PRC-320 refurbishment (first coat)

These is a picture of the PRC-320 after the first coat of paint. In the next coat I will try to adjust the tone and use an addtitive to get a matt finish.

Today I have continued the tests with the help of my colleague Antonio (EB1AAL). We measured output power which was slightly more than 20Watts with a rather discharged battery. Ernesto (EA1LQ) was also ready to help and gave us some reports on the modulation. He said that it sounded rather tinny, which is an ususual feature of military transceivers, I have heard.

Missouri from a car park (AB0RJ)

Yesterday I had a quick QSO with Miles (AB0RJ) from Missouri, USA, on the 17m band with my long whip antenna while I was waiting on a car park. Although the signal was strong, the noise level was equally strong so I had to keep the QSO as short as possible. Last night I received his eQSL card, which has a really cool design. Miles, thanks for the qso and hope to see you soon with better conditions.
I have also been in contact with Bob (WB2ICQ), who sold me the stainless spring and quick disconnects that I use with my antenna, because we would like to set a sked for a CW QSO on 40m. That would be a great opportunity to test his rain gutter antenna and my recently acquired antenna parts (including my Yaesu FC-40 auto tuner).

Kazakhstan (UN7MMM)

I have just received this nice eQSL from Valery in Kazakhstan for the 17m QSO we had a couple of days ago.
I have had several QSOs with him in the past, one of which with the YO/EC1CW callsign, when I was working portable from Suceava, Romania.

PRC-320 refurbishment

This is a picture of the RT320 transceiver after sanding. Today I gave it a first coat of paint, and I will try to show some pictures tomorrow. I got the color from a local paint manufacturer and distributor called Juno. They can reproduce virtually any color with a computer aided procedure called Junomatic. The color I chose is a sort of olive drab.

ON7LB: QRP in CW

The other day I went to the Buro to collect my qsl cards and amongst them I found this interesting one from the QRP station ON7LB, which operates in CW only, in this case with 4Watts and a G5RV antenna.

Although the QSO in question was not portable, the card shows a very interesting setup for portable operation. Certainly it is lighter than the PRC-320.