N2EY ) writes:
(Ron) wrote in message . com...
Hi, at the moment I'm refurbishing an old radio that was originally
built from a project in the 1960 ARRL Handbook Page 119 The 2*4+1
Superhet, it is a superb design and works really well for such a
simple receiver, is it possible to find out who designed it? I can't
find any reference to that in the project, I'm writing up the
refurbishment and would like any info on the original design..
That rx is one of a long series of 80/40 "band imaging" sets to come
out of ARRL Hq. They were all designed and built by staffers.
Some ARRL Handbook projects were QST articles first, while others were
"built for the Handbook" and never appeared in QST or any other League
publication. Most were built by HQ staffers, but a few were "from
outside".
IIRC the 2X4+1 was built "for the Handbook" and its
designer/builder(s) is/are unknown.
W1DX was the Handbook editor in those times but he's SK now, as are
almost all Hq staff of that generation except for W1NJM. It "looks
like" a W1DX project to me, though that's just a guess. He was very
interested in getting the most performance out of relatively simple
receivers. His 1957 QST article "What's Wrong With Our Present
Receivers" is a must-read even today.
73 de Jim, N2EY
I think you're right about it being from W1DX, and that it's one of many
using the same basic scheme. I have the 1961 Handbook, and it has the
same receiver. Plus, right before it a simpler receiver that shows
a strong similariy to the 2X4+1, the "SimpleX Super".
But I can almost picture the latter in a QST. It has a distinctive home made
dial, and I think I've seen it elsewhere.
And then I started poking around, and it doesn't look like they specify
the dates of the QSTs where the articles originally appeared. This seems
to be a policy that varied over time. I know a few years later, they would
tend to specify the date of the original article, but I'm not even sure if
it was completely common.
So I wouldn't completely rule out that the article did run in an earlier
QST. It surely would not have been more than a few years earlier, since
as you say this sort of receiver tended to appear regularly, and after a few
years they'd have a more recent construction article to put in the Handbook.
If someone had the annual indexes from around that time handy, it would
be real easy to check whether this was a Handbook-only article or not.
Michael VE2BVW