I have a sentimental tie to this older military transceiver, for several reasons:
-- This was probably the transceiver that we hauled into the Uwharrie national forest when I was in the army in 1983. I made one 40 meter CW contact with it. It was interesting for me to see Ray tune the rig up on 40 meter CW.
-- I like the crude, early, non-digital synthesizer.
-- This is a good example of the use of an old military rig on 5357 kHz in the 60 meter band. This is the only one of the chanelized frequencies on that band that is on a whole interger of kHz frequency. It fit well with the 1 kHz tunability of the transceiver. Thus we had the "Moose and Squirrel" net on 5357 KHz.
-- I like how Ray uses the band noise to peak the receiver. Band noise, you see, has its uses.
Yes, past tense is appropriate for the Moose & Squirrel 60M net per my recent futile attempts to find it and an email I received from
ReplyDeleteSteve K9ZW who was mentioned on the net website at one time.
However, there is still frequent CW activity on 60M.
--Walter KA4KXX
The PRC-74 is the coolest radio, I first saw it mentioned in the December 1972 issue of CQ. All solid state, single conversion, 1.75 MHz IF, 46 crystals in the synthesizer, imagine the cost !
ReplyDeleteThe PRC-74 was made by Hughes Aircraft - I have a 6809 S-100 computer made by Hughes, amazing construction - I'm sure the PRC-74 was built as good or better.
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY