[Today’s run: rest day]
This morning I pulled my TenTec Century 21 off of the shelf and made some contacts with it.
The Century 21 is a 1980 vintage, CW only, solid state 5-band transceiver. It puts out something like 30 watts, depending on the band. It plugs into 120 VAC power. It has an internal speaker. If you use headphones you may need a higher impedance set than your usual walkman stuff, or an impedance conversion of some sort.
This is the second Century 21 that I have owned. The first was an earlier (I think) model with an analog dial. This one has the digital dial.
The Century 21 is a direct conversion receiver. I really enjoy using it.
To precisely tune in a station, press the Zero Beat button on the left side of the control panel while tuning the large knob. Get the received signal so that it goes down in frequency and disappears (zero beat). Then adjust the Offset knob to get the signal tone that you enjoy.
To transmit, turn down the Drive, press the Set Drive button while slowly turning up the Drive. Watch the meter and go up to around 60, or lower if you like. If you go too high the power supply current limiter will turn off the radio. Just turn it off and on again. That’s it for tune up; plug your key in the back and start sending.
You have Frequency Band, RF-Gain (push/pull on-off), Audio Gain, and 3-setting audio filter along the bottom of the control panel.
One really nice feature of this radio is the QSK. The sidetone in my unit is kind of buzzy. It sounds like background noise (and other signals) with my buzzer going buzz, buuuuzz, buzz right over the top of them. You can hear the other signals between your dits and dahs.
The receiver hears both sidebands of every signal. The upside of that is you can tune to either side to avoid interference. The downside of that, when the band is crowded it is almost unusable. One year at Field Day I operated a Century 21. I could do it, but visitors couldn’t tell which signal I was trying to converse with.
I don’t have a lot of experience with modern radios, most of my stuff is 1970’s and 1980’s vintage. For CW work, this is the most fun multi-band transceiver I have used. The receiver is no great shakes. The audio filtering works but is not impressive. No noise blanker, no second receiver. Just a straightfoward CW machine.
