Amazing Homebrew/Boatanchors QSOs on 40 --Six solder melters in a row!

Al W8VR

After a day of happy tinkering with the Direct Conversion receiver I've been working on, I turned off the soldering iron and got on 40 meter SSB with my BITX Digi-Tia. 

First -- Steve W4IJ came back to my CQ.  Steve is a boatanchor enthusiast and has written for Electric Radio magazine.  FB. 

W4IJ Boatanchors

When Steve signed off, I got into a contact with Pete W8NBO.  We had spoken before and he had told me of a homebrew transmitter he'd built as a kid.  This time I asked for details: It was a 6AG7 oscillator to a 6L6 amplifier.  He ran it with an S38 (brave man!).  He described what must have been a very painful effort to hack (literally) the needed holes in the transmitter chassis using just a spike, a hammer and a file.  I told him this brought back my memories of similarly painful chassis work (mine was for a power supply for a Heath HW-32A).

At this point we were joined by Arnie, W2HDI.   Arnie's rig is in Stowe Vermont, but he was running it remote from the South of France where he and his wife were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.  Arnie shared with us memories of similar chassis pain -- his were related to an external modulator that he built for a DX-40. I think he said that all he had was a hole punch and a file.  Oh, the humanity! 

Then Al W8VR joined the conversation.  Al said that he's been in the game so long that his early rigs were built using cigar boxes as chassis.  I pointed to a connection:  I noted that my BITX rigs are enclosed in what could be considered cigar boxes.  Al's QRZ page picture has a magnificent AM rack rig that he said was actually built twice.  There is also an HRO-60 in the picture.  FB. Check it all out at Al's web site.  Click on the mic for the write ups, the key for the pictures.  http://www.w8vr.org/

Then Dennis K0EOO called in.  Holy Cow!   Dennis and I spoke not long ago.  You may recall my enthusiastic write up of his beautiful 1974 SSB rig: 

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2017/08/k0eoo-homebrew-ssb-in-1974.html

and

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2017/08/more-on-k0eoos-amazing-homebrew-ssb-rig.html

This was almost too much.  Rarely will you spontaneously come across so many hams who have melted so much solder.  FB. 

Icing on the cake:   When I returned to the bench, I fired up the DC receiver and heard Mike KN4EAR talking about his BITX40.  I switched to the Digi-Tia and gave Mike a call.  He reports making many contacts with his rig. FB. 

TRGHS.