At one time hams were experimenters. How do you think radio was invented? There was this Italian guy named Marconi who was an ardent experimenter. The story goes as he was expanding the range of transmissions (as there were no Baofeng UV5's at that time) he would send out assistants with receiving equipment and shot guns. As they moved further away from the transmitter, they would fire a shotgun to let Marconi know... I can still hear you!
That spirit of experimentation lasted maybe 70 or 80 years until the ARRL came up with schemes like incentive licensing and giving away ham licenses. Essentially the ARRL forever changed ham radio and at the same time excised the experimenter aspect from the hobby. QST directly removed the techie side of the hobby from it pages and now if you want techie you have to go to QEX. The pages of QST are now filled with dribble about contests, operating and advertisements for radios made in the Far East.
Today I want to share an experimenter's story from the 1960's and it involves the Heathkit Monoband SSB transceivers. Some smart marketing guys at Heathkit produced the $100 SSB single band kit radio. Friend N2CQR shared his 1st appliance box SSB radio was an HW-32A, the 20 M version. When I was out on Midway Islands, the station on Eastern Island KM6CE ran a HW-32 into a 13 dB gain Rhombic Antenna pointed on the US... needless to say KM6CE was always heard stateside.
Now to the smart part, as an op if you wanted other bands, you spent another $100 and if you wanted triband you spent $300. That is until some experimenters realized that the main differences among the three versions were 4 coils... L2, L3, L5 and L4. If one somehow installed 3 band switches and then added the heterodyne crystals and second BFO crystal to any one of the monobanders plus have a set of all three coils of the L2-L5 you would have an instant Tri bander. Actually, the 80M version did not have an L5 nor a heterodyne crystal.
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N6QW's Heathkit Tri-Band Transceiver
In fact, a limited run of modification kits was made by a 3rd party and now suddenly there was a Heathkit Tri-Band transceiver. It would be possible to just collect the parts, skip the kit and have at it. I spotted one of these Tri-Banders on eBay (It was less than just a Tech Special, as the term basket case was more like it). I got it for $50. It had a complete set of tubes.
Short story long it was a basket case. But with a bit of magic, it is now working on receive on all bands and I managed to get 60 watts out on 80 and 40M and maybe 2 watts on 20M. One of the critical 20M coils has a stuck core and I can't get it to budge. The LSB signal on 40M sounds pinched and that I attribute to the BFO crystal as there is no trimmer to net the crystal. USB sounds FB. Kind of an interesting byproduct, as the radio has to use the USB BFO to produce LSB on 80M as the mixing process creates a sideband inversion.
Beyond a basket case was one filthy radio. Two tribal knowledge tips: Ultrasonic jewelry cleaner for the knobs and Krud Kutter (a tip from N5OLA) for the font panel. Both available at Bozos (BoJack and Bezos).
Bottom line for the 1960's, it was an amazing feat. Today one of the SDR police on 40M complained about my restricted BW. Let us not lose site of the fact of the experimentation that was involved to create an "acceptable Tri-band radio" by 1960's standards. Bravo guys!
We are 14 months into the 2.0 presidency and so has anyone seen the new manufacturing revival. Has anyone asked the hard question how many manufacturing businesses have actually closed their doors since January 2025? BTW according to copilot about 50% all manufacturing businesses have 10 or less employees. The 2.0 tariff is a contributing factor.
Them that know can make things go!
A Real Knack!!!!
73's
Pete N6QW
