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Friday, October 28, 2011

On the Air with my Hartley

The AWA 1929/Bruce Kelley CW Party is coming up the first two weekends in December and the weather has started to cool off here in Minnesota. I've put the K1 back into it's winter operating position (a top the 75A4) and started to warm up the classics.

Right now I'm running my Hartley paired with my 1940 Simple Superhet. They make a good pair but my signal reports remind me of one of the Hartley's main limitations. On the 18th I worked Lynn, NG9D. Lynn commented that my signal had a fast QSY to it. Last night I worked Dave, WA9DOF. Dave reported that he wouldn't have known the transmitter was a vintage rig if I had not told him. The difference was the wind. Last night we had no wind here while on the 18th the wind was 10-15 mph. The antenna blowing in the wind shifts the load slightly that it presents to the transmitter. This in turn pulls the frequency slightly. Lightly loading the rig when tuning up helps (see my Nov 16, 2009 Blog entry) but wind can still be a factor. Pulling my wire antenna tighter or a completely new antenna might be needed. I'll see what I can do.

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