The Wonderful, Absolutely Fabulous Norcal 40A

N6KR – Wayne Burdicks QRP Masterpiece – the Norcal 40A The weirdest thing was unplugging my ICOM IC-7610 and plugging in the Norcal 40A. Talk about going from one end of the spectrum to the other! Three QSO’s later, and all I can do is sing the praises of this little QRP rig! Its sound is amazing, and the built in KC1 Keyer is great…

Radio “Living History”

I found one of these locally – with a speaker and fully restored by Howard Mills – THE Collins Expert. This is a receiver I have had at the back of my mind for years. I also have the fondest or early memories of when I first started sending with my Vibroplex Bug in 1973 or so. Frattini J-36 Bug I also ordered an…

Is There a QRP CW Dream Station?

Ten Tec Argonaut V After making 160M DXCC and 9BDXCC, which was 5 years after making DXCC Honor Roll, I have been struggling to figure out what would keep me interested in Ham Radio. The answer could be the one thing I tried to get into when I was inactive from 1977 until 2001, and that is QRP. In the 1980’s I tried getting…