This website is constantly being updated, so please visit often and be patient. It intends two things:
1) To provide as much ham-related information as I can find, in the simplest manner, and
2) To provide a library of the free Quarterly “Hot Iron“ newsletters, which are about construction of ham projects plus as many articles regarding ham news as we can accommodate.
I hope you will find the content of this website to be helpful. I’m just an old (84) HF ham, first licensed in 1957 while living on the island of Aruba where my father was a manager at the big ESSO refinery there from 1938 to 1958, when he retired and I went off to university. We island residents used short wave radio to get our news and music as there was no TV in the 1940’s and ’50’s and only one local AM radio station, broadcasting in Dutch and Papiamento, and providing no US news. So I grew up on short wave and it is in my DNA now, even though the internet has taken over most “broadcasting” work.
I am indebted to the “Elmers” who helped this teenager learn a little about ham radio and becoming licensed: PJ2AK, my primary Elmer, with additional help from PJ2AE and PJ2AO. All are silent keys now, regrettably.
I’ve operated from the West Indies, Midway Island, Mediterranean maritime mobile and many U.S. locations, much of it during a 26 year Naval career. I could not operate while living in Greece or Saudi Arabia, unfortunately. I currently live in Chapel Hill, NC, retired from 20 years at the University of North Carolina’s Health Care system, which followed my Navy years.
I don’t operate much; mostly I tinker with projects and listen. I am not an engineer and have learned what little I know on my own. The operating bench consists of a little Yaesu 840 transceiver, a Heath DX-60B xmtr, 6L6 xmtr, Drake 2A receiver, Hammarlund HQ-140XA receiver, home brew tuners and power supplies and a couple of regens. The antenna is a 140 foot twinlead-fed delta (triangular) “loop”, and a receiving-only antenna which is a 400+ foot “loop” laid on the ground, which is very quiet and sometimes hears more than the delta loop.
The workbench includes various VTVM and DVM’s and power supplies, two O’scopes, a LM-8 frequency meter, HP Audio Generator and tools.
I have been an ARRL member for about 60 years and a Raleigh Amateur Radio Society (RARS) member for about 30 years.
Ham Projects in the que include:
* Rebuilding the workbench low voltage general purpose power supply.
* Rebuilding the workbench variac-controlled & isolation transformer power supply.
* Finishing a homebrew 500 watt 813 tube linear amp.
* Finishing a homebrew 2 x 807 tube cw/am transmitter.
* Finishing rebuilding a nice Heath SB-1000 linear amp I found in the dump.
* Restoring a Central Electronics 20A phasing-type SSB transmitter and its BC-458 VFO
* Restoring a couple of BC-221 Heterodyne Frequency Meters.
Check out the other pages listed in the menu!