Well, i was playing with the TenTec some more, and noticed that it wasn’t very mechanically stable . The VFO wanders considerably just from the capacitance of objects in its vicinity, by as much as a couple of hundred Hertz. It’s time to get this thing mounted permanently in the box I ordered for it. I’m not sure that will help, but it certainly won’t hurt either.
I sat down for a few minutes, and typed up some raw PostScript to design the front panel and the base pattern, along with markings for all the holes in the case. I’m betting the holes in the circuit board are #4 screws, which require a 7/64th inch hole, and the potentiometers in the front require 5/16″ pilot holes. I’m going to print these out on big label stock, and then cut them and mount them on the case as patterns for drilling.
Don’t know if this will be useful to anyone else, but here ya go.
I still have to figure out what other connectors to add. I suspect i’ll put a regular SO-259 to connect the antenna, sockets for an external speaker or headphones, and maybe a BNC connector for adding an external frequency counter. But this is a good start.
[tags]Amateur Radio[/tags]