"Uncle Peter" ) writes:

One of those ARRL SSB manuals had such a transceiver, nice and small,
albeit with transistors.

I think that may have been the rig by Benjamin Vester (if my memory hasn't
messed up his name!) That was a cute project that always fascinated me.
At the time I was in my early teens and didn't have the skills to duplicate
it. Late 50s or early 60s IIRC.

That's it. It's in both the fourth and fifth editions of the SSB Manual.
Looking now, I see that it is listed as originally in QST for June 1959,
which seems terribly early. It looks like something that would have
been published in the mid-sixties.

What's surprising is how small it is. That sort of construction is
hard in itself, but at a time when people were still just getting
close to transistors it becomes amazing.


Though, I seem to recall there was a transceiver made out of subminiature
tubes in the late fifties or early sixties. Unless I'm confusing it
with something else, it was in the Bill Orr Handbook.



I'd like to look that one up for a read if your ever recall where it
appeared!!

I was vague about that because I'm not sure what I'm remembering. There
was an article in CQ about the "Argonaut", I think in the early sixties
but maybe late fifties, about this miniature SSB transmitter or transceiver,
and the DXpedition it went on (so maybe it was just a transmitter, to
get some new countries on the air on SSB, where there'd already be
receivers). It wasn't a construction article, but the intro mentioned the
consctruction details were published elsewhere. Either in the Bill Orr
Handbook, or the "Editors and Engineers" SSB handbook (which were either
Howard W. Sams, or would a tad later be engulfed by Sams).

But I'm not sure if that had subminiature tubes or not. Thinking about
it now, such a rig seems vaguely familiar, so maybe I did see the book it
was in at the Library in the early seventies when I started reading such
things. THere definitely is some memory that is stronger than that CQ
article, but I don't know what.

Michael VE2BVW