#Ten tec pegasus used series
The 540 radio’s QSK speed is built-in with a very fast response and recovery, although I sometimes wish there was a front panel switch for changing the recovery speed to something slower (like on the Omni series of transceivers). The Ten Tecs were famous for this mode of operation, albeit newer rigs have it as a default mode. This made for an almost duplex sort of experience, called QSK. Listening to the QSO, you can hear most of the static on the band between dits and dahs.
To see the old radio being used in a CW QSO, click the Youtube link:įigure 2: CW QSO on forty meter band (Youtube) But, paired up with the TenTec 540 transceiver, either is delightful. I wouldn’t say one is better and one is worse. For many years I used the iambic Autek keyer and a Bencher paddle. The model number is 645, and it’s a bit hard to find. The ultramatic mode was designed in 1953, and the first Ten Tec keyers used it. It uses the ultramatic mode of CW keyers, as opposed to the iambic A and iambic B modes. Note the old Ultramatic keyer to the right of the radio. But what was the range of her voice … did her old power MosFets still have that range and power of which legends were made? The wattmeter rang out her highest CW note, putting the needle at 100 watts on the old yellowed scale … and maybe even a pinch more. The sound was as always, clear and crisp melodies. I plugged a power supply into the back of it, and an old Ultramatic Ten Tec keyer into the appropriate RCA phono jack. For a long time.Īt home, I put the venerable old Ten Tec 540 analog transceiver on the bench. I didn’t bother with his opinion too much, I just gazed at Ms Triton. He’d put her on the block, calling her worn out and “junk – for parts only, no longer functioning” or some such.
Her owner was not so infatuated as I had ever been. But I could see the song still sang from her eyes. I was so fortunate that one day, while strolling the streets of Ebay, I found her standing there. Somehow I’d managed a date with the siren, on several occasions, but allowed her to slip away for one reason or another. Long into the night, I listened to her soft messages, sometimes drifting off to sleep with my hand on the key, eventually slipping into one of those sweet dreams of hamdom. Impressionable and easily infatuated, my young mind learned of the CW siren, that seductress of the airwaves. Over the years, I’d managed to find myself paired with the one whose songs were so delightful, whose voice stuck in my memory for the whole day long. Figure 1: The Ten Tec 540 is playing love songs againįour times I courted her.