Home-built Rigs

This is a home built transmitter that I used when I first received my general license. If you have been to my Ham Page you'll remember that I had worked a little CW but was anxious to get a license and a rig that would allow me to use a mike to talk.

It used a 6146 tube in the final and a 1635 modulator tube. The power input was somewhere in the 30-watt class. I used this VFO that was made from a Heathkit and modified to work on this transmitter. I used it almost exclusively on 160 and 75 meters.

I don't think there is a Ham out there that hasn't yearned for a way to become mobile with his hobby. I was no different than the others but money was short so a little Yankee ingenuity and a handful of parts produced this rig.

I'll bet you're all saying "was that man crazy? How did he ever talk his wife into sharing floor space in the family car with something like that." You needed to know Betty, she always supported me in my hobbies, even if my ideas weren't always pretty.

The receiver is a surplus command unit that tunes 160 meters. I originally made a converter to use on the car radio but when I obtained this setup I thought I could take it in and out of the car easily. The transmitter was low powered and was AM modulated. The three-tube line-up is two 6AQ5’s and a 6C4 oscillator. One 6AQ5 in the final and the other was the high level modulator.

The power came from a dyne-motor under the hood. It delivered 400 volts to those little tubes but they seemed to survive. The input power was about 15 watts. The mobile antenna originally was a cut off broadcast whip on the cowl with a loading coil wound on a wooden rolling pin. This was not from the home kitchen, I felt lucky enough to get this into the car no sense putting an end to the cherry pies.

The best 160 signal would work 50 miles in the daytime. The loading coil shown was a commercial one to base load a 9 foot whip on the back of the car. I eventually made the solid state vibrator for the power supply attached to the rear of the receiver.

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