New addition to the shack
There is a new addition to the vintage collection at N4RFC. A KWM-2A. Very clean, belonged to one of the 3717 SSB evening nets SK. It had a significant problem with the PTO, as in it wouldn’t change frequency. I pulled the PTO out and disassembled it find that a small stamped steel part had an even smaller tab that broke off. That tab was the one that the lead screw moved to tune the slug inside the PTO. There was no way I could see to repair it, so I had to buy a new PTO. Got one for a reasonable price on Ebay.
Put the new PTO in and the KWM-2A is working great! I really like the rig. It sounds great like Collins radios do, and it is simple to operate and a joy to use.
I will be pairing it up with the 30L-1 linear amplifier.
Congrats!
This made me remember I haven’t had mine on in at least a year. I have a variac I use to slowly wake up all those old power supply filter caps. Time for that.
The small world story is when I started my last job, the project engineer on both the KWM-2 and the 51S-1, Ed Andrade, W0DAN, was still at Collins. We got to talk quite a bit when the club still did Field Days, as a fixed station on regular power. Good guy. This was in the late ’90s, and Ed went SK a few years after retiring.
I really like the radio. In fact, it is a lot easier to use than the S-Line, about half the knobs to have to turn. It is easy to tune up and you don’t have to worry with getting the transmitter on the same frequency! I am driving the 30L-1 with it and it does a great job.
Later!