Lafayette HA-410 reviews

Owned 1970 -1973 bought sight unseen from 10X member while VP2LI in St Lucia, absolutely fantastic rig, a pleasure to use with amazing punchy modulation. Built in speaker and tx with vfo or plug-in xtal. A fine memorable piece of kit.

I just received one of these fine oldie radios bought off of Flea-Bay (For $125 including shipping) and proceeded to turn it on. After it was on for about 15 minutes one of the capacitors under the radio blew up and smoke came out from under the radio. I proceeded to turn off the rig and ordered all new capacitors which came about two weeks later.
I changed them and now the rig works perfectly.
I get about 11 watts out on 29 Mhz and the receiver works great as I worked a local and was given a good signal and sound report.
The absence of a squelch control is not a problem as this not a CB rig but a good piece of ham gear.
This will be a great radio for the coming band openings and will be fun AM rig to make contact on. The radio sounds great as any AM rig would.
I just ordered an 11 pin connector so I can use it mobile on 12 volts.
I used to have one of these similar radios when I was a kid except on 6 meters (The HA 460) and this rig performs every bit as that one did. I wish the locals had a net on 10 meters AM instead of SSB on 28.380 Mhz.
AM sure does have that warm sound compared to single sideband.
It is well worth putting the time and work into to get a fine piece of AM gear!
The drift is minimal after allowing a warm up of a few minutes.
Hope to hear you on 29.050 Mhz soon when the band opens.

Keith WB7RTT