THE SB PROJECT

Thirty years ago I was newly married, just getting established and there was little money for ham radio. But I found a good old Motorola trunk mounted rig for only twenty dollars and managed to convert it to the 2 meter band. I had a lot of fun rag chewing on the local repeater and made some great acquaintances.

One of the nicest hams on channel was Steve Ogden, VA3AEN. I was in direct sales at the time and whenever I got a little discouraged with the job and wanted to see a friendly face I'd drop in on Steve. He was always happy to see me. Steve was retired from the railway and had built himself a great ham shack. His pride and joy was a brand-new Heathkit SB104 which he had assembled a couple of years before.

I was amazed to see this radio in action. It was the latest thing - all solid state, broad-banded, with a digital readout featuring bright red nixie tubes. Whenever Steve keyed the mic. his call letters would come up big and bold on the front panel "VE3AEN." I wanted to build my own SB 104 but I had little money, and at that time radios in Canada were very expensive. A SB104 kit sold for approximately $1,200 which would be an astounding $4,000 today.

Steve and I came up with the bright idea of building my own SB 104 from scratch, buying up surplus components and obtaining the circuit boards directly from Heath. He was very supportive, and let me check through his manuals, helped me plot and scheme during our chats over the repeater and even steered me to another ham who might have some surplus Heathkit parts, including a SB series cabinet. But the idea just wasn't practical and I never got around to building the rig. Steve passed away about 20 years ago but I still think about him and that unrealized SB project from time to time.

This past weekend I attended a flea-market in a town about 40 miles from here. One of the vendors had on display a couple of old, partly dismantled, very sorry looking SB 104's. I thought I could use some of the parts for another project, so I picked up both chassis for $20. On the way home it occurred to me that between the two radios I probably had enough parts to build one fully functioning SB 104. Perhaps I could finally build a copy of Steve's rig, just like we planned all those years ago.

When I got home I dragged one of the radios out of the box. It was covered with a film of dust. I found an old rag and started to clean it off. The previous owner had stamped his call letters on one side of the frame: “VE3AEN”

Guess I'd better warm up the soldering iron!