It's always nice

when you run into an old friend on the air.

I was down in the shack, working on soldering L1/L2 of the Fuchs tuner in place (I got it done - yay!). After I hot glued the core into place to keep it from moving, I decided to turn on the K2 and launch a CQ into the aether.

Hot chocolate! Dan KB6NU answered me right off the bat and we had a nice little chat. Dan was using his KX1 in which he had just finished replacing the final transistor. Dan did a fantastic job as he had a 579 signal until the QSB started kicking in.

I've had the pleasure to work Dan many times - QRP Sprints and ragchews, too. It's always a treat to catch him on the air. Dan is a fellow blogger and he's listed on the blog roll to the side. I hope you guys are checking his blog out; as it is chock full of good stuff. I was really impressed by his posting about his mini-solder pot that he made out of an old soldering iron:

http://kb6nu.com/i-finally-have-a-mini-solder-pot/

I hope to go to the Jersey Shore Amateur Radio Society (JSARS) hamfest in Toms River on Sunday morning. Hopefully, if I can get there, the goal is to find a junker soldering iron that I can convert into like what Dan has written about.

Back to the Fuchs tuner. I have one more big toroid to wind and install and then finish up the wiring. It really shouldn't take me more than an hour to finish -really. The tough part is finding the quiet time to get my butt into the shack to work on it!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!