
Site Map	Index	Home	Frobenius	Last	Next	E-Mail

WØYJ Vintage Station

Jack Harper enjoys restoring and operating vintage vacuum tube amateur radios in his spare time -- especially Hammarlund equipment built prior to 1965 or so. He has been licensed since Spring of 1968 as WØYJ (formerly KCØLR, WA5VQF, and ZLØABA in New Zealand) and is a member of the Quarter Century Wireless Association and the Denver Radio League. In addition, he has operated portable in South Africa (1997) as KCØLR/ZS6 and in Greece (1999) as WØYJ/SV9.

Power for the above equipment (other than the keyer) is provided from the mains through a metered two-kilowatt adjustable Variac transformer that is used to tweak the modern 125VAC US power down to the 110VAC (or so) expected by most of the equipment. With a fair percentage of 100 hard to find vacuum tubes running when all of the gear is powered up, filament lifetime is important. The Variac can just be seen behind the Hammarlund speaker on the right of the photo.

A Hy-Gain 18HT Hy-Tower antenna is used on 160-10m which is a 50' tall omnidirectional vertical with a very low angle of radiation. The antenna is a hot tower design meaning that the entire tower is directly driven by the transmitter (similar to an AM broadcast antenna) and it is supported on the ground by insulators. Plans for the eventual future include the addition of two more 18HTs, in a spaced triangular pattern, to build a vertical phased array that will give a 60-degree radiation pattern in six selectable directions.

The following table corresponds to the gear in the above photo -- left to right and top to bottom. Click on a link for more detailed information on an individual piece of equipment:


Johnson Valiant Transmitter	Hammarlund HQ-180A Receiver	Johnson KW Matchbox

Hammarlund HXL-One Amplifier	Hammarlund HQ-170A Receiver	Hammarlund HX-50 Transmitter	Hammarlund HK-1B Keyer

Not shown in the photograph above of WØYJ is a recently found R390A receiver (Stewart-Warner) that is used for shortwave listening and a Hammarlund HX-500 transmitter that is currently under restoration after spending 35-years in the jungles of Paraguay.


Stewart-Warner R-390A Receiver	Hammarlund HX-500 Transmitter

Harper is also collecting parts for a 4-1000A based amplifier that will be capable of the maximum legal output power. The design is underway but not yet complete -- new mains wiring must also be installed to handle the additional load.

Harper upgraded to the Extra Class license in early 1997 (WØYJ) and operates exclusively CW on the HF bands.

WØYJ is located along the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado at an elevation above sea level of almost exactly 8,000 feet (~2,440 meters).

Join Ring

Join Ring


Site Map	Index	Home	Frobenius	Last	Next	E-Mail