Mon DU1FV

I was given a junk automatic tuner from a Kenwood HF radio years ago. I cleaned it a bit after I got and stored it. While in Mega Mall a few months ago, I saw a nice good sized cast aluminum project box at Alexan and though it would be a nice case for that tuner innards if I convert it to a manual tuner. Last night I finally drilled the last holes for the SO-239s and for the band switches. It requires 12 volts to operate, but that is ok. I might one day put in the original  SWR bridge and do a built in electronic SWR meter (bar graph) or something so I left the band relays in, instead of replacing it with a rotary wafer switch. I left the original nylon gears for the capacitor shafts and use them as knobs. I just tested it on forty meters and it works well. This is now my most compact 100W tuner, so I will bring it for field work instead of the heavy Yaesu FC-901.

My IC-735 sojourn: travel or travail? Sometime in December 2015, I bought a used  Icom IC-705 (white one in the picture) and I proceeded immediately disassemble it so that I can attach a spare front panel that my friend Ricardo gave me. The front panel came from an Icom IC-731, the Japanese domestic model of the famous IC-735.   The front panel has a damaged LCD.   The IC-705 is a rare creature however.  I was told that  the local distributor took some new IC-735 replaced the front panel with a VFO less one so it can be sold to the commercial fixed frequency market. I first saw the ad for the 705 months earlier.  There were two that were advertised for sale by a ham from Lucena City but too many questions in my head back then so I did not buy it.  Eventually a ham from Marikina, Ed bought the pair and a few days later, I was at his place trying to buy one of them.  The one he sold me looked better than the one he retained.  Normally you would wonder why. But I did not