10 Meters = Gud DX

10 meters is proving to be a fertile band for some good DX. I rarely use more than 20 watts here at VE3MPG. My preferred mode is digital; today I was monitoring 10 meters while getting some odd jobs done around the house and in the garage.

The great conditions on 10 remind me when I finally got my voice privileges way back in the early 1980s. After six months or a year, I can’t accurately remember I took my logs in to the Department of Communication here in Ottawa. The inspector had a look to see how active I had been on CW and stamped my log and gave me voice privileges on 160 and 10 meters. Ten in those days was very active and I installed a mono-band yagi on my roof up about 40 feet. Wall to wall signals and my TS-520 buzzed the ionosphere for many pleasurable hours working DX.

Back to today – my first contact was ZB3R in Gibraltar. I had worked Stephen a couple of weeks ago on 15 meters. Great signal and got him on the first call – power out about 15 watts to my Cushcraft R6000.Stephen uses an FT-950 and you can see how professional his station looks. Have a look at his QRZ profile for more pictures of Gibraltar itself and more about Stephen’s station.

The second DX contact today was ZL4AD, Brian in New Zealand; again with 15 watts out and an honest 599 report from Brian. I’m using the latest Beta version of Ham Radio Deluxe for digital contacts and logging.

Now if the conditions continue into the weekend that would be great.

TS-520S Boat Anchor #2

Spent half the day yesterday dusting off my venerable TS-520S. I acquired this almost 45 lb. (20.5 Kilos) radio a couple of years ago from an on and off short wave listener. It was in pristine condition, had never transmitted and it was stock – no filters of any kind. I spent time taking both covers off checking for leaking or bloated capacitors and had anticipated blowing dust out of it. The interior was in factory condition and I just used canned air to blow out the cooling fan area from mostly accumulated light dust of 30 years. There are no scratches anywhere on the covers, and the plastic bezel is blemish free too. I checked all the boards for tightness and got it put back together after well over two hours of eyeballing most of the components for defects. I had the radio connected and on the air the day I brought it home so I knew it all worked just fine – a testament to the quality and durability of Kenwood ham equipment designed over 30 years ago.

A good coat of car polish on the covers finished the job – I use Nu Finish liquid wax and it makes the radio look out-of-the-box new. Any good car wax will work and I’ve always done this to radios that have a smooth finish like the old line Kenwood gear. The Nu Finish was goes on very easy – and no rubbing – it does a superb job and lasts a long time. The wax is available at Canadian Tire or local WalMarts.

This long weekend will give me the opportunity to get the radio on the air – on 40 meters phone and work some of the local nets. Eventually I’d like to get a CW filter for it and use it exclusively on morse code.

Some great links:

Kenwood Hybrid Transceiver Sales, Restoration & Service

Kenwood Hybrid Tune-Up Procedure

Ken's K4EAA K1 Knob Page

Kenwood TS-520 HF Transceiver Capacitor Replacement Kit