HALLI GALLEY TALLY. Tonight I checked in with “the guys” on 3710 with my recently acquired Hallicrafters FPM-300, otherwise known as “The Safari.”
Over the last week or so I finally completed wiring up a D-104 with a 1/4 stereo phone plug for use with the rig, and I had been hoping to do more testing of the audio before checking in on 3710. But beyond some initial tests in the shack, I had little more to go on — other than what the manual suggested.
The tune- up procedures take up two full pages in the manual. First, you preset the controls depending on the band you are on. Next, you check the bias and readjust it if necessary (it shouldn't vary unless you change a tube). Then for SSB, you put the mode switch to “Tune” and adjust the plate current to 150 mils. Then you adjust the preselector for max, dip the plate and adjust the load. Not exactly rocket science, but it sure feels a bit foreign after living in the plug-and-play 21st Century.
The Safari uses a single sweep tube, a 6DK6, with a 12BY6 as driver. The rig is rated at 250 watts input, with output of 100 watts on the lower bands, less on 15 and 10. I didn't drive the rig that hard, figuring a more conservative output of about 80 watts showing on the watt meter.
The Safari manual brags of the rig's AALC (amplified automatic level control) which provides consistent quality audio without distortion or flat-topping.
I checked in with Danny W4DAN and Larry, K4KZA, and got good reports on the Safari. The audio quality, signal strength and stability was excellent. Danny said it sounded good enough to claim I was running an Icom IC-7800, which was certainly high praise.
During the 45 minutes or so I was in QSO with the guys, I only had to touch up the VFO once, and that was drift of less than about 100 cycles. I was doing a lot of transmitting, so the rig was definitely warming up. The only thing I really missed from my 21st Century rigs was a noise blanker; I had some sort of A/C generated by one appliance or circuit in the house that created an S8 noise level from time to time. The noise blanker would have been handy.
All in all, a lot of fun. Another plus was running a D-104 microphone! I hadn't used one of those on a ham rig since my Swan 250 6-meter days about 20 years ago.
The drift on the Safari wasn't bad at all; I had turned the rig on about 2 hours earlier, figuring I would put it on the air tonight. The stock specs say drift of 100 Hz or less after being on an hour. Anyway, it was fun to get the rig on the air.
ICOM STILL IN THE SHOP. My workhorse HF rig, my IC-746PRO, is still at Comtek in Washington state. Because of the massive box I shipped it in (double boxed of course), I couldn't afford priority mail and had to let it go parcel post. Well parcel post to the West Coast is an easy 7-10 days of transit time, and that's about what it took for my Icom to get there. Apparently, Kuni the tech said he couldn't duplicate the crappy received audio on the rig. I told him to listen on 75 meters. The audio isn't terrible, but there's something wrong with the bandpass, like more than is intended is getting through the filtering. Or maybe its the second harmonic of WBRT?? Naw!
I'm really not worried about the PRO right now. I've got plenty of rigs to keep me busy during its absence. I hope he can duplicate the problem, though there's no hurry for good reason — the replacement front panel is on back order from Icom, and I want that replaced while its in the shop.
Due to needing space on the shack desk to hook up other rigs I've just sold on eBay, I've taken the Yaesu FT-450 from the operating position. I will move it back soon enough, but honestly, I've thought about putting it back on eBay in hopes of buying its bigger brother, the FT-950. I just sold my last FT-757GX, plus my FT-890, so I don't need much beyond the income from those two sales to pay for the FT-950.
The FT-450 is a great little rig though. Lots of bang for the buck. Enough said about that, I need to run … 73 de KY4Z … dit dit …..