| The chassis consists of
a 18gauge. sheet that was left over from a tractor fender repair. I had no
bending brake so I simply bent smaller tabs with a hammer clamped between
a couple of angle irons. The chassis was primed painted and painted with
grey acrylic enamel. The main departure from the known Paraset design is
the fact that I added a second ¼" jack to accommodate my J-47 Key.
The internal key was fabricated with
three strips of .25" clear acrylic Plexiglas, using a solvent welding
technique.
The other major fabrication was for the
friction "Jackson drive" dial. I found the dial at a surplus shop, the perfect
size but with a non- linear scale. I separated the knob from the dial and
applied a decal 0- 100 scale to the former "back side". The friction plates
are made out of brass sheet; chucked in my drill and filed sanded perfectly
round. The bearing was made from an old potentiometer, I spent a little time
getting this drive working well. It was binding and causing a "stutter" ...
It ended up being as smooth as butter after adjustments and with the aid
of a dab of petroleum jelly and actually a very nice to use.
The Serial number plate was a scrap of
brass with "KD6VKF" crudely stamped as the S/N!
The RX is band-spread now for 80M. The
first 2-way contact was with KA9UDA in Barstow, CA on 3560 on October 4,
2010. That random few hundred mile QSO was very satisfying, after the effort
and time spent with this marvelous design.
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