Sometimes you get good news…
As I sit here and write this blog post, my old Ten Tec Scout 555 is on it’s way back home.
A photo of my original Scout 555 that I used for POTA.
It really isn’t that simple though, so let me explain further.
Back in July of this year I had activated my local state park, Cloudland Canyon State Park (US-2169) and through a series of unfortunate events, left my beloved Ten Tec Scout 555 HF radio behind in the parking lot. To say I was devastated is an understatement. I had recently bought a second scout off of eBay, but it was a possible non-working rig and I just wanted it for parts to maintain the one I was using. You see, these radios are closing in on 40 years old at this point and spare parts are not easy to find. Since I lost the operational Scout, I tested the “spare” Scout and wouldn’t you know it? It worked fine! Armed with this information I set out to gather up some band modules to be able to use it for POTA past the one module I had for it. I quickly located about a dozen different modules and added those to the stable as well. So I started using this radio while hunting for the last few band modules I didn’t have to complete my set.
It was during this time that I located a working radio with 6 or 7 band modules with it as well… Couldn’t let that slip past me, so I grabbed it as well. Now I am back to two working Scouts and a fairly large collection of band modules, but I still needed two… 160 meters and 12 meters are fairly rare and I was still needing these to complete my set. I don’t use either of these bands very much, but I wanted to complete the set, so I still looked further.
Enter the Argo 556, this is the same radio as the Scout, but without the 50 watt power amplifier module. This limits the output power to 5 watts max. The Argo is one of the last true Ten Tec QRP machines from the legendary company everyone loved. Add to this one more bonus, this Argo came with the 160 meter module! It had a couple of other modules, but I now have a hen’s tooth of a radio as the Argos are more rare than the Scouts by a long shot AND I picked up the 160 meter module to boot! So close now!
The 12 meter module had been elusive to this point, but I was able to score one not long after that on one of the forums. Success! I had the set again!
This is the Scout I have been using for the last few months. You can actually goto the August 20th blog post and read this story. This little radio works really well, even better than the other one if I had to be completely honest about it, but something deep down inside had me just checking eBay and Facebook marketplace for my old one in the hopes it would show up. Well, the other day, this popped up on eBay…
I have stripped out the seller’s information to protect their privacy as I am not sure they want me sharing who they are like this. It could be taken the wrong way and I don’t want people to give this person grief because they ended up with my old radio. I looked at the auction and you can not tell by this photo but as I looked through all the photos I came to realize this was MY OLD RADIO! It had finally surfaced! Several things give it away right away for me such as, the power cord I built from scratch, the microphone my buddy Roger gave me for it, the owners manual I made for it and even the scratches on the top of the case match…it is the radio I have been looking for. So I sent them a message…
I explained my plight and also my delight in seeing that the radio was not going to end up in the corner of someone’s garage wasting away. We talked a little bit and at first he thought I was suggesting that it was stolen or something like that, but I assured him that I had inadvertently abandoned it instead and that I could not in any way lay a claim to his radio. It would have been a different story had someone taken it from my truck without my consent, but I just left it sitting there… So I offered to buy some of the band modules as I am now looking to complete my set again and wouldn’t you believe it, he let me have it for what he paid for it…minus some of the band modules that is. I am getting it back…mostly. I am only getting two band modules and the case is MIA, but the radio and such are coming home!
I am really glad that I was able to get it back too. This is the radio I spent all that time converting to LED meter lamps so I could see it in low light. I just hope no one tried to use it without an antenna. TenTec radios are known for their robust output sections, but you never know…we will see soon enough.
I guess the moral to the story here is that you need to check the area before hopping in the car and driving away… Lesson learned.