I was recently asked about the power switch on the Ten Tec Triton IV transceiver. Was it capable of switching the 12-volt line used to power the radio? The short answer is no. Co-located on the volume control, it was intended to switch an external power supply like the Model 252 or 262. Switching the 15 or so amps of 12-volt power needed for the 100 watt transmitter would destroy the switch.
Over the last year and a half, I’ve been restoring a Ten Tec “Closet Kilowatt” from the late 80’s for a solar powered station. It consists of a model 253 Automatic Antenna Coupler, model 420 Hercules II amp and model 564 Omni VI Plus.
That left how to spot weld. There are many YouTube videos showing how to do it with a commercial tool, but one vid showed a homemade welder that was little more than a motorcycle battery, push button, horn relay and some leads. I could do that.
With the Ten Tec Argonaut 509 restored and working well, it was time to try it out. The Anderson Power Pole made it easy to connect an 8 amp hour gel cell. I hooked it up to my end-fed half-wave antenna and listened around 20 meters. There were plenty of CW signals and I quickly realized a CW filter was going to be needed.
After getting the serial port sorted out on the Omni VI Plus (Omni VI), it was time to get FT8 running. In this post, I describe two methods. One uses a Tigertronics SignaLink USB sound card with a FTDI-based USB to serial adapter. The other is based on a MicroHam MicroKeyer and a Sabrent USB audio adapter.
Using several 20-foot 2 by 4’s that were left behind by the construction crew, and adding four 8-foot 4 by 4’s for mounting posts, there was enough lumber to build two 36-foot tilt-up masts. Spaced 150-feet apart, they supported a multi-band Zepp antenna center-fed with open-wire line.
Lately, I’ve been restoring a Dynaco ST 150 stereo amplifier. As my collection of classic vinyl recordings grows, I’ve assembled the ultimate 1970’s playback system. Coming of age in the mid-70’s, I coveted the then-new high-power solid state amplifiers.
I was having a lot of fun with the restored Ten Tec Omni (series C), but like all of the older Ten Tec radios, the Permeability Tuned Oscillator (PTO), aka VFO, left a little to be desired. Back in the day, when I bought my first Ten Tec, these PTOs were considered very good — but time marches on and we’ve gotten used to smoother and more stable VFOs. An upgrade would be nice.
I finished circuit repairs on a Ten Tec Triton IV transceiver and now it was time to address the grubby cosmetics of the radio. The radio had obviously been used as a mobile. Markings had been added to the front panel in Sharpie, and there was a yellowish film on the panel.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I owned a Ten Tec Triton IV (model 544) in the late 70’s and always loved it. I traded the radio a few years later for an ICOM 720a (also a great radio), but always regretted losing the Triton. Fast forward about 40 years, and the gift of an old Triton II reminded of that first love. The Triton II is similar, but the IV had several refinements that made it really great at the time, and I decided to get one again.