Ten Tec treasure hunting #1

I have decided to make this its own miniseries in my blog. Lol.

You see, when ever we goto a hamfest, it has become a running joke of sorts to try to find all or the Ten Tec gear and grab a photo of it. The means anything with the logo on it. Well, we went to the Dalton Georgia hamfest recently and this is what all we found!

There always seems to be an older Omni at every hamfest for some reason…this time there was three!

I have seen this Scout bundle before (maybe here even) and I like the concept. This kit is a bit much for this area though, hence the reason it shows up for sale and not sold… it is a cool old radio, just needs to goto the right person…

I want the Titan or the Hercules amplifier simply to complete the station, I have the whole station other than the matching amplifier… This titan was probably the one I should have gotten…

An HF base rig for 350$ and a Ten Tec no less…is a deal! The Paragon is arguably one of the best receivers Ten Tec ever made too…

I bought the above speaker/power supply as it is a project and was also the correct power supply for the Triton I have at home… I got it “for a song” too as they say, since it was not thought to work, it is a “project” item or a “tech special” as they are called in the radio world. That just means there is a known problem and you go into the deal knowing this. I am comfortable working on discrete component electronics so this is cool with me. It is the matching supply yo the Triton shown below.

I have a version of this keyer at home, these keyers from Ten Tec work beautifully and can be had for a good price most days, like this one. Just make sure that none of the mechanical part s are broken when you buy it and you will be good to go most likely.

Early Omni number 3 for this boneyard. That has to be a record for me or something. The speaker/power supply is for a later version radio like my Omni 6+.

On this tailgate is a genuine hen’s tooth. That automatic antenna coupler is rare. I have one and it works well, albeit slowly, but well. It will match a coax stub 3’ long to the radio… I know… and is plug-n-play with those Omnis on the truck next to it.

All in all, there was a great showing of Ten Tec radios at this hamfest and it gives me hope that the brand wont fade into obscurity anytime soon. I hope you have enjoyed this little walk down memory lane with me and hope to see you again soon.

73

WK4DS

The WK4DS POTA Hunter Station Amateur Radio (and a little ragchewing too)

What does a simple POTA hunter HF station look like? Just like any other HF station… This is what mine looks like currently. If you haven’t already figured it out, I have a Ten Tec fetish and I don’t care 🤣 The Omni VI+ was a dream rig back when I first got into radio and I could not afford one at that time, but as time went on, I was able to piece together a nice station sans amplifier…for now… and I have really enjoyed using this old girl on the air. I also have the 238 manual tuner in the closet as well waiting on a time when I will need it.

My current station mainly consists of a Ten Tec Omni 6+ with matching power supply and automatic antenna coupler that I run primarily into a vertical antenna I have out in the yard. I still need to finish the installation of my wire antenna in the front yard in the trees so that I will have a second antenna to work with that will complement the station. I also have a splitter worked out to where I can set up and use my QRP radios in the shack easily. This allows me to test the radios and learn how to use them before I go into the field to do an activation. This reduces the stress of figuring out the radio in the field while trying to make contacts.

My current key of choice is the Ten Tec KR 40 keying module, this key is designed to work with their older radios and is able to do all sorts of things other than just keying output. It is an electronic work of art to simply be a key lol. I also have my other regular keys that the radio will operate with since it has a key input and a paddle input on the Omni. Not to be left out I also have a Logickey K3 keyer that I am going to get working as well. This will also make me have memory keying with my Omni since it does not natively have a memory keyer built in.

I am planning on adding a second HF rig to the shack to complement my Omni 6+ so that I can have the Omni calibrated and have a couple of small issues repaired on it and while it is out. Having the second rig makes it to where I will still be able to operate. I am currently searching for one of several radios to fit this position in my shack, such as the Ten Tec Jupiter/Omni 7, the Ten Tec Eagle, the Ten Tec Orion, or even something simple and small like a Kenwood TS 590 or similar. I really want nice filtering as I like to listen to CW on the air regularly and it is very tiring to listen to the bands with a lot of band noise. A radio with good roofing filters or IF filtering makes this a much more pleasurable experience. That is all my ham shack at home has in it to hunt stations with. My current antenna is a 17 m vertical that I can tune all the way down to 40 m and still have a decent signal going out. This is why I want to put a large wire antenna in the front yard. I really want to be able to work the lower bands and the large wire antenna will allow me to do that. Thank you for following along today and if you have not done it yet please subscribe to my blog thank you very much and hope to see you on the air soon. last but not least I have a good old 2 m radio to get on the local repeater and talk Symplex to my local buddies with. Everybody has to have a 2 m rig to get on the repeater ha ha.

73 WK4DS