Tempo One

[brownbomber72]

I know this is a HF rig but I figured I may have better luck posting on this part of the board. Has anyone ever put a Tempo One on 11 meters and if so how did you do it?

[2600]

That was an incredibly-popular radio back in the 23-channel CB days. There were "sideband clubs" who kept in touch on a chosen "HF" channel above channel 23. Later, above 40. This radio is full of tubes, but in 1974/1975 it was the cheapest deal on a radio like this.

A single 10-meter crystal gets unsoldered, and a crystal with the right frequency to cover 27 to 27.5 MHz goes in its place. Doesn't matter which of the four 10-meter crystals.

Enough decades have gone by I can't tell you from memory which adjustments get "tweaked" to max the 11-meter performance. I would need to look up the crystal frequency in question at work, don't have that info at home.

When the code requirement was removed from a ham license we saw customers who would want the 28.0 band back. The 11-meter crystal would get moved to the "10D" slot and a crystal to cover 28 MHz installed at 10A.

There was a humorous angle to this operation. Called it "Operation full circle".

But that was 18 years ago. Oldest Tempo 1 we would see back then was about thirty years old.

But now the same radio is creeping up on fifty years.

I now advise anyone who fancies making this kind of radio a daily driver that it is too old for just "repair", and has forever crossed the line to "restore".

The labor cost it takes to properly restore a 1975 (or 1969) tube radio will make a newer radio look competitive on price.

Mileage is a factor YMMV. If your radio spent its entire life on a shelf in the proverbial cool, dry place it probably still works. Probably will for a while before the first breakdown.

And if it has any real miles at all on it, the gremlins will appear.

73