Today (he tells me it is 50 years later!) my friend Gianfranco is on the air as I0ZY.
Transmitter back then was homebrew except for a Geloso VFO purchased for 7000 lira (11 dollars at the time). Tubes were 6J5's and 6V6's. It ran AM. Two 807's in the final with 600 volts on the plates. Two 6L6's running AB2 as the modulator. His mic was salvaged from an old wire recorder. Except for the VFO, everything was from WWII surplus.
On the receive side, he had an HRO 5 by National that he picked pretty much in the same flea market area that we visit today. It was in such bad shape that they gave it to him for free! With a lot of patience and persistence, he was able to get it to work on 20 meters. Gianfranco clearly had The Knack!
And he still does! He now has a wonderful company (SPE) that manufactures in Italy some very advanced linear amplifiers. He is the designer and creator of the Expert 1K-FA. Check out this video on his company and his product:
Here is the link to the site for the Expert 1K-FA:
http://www.radio-ham.eu/Expert1K-FA.htm
An Unintended Post-Mortem
-
Many of us wind up in a similar situation, I'm sure: we impulse buy at
hamfests—great plans for some big old currently non-working piece of
gear—and then...
1 hour ago
"Stazione Sperimentale Italiana". Dontcha just love how that rolls off the tongue.
ReplyDelete73 from the edge of the Pacific Ocean.......Steve Smith
WB6TNL Stazione Sperimentale California
"Sentire l'odore massimo della colofonia."