VK5ZJA Preamp

[VK2YW]

Hi All,

I have come by a 2m pre-amp inscribed as VK5 - 2M PPREAMP but no info on it. I wonder if anyone on the logger has any info..schematic etc. Also has VK5ZJA on it. I am thinking 80's?

John 2YW

[VK4GHZ]

Hi John

This rang a bell, so I dived into the filing cabinet and found the original instruction sheet that came with the kit.

Scanned and PDF attached here.
Original design was from 1985, refreshed in 1990 and 1993.
I can't imagine anyone getting upset with copyright after almost 30 years?

VK5 2M Low Noise Preamp.pdf

VK5 2M Low Noise Preamp

(357.76 KiB) Downloaded 357 times

You will note reference to VK5ZJA.
I believe this was the early days of what was to become MiniKits.

Cheers,
Adam

[VK3RX]

FWIW the call VK5ZJA was held by Neil Abraham, who is now VK5KA -

[VK2YW]

Thanks Adam,

Much appreciated. Now to see if it works. . Interesting that each time I googled I got MiniKits.

John 2YW

[VK5PJ]

Hi John et all,
that version of the VK5 preamp was designed by vk5zja and were promoted and made available through the then VK5 Equipment Supply committee (ESC) for may years (part of the then local WIA branch). The ESC was one of those volunteer run groups that reveled in finding rare parts and making them available to HAM's at bare bones prices.

As interest diminished around the ESC and the creation of the federal WIA, the ESC slowly dissolved and during that fuzzy period MinKits (run by Mark, vk5lo / vk5eme) came to life, the exact details are unknown to me. Mark has supported a lot of the heritage projects from the ESC and then added his own designs as the older ones fell by the way.

While some may see him as just another supplier, he has continued the ESC tradition of making seemingly rare components available to us HAM's and given the limited scale of economies from this market continues to deserve our support.

Okay I know it sounds like a paid advert but it is not, we have to realise when people like Minikits go missing, there very few alternatives to get the rare parts in small numbers you need, that is why I am a fan of Minikits.