Heard a guy on the air with an AM tranceiver that he recently made from a fairly new kit! I believe you can find the kit on the CQDX.ru (Sparky's WEB World) website.
) - on 160 metre's...... with AM it was the mode far more fun for talking to YB's, VK's and ZL's than anything imaginable on Sideband. 160 seldom reached the W/K's , but you who have 160 mtr. QSL's from KC6, KX6 might well remember me (though on SSB)... smiles.
CF, you are a breath of fresh air. I wish that more hams had your outlook. It would be a better world. In this day and age of 'preppers', Cheap Chinese radios, and almost instant licensing, it is good to reminisce about when radios were a great way to keep the coffee cup warm on late night QSO's.AM transceivers!-- a wonderful subject!
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Yes, indeed there were many such radios in the past... I still have one- a government issued**, modified-for-all frequencies- that I carried all over the Pacific. It is an old- I guess you'd call it a 'Boat Anchor'-- ICOM 720A. Some people might argue that the 720 had cheap sounding audio, but the reports I would get on ham band AM said it sounded beautiful... Not that it was used much on AM; ...
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Ah!, but there were late nights out on some remote atolls when it would radiated out a singing AM voice (mine....
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Sorry, my reminiscing may be be beverage-induced as I await a connecting flight .
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Growing up I remember many ham transceiver kits-- Allied Radio-- later to be known as Radio Shack---they had quite a few kits.... AM 6 meter transceivers, and of course there were the HeathKit 2'ers, 6'er and 10'ers... World Radio Labs had a 6 AM meter transceiver....
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My father and his friends were always building transmitters and receivers- 6 metre's was a favorite band.... though usually the receivers were simple super-het's, regens on 420; and such-- or they used high end converters into communications receivers like R390's, Super-Pro's, Hallicrafters......
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But the transmitters, well, they were something else...I still have one of his... a classy open chassis work of art-- tubes mounted on an aluminium chassis....a 6EA8 crystal oscillator/multiplier to a 2E26 PA, a 6CL6 screen modulator, 12AT7 audio preamp--> 15 watts carrier modulated on 50MHz... it sit on a shelf today...I turn it on now and them, like a night light, to just watch the glow of the filaments. Then there were the plate modulated 4-400 blast furnaces...... yes!... the golden days of AM... only in my childhood memories today.....
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Not long ago someone showed me a Chinese transceiver... made by Anytone (?) - it covered 10 meters-- and had AM........ So AM is still out there-- 29.000 AM, back in the days of sun spots was a lot of fun.... maybe consider it?....Converted old CB radios anyone??!.
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...............................CF
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**My 720 had been issued out over 6,7+ times before it came to me.... a veritable old, well travelled veteran... but still in pristine shape in its indestrustible air-freight case. When I tried to turn it back in, no one could find it on the agency inventory lists...."hold on to it" I was told.... I still am...
) ) .....Boat Anchors, and AM-- oh yes, and what I could tell you....!
Nice! That brought back a lot of memories too. I remember back in the late '60s and '70s, a bunch of hams were converting those old tube type CB radios to work on 10 meters AM! Some of those rigs actually sounded pretty darn good!!In a old, olive drab military foot locker I have kept a collection of family radio "Treasures." Years ago I limited their number to what I could fit into that box, largely based on uniqueness- and weight/size..... I was aware of the "boat anchor syndrome" long long ago, and I did not want to be one of those collectors - (I prefer polychrome Pueblo ceramic pottery myself) ....
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Reading this Post again, now with an awaken'd sense of nostalgia, I pulled out that little footlocker. Last night I took a stroll thru memories. Right, now at work, one of those 'treasures' sits on my desk at work, surrounded by flashing, sophisticated lab equipment... I am sure it must be feeling like a very strange little being in a very strange land!
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WB3DYE asked earlier if anyone built transceivers. Well, in my collection was that little treasure, a little mini box- 3 tube project my father, and his father, built together- considerably before my time. Orginally there were two of them, but this is the one that survived.
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It has a small speaker louvered grill, a pilot light, a crystal microphone plugged into the front- next to a toggle switch marked "T/R," a SO-235 antenna connector- and most notably, a Bakelite dial dialing out "420-430-440-450-" ----- A UHF Transceiver--- Opening it up (it hasn't been opened since the '60's) there is a 6AF4 oscillator/regen detector, a 12AZ7 audio preamp and 6AQ5 audio amplifier-- a small hi-voltage transformer, diodes... the tuned circuits are silvered copper wire tank circuits... all carefully mounted on ceramic stand-offs... I jokingly showed to our chief engineer who earlier walked by, and asked her: "why can't you guys make something pretty like this??"
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We plugged it in and, oh, Wow!... that regen receiver put out quite a broad spectrum of RFI hash (as seen on a HP spectrum analyz'r). I plugged a #47 pilot bulb in as a dummy load (not that I was worried it need one, but I wanted to see if it put out a measurable signal)- and was rewarded with a faint glow... The signal bandwidth was practically unmeasurable, but in frequency it was remarkably close to centering on the dial marks. How my father calibrated that is anyone's guess-
I wasn't sure what sort of signal would come out of it... a hodge-podge mixture of AM/FM to be sure- but over a Harris lab receiver it sounded absolutely sweet!..(though the band width was set to 'the outer-limits!").... and so much for the spectral purity standards of the "Good-old-bye-gone days"... (laughing)... as if I am sure these hams then cared.
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My father and grandfather used these radios for Field Day contests... I was told some the FD rules have changed over the years- that it used to be that all the members of their radio club would line up and using these two radios; they'd making a contact to the club callsign, across a field- and each club member would score a QSO point and UHF credit for the club-- in those days each operator did not have to have his own radio... or so my father told me.
..........I see there is a grease pencilled note on the back of this transceiver "Best DX 1 mile": and a now- blurred date.
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Hope you liked my tale- I sort of combined the home- made transceivers with 'boat anchors' subject ... I have another little 'treasure' sitting on my desk... but its getting on towards lunch and I *must* get to a task I have been avoiding .... maybe tomorrow?
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.........................................CF
