hold for a while. About 15 years, actually.
Fast forward to 2003. After being fairly inactive for several years,
I started getting into QRP homebrewing. What a thrill it was to work
stations with a radio of my own design and construction! Then the
nostalgia bug hit. I still had my original Midland, but it hadn't
worked in years. Changing all the electrolytics, realigning the
tuned inputs, and changing the dial lights brought the old radio back
to life, in full splendor.
At the same time, I had been looking on Ebay for some parts for my
son's minibike. Glancing around in the amateur radio section, I saw
a new listing for a mint Ten Tec Power Mite 2. There were 6 days
left in the auction, but I decided right then that this radio was
meant to live in my shack. 6 days later, after a final flurry of
last-second bidding, it was mine for $142.50.
It was in better shape than I hoped for when it finally came, in it's
original box, with the original manual and schematic. Like an
episode from the Twilight Zone, I thought for a moment that I was 15
years old again. Over the next few days, I cleaned it up, fixed a
few crusted over switches and aligned the oscillator with my scope
and frequency counter. Hey, this thing might just work after all. I
even got it putting out a whole 1 watt peak power on 40 meters. Then
reality hit me. I had never used a direct conversion receiver
before! What's a "zero beat"? Receive on the upper sideband? Hey,
I'm a superhet guy...
So I practiced zeroing in on strong signals, and again tuned the
oscillator so I could hear the receiver and transmitter oscillator on
a close-by Icom rig. It seemed to me that this thing was alive. But
I turned it on at night, and Whoaaaa, baby! Every SW station on 40
meters came blaring through. I could hardly hear any CW. Obviously,
this receiver is not of the quality of even my first homebrew. OK,
daytime might be the ticket here.
And of course on Saturday afternoon, things were much better. The
band was fairly active with lots of east coast stations on, so I
figured it's now or never. I started calling CQ. After the 2nd try,
I was stunned to hear W2BVH return to me. I was so floored that this
thing had actually worked, that my code copy speed instantly lost
over 5wpm, and I barely got his call! He patiently explained to me
that other than a 100 Hz. random frequency shift, all else was well.
Thanks Lenny for putting up with my nervous fist on a straight key!
After tuning around a bit I came across a very interesting sounding
CW signal that had quite a bit of chirp in it. I got the call as
NX2ND, and looked it up. Interesting - a WWII submarine now a
permanent museum, and with all restored original radio equipment. I
had to work this one on the little Power Mite, so I called him when
he finished his current QSO. Again, success! He came right back to
me and I found it quite appropriate that our two aging radios were
managing to do quite well together.
But what a thrill! So many years later, to actually get my Power
Mite, and to successfully put it on the air has been one of the
highlights of my radio days. But as I thought about it, I realized
that there was NO WAY that I could have used this radio as a kid! I
never would have figured out the nuances of direct conversion, or how
to tune the oscillator. It's probably just as well that I never did
mow enough lawns to afford it back in '70.
But I finally have it, and now it resides in a place of honor in my
shack, right next to my fully restored, original Midland radio. Life
is good.
Who says you can never go home again?
john
KE3QG
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