My Palstar tuner had a broken lightbulb for quite a while. I was a little irritated that it wouldn't turn on so I decided to change the original light for a green LED I had in my junkbox. Since I had to open the tuner also cleaned the interior and the coil/coil wheel/wheel shaft. All parts were certainly very dirty and I had to clean everything multiple times.
The interior after cleaning.
The wheel that makes contact with the coil was almost black inside. Don\t know what causes this?
LED install with a 2K VR.
Original lightbulb old skool. I had to magnify to see the break.
At first the LED was too bright. I was glad I installed a VR to dim the light.
Does anyone have a good idea to refurbish to lettering around the antennaswitch? It comes off unfortunately. It already did after a year or so. If I knew this would happen I had certainly made precautions and would protect it.
I don't do much with lessons anymore. The focus is to do plain text training every day. At the moment I train with 25/18 wpm. I can't get everything but I read that that is not important. You just go on with the next word or letter and don't think about what you missed. I think I slowly get it.
I don't make much CW QSOs right now. I don't have time to be in the shack in front of the radio. Besides that it is way too hot there. CWops helps me to go on to the next level. But at this moment I stopped the homework. I will pick it up later.
First time ever I connected my straight key. A Tsjech military key. I think a lot of amateurs have these keys as you can find them on many radio markets. I found a dutch site with description which mentions it is a WW2 key. But the key is way to new for a WW2 key. I found another site in the USA which mentions it is made in the 1950s. Nice to know that PRIJEM means RX and VISILANI means TX. This key has a switch in the cover which switches the key off when it is open. It also has a separate switch which turns on when the knob is pulled up. That is used to switch the original transceiver in RX.
See the 2 contacts in the cover.
I wanted to solder a female 3,5mm connector to the wire. But the wire is probabely made from stainless steel. You can't solder it.
Inside the key. The second contact is visible (red wires) those are not connected.
Decided to completely remove the cable. You see the strange kind of wire that was used. It probabely was made to last but not really usable for hamradio I think. Although the American website I previously mentioned showed how to connect an alternative way I think the long cable is not really handy in my shack. So this is what I did:
This is how it is connected to my radio now. Just a female connector and no long wire from the key.
And this is the result in the end:
Not bad I think for a first time straight key keying...
