Knight Kit T-150

[gregpie]

I picked up a Knight T-150 xmitter at a radio fleamarket. Beloned to a ham in the aera, now a SK... I want to use it on AM. It works but there has been some mods that I do not understand what he did... But I do have the docs and org manual from him... Is any-one familiar with this transmitter? I am thinking of striping out the mods and putting it back to org, or are the mods really making a difference for the beter!?... My call is W7HRC and can be e-mailed at mycall at arrl dot net. TNX for any help. 73 Greg http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[W0LPQ]

Wow, you resurect memories of times gone by...in more ways than one..!!

Stability, in most circles is a virtue. However in the case of most Knight radios, is ... normal operation. Most Knight radios were not the most stable radios.

Greg, I used to be K7ROF years ago, and my uncle (now a SK) was W7HTR. So be it...! Knight radios were ... ok. Not great, not worthless, sort of inbetween. I do not remember any of the mods, however, if you have the documentation for them, so much the better.

It has been said that they were some what better than the Swan radios, but not by much. I had an early T150 and it was ... ok. Not great ... not the worst. This goes back more years than I care to remember. I personally do not remember any mods, but do not make much of that. Mods came out long AFTER the radios were out.

I do not know your qualifications, nor did I look at the call sign lookup, but if the mods make any sense, then I would leave them and investigate further. I know that there are some who have made the T-150 into a fairly good radio.

Good Luck with the T-150. I think that more people should make an effort to put these old radios on the air. I know that Glen, K9STH puts some of these old ones on the air and have a ball..!!

That, is what it is all about...

73

Bill, W0LPQ

[kl7aj]

O mercy me! YOu bring a tear to my ear and really get my nostalgia glands going.
Indeed I've had a T150. They really had a horribly unstable VFO. but did have pretty clean AM.
Is the rig working at all? I think we can probably figure it out.

Eric

[W0LPQ]

Quit drooling Eric..!

They did have pretty fair audio. I believe there were only a couple other radios that were more unstable, one being a Swan..! You all know the jokes about Swan and their nets......!

Appearance was not all that bad either. Cleaned up they looked pretty good.

73

Bill, W0LPQ

[wa4brl]

You won't mind the instability if you operate it along with it's soul-mate, the R100A receiver. It was very microphonic. Every vibration on your operating table -- writing in your log, reaching for your coffee cup, etc. was amplified and sent back out of the speaker/phones. The cheapest solution was to build a heavy, rock-solid table!!! Still, I look back very fondly on operating with those rigs. Sitting side-by-side they made for a GREAT looking shack. I had a ball with 'em.

73, Steve

[W0LPQ]

Steve, compared to the R-55A the 100A was stable as a rock....! Used to have a 55A about 5 years ago. It worked pretty good for a 55A. Had a minor problem with the flywheel rubbing. Sold it cheap to a guy in Ohio that was trying to recreate his Novice station. But you are correct that side-by-side, the 100A/150A did look nice.

73
Bill, W0LPQ

[w8ob]

I ran a T-150 here for about a year. Great transmitter had a nice chirp free tone to it and with a little warm up was fairly stable. The big trick to using old boatanchors is to make use of that standby switch and live it on 24/7. I sold off the 150 to get a Heath Mohawk/Apache combo. I do miss the the old 150 though it was a nice looking transmitter. I also had the R-100 didnt mind that much, never noticed any microphonics with it. Was a real bear to get the dial to track though. Ah boatanchors when radios were really radios.