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Dave Heil[_2_] · March 6th 08, 05:56 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.moderated

wrote:
On Mar 5, 3:09�pm, Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
On Mar 3, 8:23pm, Dave Heil wrote:
I find it impressive that Hallicrafters made so many different
receiver models in so few years (say, 1945-1960).
Loads and loads. �Most were variations on a common theme
with styling
changes though octal tubes might have been replaced by loctals or miniat
ure 7 or 9 pin types.

Hallicrafters never went for loctals in a big way; they were used only
where there was no other choice at the time. Your variations-on-a-
theme idea is correct; notice how similar the SX-42 and SX-62 are on
the inside.

The SX-42 is what brought the loctals to mind. Perhaps the '43 had 'em
too. If you look at the long line of Hallicrafters stuff, the S-40 was
basically a Sky Buddy with an S-meter and an extra stage.

The 'A-4 was the best of the period. �The models with the Collins
vernier tuning knob were the best of the best.

IMHO Collins made a design mistake by putting such a fast tuning rate
(100 kc. per knob turn) on the 75A-4. The reduction knob fixed that.

A few years ago, a small company began manufacturing a reduction knob
for the 75A-4, machined out of solid brass. Functional and
attractive.

I noted them when I saw the ads in Electric Radio. The price was very dear.

The 75A-4 is the first receiver I know of that included passband
tuning as a standard feature.

I think you're right. �My 75A-3 came with a Universal Service
(predecessor to today's Universal Radio) PTO mod which plugs
into the
NBFM socket. �The Collins winged emblem was removed, a hole
drilled in
the spot and a long 1/4" shaft from the PBT box ran through the
hole.
An engraved plate was mounted on the panel and the shaft was
fitted with a miniature knob.

How did it provide PBT? The 75A-4 PBT is entirely mechanical; it works
by rotating the PTO and the BFO controls simultaneously, but so that
their frequencies move in opposite directions. The linearity of both
oscillators is such that the received carrier frequency does not move.

I'm going to have to dig out the paperwork on the Universal Service unit
(which I got copies of just a year or two back) and let you know.

�A mod for the AGC time constant was also added. �The
thing is nearly the equal to a 75A-4.

NICE!

The CW filter I have is the 800 Hz unit. One of these days I may
replace it with an Inrad unit. I'll have to juggle things a bit to
match the modern Collins mechanical filter to the radio.

That was
followed by the light gray, low profile styling of the KWM-2/2A and
S-Line in the late fifties.
Which changed the game completely.
Everybody began jumping on that band wagon. �
Heathkit came up with the
"poor man's S-Line"; Drake introduced the 1-A, 2-A and 2-B and
TR-3;
Swan introduced monoband and multiband transceivers;
Hallicrafters and
National also began producing smaller, lighter separates and
transceivers.

IIRC the 1-A predated the S-line and KWM-2.

I think you'll find that all of them hit the market in '57.

It was a revolutionary
design; small, light and compact at a time when even inexpensive
receivers were big and heavy. Note the tiny, taller-than-it-is-wide
front panel and the very deep chassis.

Yes. The 1-A was also a good example of the Drake copper plated
chassis. Unfortunately it was built as an SSB-only receiver. There
were no provisions for a narrow filter for CW or a wider one for AM. In
fact, the BFO could not be turned off at all. I sold a number of rigs
after coming back stateside and the Drake 1-A was one of them.

The 1-A had passband tuning
too, but it was implemented by having a tunable LC filter at the last
IF.

That sort of thing was Drake stock and trade until the R-4C. The low
frequency IF filters really worked quite well in the Drake units.

The 2-A and 2-B are excellent receivers for their price and
complexity, and are prized today. But they were a dead end in one way:
there was no matching transmitter that could transceive with them.

In the time when they were introduced, many folks were still using
separates. I've kept my 2-B because it really is a classic and performs
well today. The matching 2-BQ adds a lot to the receiver.

What the KWM-2 and S-line did was to make "transceiving" popular.

Well, they made it popular for those with lots of money.

The KWM-1 and a few other rigs like the legendary Cosmophone (the
first true full-featured HF amateur transceiver) had been the first
manufactured amateur HF rigs to use the same tunable oscillator to
control both the transmitter and receiver, but they did not achieve
wide popularity.

If I recall correctly, there were identical-looking models with two
different power output levels.

Indeed, a homebrew 40 meter *CW* transceiver built around a surplus
BC-453 was described in a 1954 QST, probably the first published use
of the idea in amateur radio. It even had full QSK. But it was ahead
of its time.

You've aroused my curiosity. I'll have to dig through the back issues
and check it out. There's a '453 lying about here somewhere.

The KWM-2 and S-line took transceiving to another level. Not only were
they smaller and lighter than their predecessors, they had relatively
few controls. They made SSB more popular with hams by reducing the
cost and size and eliminating the job of zerobeating the transmitter.
Tune an SSB station correctly and the transmitter was automatically on
the right frequency.

I have to disagree with the reduction of cost. When the KWM-2 was
introduced, my dad made a little less than $6,000 per year gross pay as
a Miami Herald reporter. That transceiver would have cost about a
quarter of a year's pay. Fast forward a bit. When I bought a Ten-Tec
Omni VI, the new cost was a small fraction of a year's pay and that rig
offered features only dreamed about at the time of the introduction of
the Collins rig. The KWM-2 was smaller and lighter but an HT-32B and an
HQ-170 would have been cheaper by hundreds of dollars.

Add to this the grounded-grid linear amplifier and things really
changed. High power 'phone became not only less expensive but a lot
smaller and lighter. Transceivers and matched-pair separates became
the new paradigm in HF ham gear; AM wasn't part of that.

There are a couple of "duh" factors buried in there for us to mull over.
It would have been possible for radio amateurs to have built and used
grounded-grid linear amps for use with AM rigs much earlier. A rig such
as the Johnson Ranger would have driven one to a KW AM input with ease.

Compare the Heathkit line of 1964-65 with what they were selling just
5 years earlier for just one example.

You're right. Plated modulated AM rigs were gone from the line. You
either got a small and light SSB rig or you bought a Novice type rig
like the DX-60 with controlled carrier AM built in.

IMHO what turned the tide were two now-classic HF rigs:
the Yaesu
FT-101 and the Kenwood TS-520.
I'd toss in the Yaesu tube-type rigs such as the
FTDX-560 and 570.

Well, sort of. They had QC problems and were really competition for
the likes of Swan, who did the same lots-of-watts-from-sweep-tubes
game.

Right, but they were rigs which helped the Japanese penetrate the U.S.
amateur radio market. One rig which we omitted was the Kenwood TS-511
which predated the '520.

They did offer extras but you should look at the TS-520's receiver
specs. �They're dismal. �

But you have to ask "compared to what?" Plus they were almost all
"solid state", which was a selling point even if performance suffered.

I suppose you're right, but having a reliable solid state receiver which
will perform poorly for a long, long time, doesn't seem like much of a
sales tool.

Consider the TS-520S, for example.
It did the usual 80-10 meter SSB
job pretty well. But it also gave a choice of AGC fast/slow/off, an
optional narrow CW filter that was pretty good, RIT/XIT,
160 meters
and WWV/JJY, fan-cooled finals, plus a built-in AC
power supply.
Yep. �It served pretty well as an everyman's rig and
would have been
much better if the receiver section had been better design.

Agreed, but for the time and price it was decent enough. Point is,
it opened the door.

As sales types say, "There's lots of sizzle"--and the prices were low.

�The
Japanese were not the only ones with this problem. �
Heath's early solid
state receiver, the HW-303 was an absolute clunker in this regard.

I think you mean the SB-303.

Yes. That's the one.

And yes it was - very sensitive but at
the cost of dynamic range.

....and not only dynamic range. The 2nd order, 3rd order and IMD figures
are were all terrible. I'd have hated to have been the owner of one of
those with a guy running a KW in my neighborhood.

Hammarlund made one valiant effort to stave off the JA's with the
introduction of the solid state HQ-215. �I have one of those and
it is a
pretty darned good receiver. �It has an edgewise drum dial
with 1 KC
readout, has fixed, selectable USB/LSB and a variable BFO for
CW. �It
has a preselector in the front end, offers AUX band
positions and places
for three Collins mechanical filters. �The mixing scheme is the
same as
the S-Line and it has the same 200 KC band segments. �There are
input/output ports on the rear panel so that the receiver can be
slaved
to a 32S-whatever transmitter for transceive use. �I think it was
first
offered about 1967.

Correct on all counts. It was meant to be a solid-state 75S-3. But
never quite got there.

Actually it did get there. It wasn't perfect, but it was good. The
problem is that there was no matching transmitter and the receivers
didn't exactly fly off the shelves.

Hallicrafters made the almost-all-solid-state
FPM-300 transceiver a few years later, too.

That was a loser from the git go. It offered no CW filters and didn't
(I don't think) offer 1 KHz readout. I think that was after Bill
Halligan sold the firm to Wilcox Gay.

Its drum dial inspired the Southgate Type 4 (receiver) and Type 7
(transceiver) dials. But they use all-gear-drive.

That should be quite solid.

I just checked the HQ-215 and a single turn of the tuning knob equals 15
KHz. That was respectable in its day. My Orion, as I've set it up for
CW, tunes about 1.65 KHz per knob revolution. If I tap a button, the
rate changes to about 6 KHz per revolution. It ratio can be set higher
or lower. At the lowest step setting, one revolution provides about 65 Hz.

It should be remembered that there were some colossal also-rans in
that period, too. B&W made their 6100 transmitter with its multiknob
mixing synthesizer, obviously inspired by commercial/military sets
like the R-1051. Stable but poorly adapted to amateur HF operation.

That was a blunder. The 6100 was every bit as big and heavy as its
AM/CW only 5100 and this at a time when others were moving to smaller
and lighter gear.

The legendary Squires Sanders SS-1R was poised to give Collins a good
run for the money, but without a matching transmitter, not many hams
were going to spend S-line-level dollars for it.

That receiver was ahead of its time, but nobody came to the party. As a
result, they're very rare and bring lots of money on today's market.

Some folks criticized amateurs for being "slow" to use solid-state HF
rigs, but there was a reason for caution. More than one early SS rig
had come to grief, like the Hallicrafters FPM-200 of the early 1960s
and the EF Johnson Avenger transceiver, of which only about a dozen
were made. Avenger was a decent rig but cost so much to make that EFJ
never produced more, knowing they wouldn't sell. EFJ never again made
an amateur HF transceiver, and was soon not making HF ham gear at all.

We can draw a comparison to those folks who lost out during the battle
between Panasonic and Sony in the videotape format war. Those folks
were slow to change to DVD players and are being even slower still in
going HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. It appears that the Blu-Ray format is the
winner and that people will begin to purchase those units as the prices
come down.

Central Electronics pioneered the no-tune transmitter (with all
tubes!) back in the late 1950s, and was poised to market a matching
receiver (the 100-R) which was reportedly as good or better than the
75S-3. But the company was bought for some patents and other contracts
and was soon out of the amateur market. The sole 100-R prototype
survives to this day.

I'll bet that one is worth a fortune. The 100V and 200V transmitters go
for a great deal and they aren't all that rare. I've never owned one
but I've had my hands on a few. The only Central Electronics gear I've
owned have been 10-B's and 20A's along with their small monitor scope
and a sideband receiving adapter (phasing type like the transmitters).

OTOH, Southgate Radio is still building rigs after 40+ years...

Heh.

Not just price but price/performance/features combo.
For example, try
to think of a US-made HF amateur transceiver that
had the following:
- 100 watt output class
- 6146 finals, not sweep tubes
- Sharp CW filter
- RIT/XIT
- AGC off/slow/fast
That's quite a number of preconditions.

Not really, IMHO, and they're pretty basic things, easily implemented
with 1960s technology.

Well, that leaves us discussing what was built vs. what might have been
built.

�I don't think there were any.

Exactly.

The Heath SB-102 comes close. �

Not really. It doesn't have RIT/XIT, and you can't easily add it.

Actually, you can. I've added it to my HW-101A. The mod is applicable
to the SB-100 through SB-102. There's a single mini-toggle switch and a
pot (with matching green Heath knob) added to the upper right quadrant
of the panel. My HW-101 has an added divide by four calibrator as well
for 25 KHz markers.

Can't turn off the AGC nor adjust its time constant either.

You could easily add a switch to implement several AGC time constants.

Yeah, I know--Heath didn't build 'em that way.

The Drake TR-4CW comes close (6JB6's).

Only if you get the model that had both RIT and the sharp filter,
which was only produced for a short time. Blink and you missed it.

That was the last model variant. Remember that those Drake transceiver
used *three* sweep tubes in the output for a bit more oomph. The C-Line
transmitters used a pair.

Plus check the price of a TR4-CW with power supply and speaker. Ouch!

Guys argued with Drake for ages about the inclusion of CW filters and
RIT in the transceivers. The Drake folks couldn't understand how anyone
would need such things. Amateur radio is much more market driven today.
The lower end rigs are driven by cost and the upper end gear is driven
by DXers and contesters demanding performance.

By comparison, the TS-520S had all of that and more, even if the rx
wasn't as good.

DXers and contesters weren't buying them though. When Kenwood began
marketing TS-830's, TS-930's and TS-940's, the power user types began
buying them. Kenwood went really well through the TS-850's and
TS-950's, then quite building competitive rigs. The TS-2000 is a dog
with lots of bells and whistles. It does everything from DC to
daylight--poorly.

Digi-Key got its start about the same time as Ten Tec - 1968
or so.
Their name comes from the fact that the company got
started by selling
digital ICs (RTL!) in small quantities to hams so they could build
solid-state Morse Code keyers. Then they just kept
growing, 'but the
name stayed.
They've done phenomenally well. �Many of the old line distributors

are just plain gone.

Newark and Allied are still around.

Newark is a first rate outfit. Allied is the bottom of the distribution
barrel. I generally buy from Mouser or Digikey. For bargains, I shop
All Electronics or Ocean State.

Nor are they overly ornate. They are functional and
attractive just as they are.
Agreed. �I've often wondered if any of the modern gear will be
functional/repairable in forty or fifty years. �My guess is that i
t will
not.

I think it will be, but in different ways:

The first way will be the renovators, who make a few good rigs from a
pile of problem sets. This is already starting to happen; look on ebay
for "TS-940" and you will see lots of parts for sale.

Okay. Gone are the days when you reach into bins of transistor or IC's
and expect to be able to repair much of anything. Large scale
integrations and specialty chips took care of most of that.
Kenwood rigs in particular seem to suffer. The 930's, 850's and 940's
are examples of rigs where the displays and display drivers aren't
available any longer.

The second way will be the rebuilders, who will make replacement PCBs
using parts available then. A much harder go at first, but given the
automation possibilities now, who knows what the future could do.

Jim, I just can't see that being profitable.

Look up the stuff made by
one of my Elmers, master homebrewer W2LYH.
(several QST articles).
I know a few guys who still operate the W6TC HBR series of
receivers that they or others constructed. �

There are folks still building HBRs today, from scratch.

I'd think that getting some of the parts could be really difficult.

But with all due respect to those designs, do check out W2LYH's
designs, such as the 23 tube receiver or the ultrastable Frankling
VFO. His construction is an art in itself; no ornamentation needed.

I shall check 'em out.

I often wonder what happened to his rig. I don't think I want to know.

Maybe a collector got it. That'd be best case scenario.

I also of quite a number of quality
homebrew linear amps which are still put on the air on a regular
basis.

Yep. Also a number of SB-200s, SB-220s, L-4s and similar amps are
pounding out the watts today, often with upgrades and modernizations.

Surely! Softkey circuits, inrush protection and the like have been
added or band have been added. My example of the last model in the
SB-220 line, the HL-2200 (a restyled SB-220 in brown clothing) is doing
a great job as a 6 meter only pair of 3-500Z's at about 900w output.
It has the softkey mod so that any modern transceiver can safely key the
amp.

Dave K8MN