John Smith wrote:
JohnM:

Yes, any of the older radios like that work excellently with a VFO and
cover the freebands at the top end of HF quite nicely...

... a few parts and a general pcb board from radio shack and a guy can
slap together a VFO quite cheaply...

Maybe a guy who knows what he's doing can;-) Might be worth looking
into, eventually.

Serious, the last time I bought a handful of components from RS the girl
asked if I was making a bomb- and when I said well, yes, it was a timer
I was working on, she got strange.. telling her it was a postflow timer
for a plasma cutter I was working on didn't change her attitude any
either. It was a little strange..

Again, thanks to all with advice in this thread- I'm learning, a little
at a time.

John