Willamette20 at the 'Sonic' Stage

Willamette20 went to the airport with me Friday and I found a nice old Sonic Drive in Auto Tray in the junque pile there.  In the machine shop we fashioned it into a simple enclosure for the rig.   I also found a nice piece of aluminum from a wrecked Piper Cherokee 140 that will serve as the top portion of the clam shell enclosure.  The knobs and feet are added and it is starting to look more like a radio now.

Monday went to the shop at the airport again and added a few more bits to the Rig.

On Off Switch and Headphone Jack on Front Panel

SO-239, Power Connector, Key Jack, and Aluminum Screen with 3 Feed Through Caps for 12V, VFO Sig to Mixer and Key Line to Disable RIT 

DELMARVA AMATEUR RADIO and ELECTRONICS EXPO

Took a drive over to the DelMarVa Hamfest today.  Picked up some parts for the Willamette20 Enclosure and a solar panel for the UPS battery. Nice military Jeep with radios.  Lunch was included for the $5 entry fee.  Was not that well attended there seemed to be almost as many exhibitors and vendors as there were attendees, although we did not arrive till 11 am.

New Chinese DMM VICHY VC99

It took 9 days for this to arrieve after a PayPal purchase on eBay.  After a few min of initial testing it seems to be fully functional.  Full specs at http://www.szvichy.com/e/showproduct.asp?id=415.  This was $32 incl shipping from Hong Kong.

Heathkit T-4 Signal Tracer

The latest piece of test gear to be put into service is the Heathkit T-4 Signal Tracer.  This should be a useful piece of gear for checking receivers and other audio gear.  It is basically a high gain amplifier with a speaker, 'magic eye' indicator and an RF/Audio probe.  You can check for an aural signal or watch the indicator for a signal at various points in a circuit.  It also has a 65V DC signal option at the probe tip for checking intermittent solder joints or other 'loose' connections.