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Dentron HF Scout.

If you were a licensed ham during the 1970's-90's, the name Dentron was synonymous with High Power Linear RF Amplifiers and Antenna Tuners. The company did try to produce a line of HF SSB Transceivers both for ham use and ones designated for the Civil Air Patrol. They were not too successful with the SSB products.




Dentron as the story goes didn't really build the internal SSB hardware but were more of a repackage supplier and box builder. The Main Boards for the SSB transceivers were purchased from a Japanese supplier which employed a 9 MHz IF Topology. There is a precedent for this with CB radios. Many branded CBs all had the same internal boards. 

Heathkit had the HW-18 which was a CAP SSB transceiver built using the HW monoband topology. Thus, Dentron would be a competitor.

During a search of eBay, I found a Dentron HF Scout which was a multichannel crystal-controlled CAP SSB transceiver complete with a 100-watt brick. (It was toast). The radio was tuned to the 4 MHz CAP frequencies. Yes, a 9 MHz IF Topology.


Dentron HF Scout

My conversion was to rip out the brick, remove the Channel Selector switch and crystals, retune/modify the Band Pass Filter, build a driver and final amplifier boards + LPF and add switching and wiring in the modules and last but not least build a digital LO/BFO. It is both LSB and USB which now adds FT-8 on 40M. (The switch next to the S Meter selects LSB/USB.)

The original HF Scout had a panel mounted speaker which I relocated by adding 1.25-inch spacers to create a space behind the front panel to mount a Color TFT. 

Initially I cut a new front panel overlay with a cut out for the TFT and some slots for the speaker sound. My method of mounting was to use Gorilla Tape to tape the TFT to the back of the front panel overlay. This kluge would result in the TFT moving around and the tape came undone. Indeed, a poor solution. 

Yesterday's work was to permanently mount the TFT to the front panel overlay.

A final comment on available technology as evidenced by taking a seemingly useless commercial SSB Transceiver and with that technology repurposing it into a useful ham rig. For real hams this is just another day in the shack. 

Them that know, now cares less if you know.

Word Alert: These ten words seem to be trending and likely to be often seen as 2026 progresses.

  • Controversial

  • Divisive

  • Unpredictable

  • Confrontational

  • Polarizing

  • Inflammatory

  • Unrestrained

  • Disruptive

  • Combative

  • Unconventional



73's
Pete N6QW


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