Skip to main content

The Weird, the Strange, the Arcane


A Tri-Band "Hot Water" SSB Transceiver

Back in the day when hams were more than appliance operators and delved into the circuitry of many of the radio models, they always were looking for an opportunity to upgrade their radios.

Heathkit struck gold when they produced the Mono band SSB radios. The individual kits cost about $100. Often hams would want additional bands and thus Heathkit sold more product. 

But enter the ham entrepreneurs who found ways to modify a Heathkit mono band unit to add more bands. I do know there were commercial kits sold to do this on a limited run basis. The above photo shows a tri-band Hot Water. This is an eBay listing, and I am uncertain if this is one of the modifications kits or the radio was modified similar to the kit.

I see the potential of ripping out the VFO and installing a ESP32 and Si5351. Maybe even the JF3HZB circular dial. 

Lots of possible improvements/modifications using the low-cost technology sold at Bozos. (BoJack + Bezos).




It doesn't get any simpler... a rusty razor blade (iron oxide) a safety pin, a coil, some antenna wire and a set of headphones. This was a staple of many WWII "ground pounders" as it requires no electricity, something to fit in your 782 Gear (USMC term for a knapsack) and could be something that provided entertainment. 

For those who wonder the term 782 Gear comes from the USMC and the 782 refers to the form (form number) each "grunt" must fill out to validate that he or she received a knapsack and if you lose it, the form is evidence at a court martial. The Marines assure accountability. Thus, the form number became the name for the equipment.

The Rusty Razor Blade is a cousin to our galena (iron pyrites) crystal detector.

Cognitive Decline is real and is readily visible.

Them that know, now don't care if you know.

73's
Pete N6QW

Popular posts from this blog

January 26, 2024. A simple CW Transceiver/Transmitter

Cruise through the lower part of the ham bands bands and what do you hear? Well, FT-8 and CW. Often you will not hear any SSB stations yet go to the lower part of the bands, and it is a cacophony (I love that word) of bad sounding signals and some high-speed keying. Fast is not so much of the issue as is bad, run together and jerky keying. But none the less our hobby started there.    So, you could crank down your ICOM 7300 and watch the waterfall on CW or you could homebrew a radio. Actually, to do CW right you need more thought up front than you do with a SSB transceiver. Often, I will state that a CW Transceiver is much more difficult to build than a simple SSB rig. I published two articles in QRP Quarterly on CW transceivers and all I got was a yawn so maybe history will repeat itself.  Yawn!   30M CW Transceiver with RIT!   Of interest is that the LO is a Varactor tuned LC oscillator using a NE602. Look closely at the RIT circuit which is only activated on ...
Read more

March 31, 2024. Happy Easter to those who celebrate this day.

What a great day to Binge on Chocolate and experience the pain of that filling that has been leaking.  I would be in that category with the leaking filling(s) had I not just spent an amount equivalent to one of the fancy new uptown appliance box transceivers on two filling repairs. Well at least I can binge on the Chocolate bunnies without fear of pain. Regrettably everything appears to have jumped in price including the price of parts. Well not so much the parts as the shipping costs.  That notably is seen in the eBay treasures. I spotted a nice heathkit DX-20 for about $50 and the shipping was $65. Likely it is a twofer with part being a way to in effect charge a higher price by inflating the shipping and in part by increased shipping costs. Shipping with insurance across the US was about $150 for this jewel and that was three years ago. 6AM on the Left Coast ~ 20M Easter Sunday! My only hope is the cost of Chocolate Bunnies remains steady although a pound of See's Candies f...
Read more

August 30, 2024. A PNP 20M SSB Transceiver

Shown below is the Block Diagram for the 20M PNP SSB Transceiver steered in the  Transmit Mode . The components shown in the dotted block are relay steered so that the block module is single pass and amplifies in a single direction. The Block diagram show steered in Transmit.  Essentially the steering process works so that the IF Module input follows the Balanced Modulator on Transmit and then the input side follows the Receive Mixer on Receive. All done with some relays and a bit of RG174U coax. For those who count things in detail, this block diagram is not unlike what was used for the PSSST Transceiver which can be found on my website . Yes, a warmed over P3ST only using PNP devices. TYGNYBNT. 73's Pete N6QW
Read more