ARROW Communications Association

Last year at the Dayton Hamfest I picked up a new radio, my first in many years, and the first to include the 30 meter band. My old 1978 Argonaut 509 has a number of design flaws, but I love so much about it, and this radio, an early-80's Tentec Argosy 525, was a small but substantial step up. I didn't have much money, and when I saw it on the table marked $200 I quickly talked the gentleman down to $180 and took it. On getting it home, of course, I found that it in many ways showed its age: the dial cord had been replaced but wound backward in such a way that the indicator moved the opposite direction it should have, one segment of the 10 meter band was dead, the VFO was unstable and made CW stations warble madly for seconds after the tuning knob was moved, etc., etc. But I was happy to have it, especially at such a low price.

I used the Argosy in several contests and realized that it had all the available accessories of its day: narrow crystal filter in the IF, dual audio filter module, crystal calibrator. It was a big step up in receiver quality from my old Argonaut, which has a front end as wide as a barn door, though it has extremely clear reception. The Argosy proved itself a superior performer to the old Argonaut, but the VFO instability and other issues were major headaches.
So I sent it back to the factory for a complete overhaul. It took them over a month, and the price tag, when I finally got it, was $234 - more than I paid for the radio in the first place. I told myself it was a nice bit of history and deserved to be restored, and that the purchase price was so cheap that it was really no basis for comparison.

It sat in the box after its return for a couple of days, and then, last night, I got it out and put it on the operating table in place of the old Argonaut. It fired up immediately (though I was disappointed to hear a loose washer or something very small and metallic bouncing around in the bottom of the case - I really should have removed it, but I just made sure it was still sliding around when I set it up, and not lodged in the circuitry somewhere ...). The sound was very nice, just as clear as I remembered but now nice and stable, and all the features worked fine.

Now to the second part - I have a Butternut HF9v mounted on the corner of the deck, a 31' high 9 band vertical which includes 30 meters, and I switched the Argosy to 30M for a quick listen. I had listened there a couple of times after I got it, but never tried to transmit. As it turned out, during the repairs they detected that the 30M crystal was intermittent and replaced it, so maybe it wouldn't have worked anyway. At this point, though, the band sounded quiet and clear. It was about 7 at night, well after dark, and 20 meters was already almost dead, so I figured 30m would be a good bet.

At first I didn't hear anything except some RTTY at the top of the band segment, which is small - only 50 KHz between 10.1 and 10.15 MHz. Then I was able to pick out a couple of signals, and finally landed on one that was calling CQ in the middle of the band and pretty loud.

I should mention that 30M was the first WARC band added in the late '70's/early '80's, and only CW at a maximum of 150 watts is allowed. I have the Argosy set to 5 watts output, which matches my old Argonaut and is kind of a standard for the QRP (low power) enthusiasts. I like to tell my friends "less power than a night light", and "imagine how a 5 watt night light would look from 4000 miles away - I routinely talk to people that far away by flashing that thing on and off." With my peanut whistle power level, though, I usually only try to call people who are strong and swinging the S meter up pretty high, assuming they are running a lot more power than I am and that the path will be pretty much the same both directions.

Anyway, I grabbed the paddles and called the CQ-er, who was ranging up to S9 or so. He called me back right away and gave me a 559 report - pretty good for a 5 watt station most of the time. It was Jess, WS0L, 20 miles out of Colorado Springs, and we had a very nice chat that lasted about 40 minutes (during which time I had to answer the door and pay the pizza man, and field a phone call my recalcitrant teenagers refused to answer). The signal was very clear, the band was not crowded, nobody hammered us with a big tune-up carrier or started a QSO on top of us - it was really nice.

After that I ate what the teenagers had failed to abscond with and went back to tune 30M at bit more. It was remarkably free from interference (I've worked a good bit of 40M lately, which has a lot of the same characteristics as 30M, but is clobbered in many places with huge-signal European shortwave broadcasters, crowded conditions, and a mix of phone, CW, and RTTY because Europe has a mixed mode band plan and only can transmit in what, for us, is the low end of the band).

Signals seemed to propogate well, and then I heard a strange callsign - pretty fast CW - obviously a dxpedition or something - working US stations quickly one after another. It took a half dozen times hearing his call to get it all: R1ANF. That sounded like a Russian station, which I thought was really cool, but just to be sure I pulled up QRZ.com on the computer and looked him up. As it turns out, it was one of two hams who man a research station on the Shetland Islands, not far from Antarctica at about the lattitude of Tierra Del Fuego, I believe. I imagine these guys have nothing to do when they're not working but operate the radio (and perhaps drink a bit of vodka - they are both Russians) and he was obviously racking up all the contacts he could.

I spent a half hour calling him, as he worked a lot of US stations and a few Europeans and others, but could never get through - there was always somebody in the US with 100 watts and a better quality path through the ionosphere ahead of me. Still, I hope to hear him again, and next time I'll work him for a new country in the logbook.

It was exciting and fun working on 30M, and I know I will be spending considerable time there in the future. If you haven't tried it, polish up your fist and do so - CW operating is fun, and 30 meters is a great alternative to the 20 and 40 meter bands - worldwide coverage AND quiet conditions - NICE! Hope to C U there one of these evenings.

73 de kt8k - Tim