Homebrewed 1941/44 ARRL vacuum tube receivers

[KC9KEP]

Hello all!

Well, my obsession with building homebrew
receivers is showing no signs of letting up any time
soon!

I had wanted to post some photos of my most recent
3-tube (actually, 4-tubes counting the audio amp)
superheterodyne radio.

I’m perpetually surprised & pleased with the performance
of these “primitive” receivers!

http://www.bignick.net/Morgan_Radio/Radio_22.htm

Although not by design, I have discovered that I have
constructed three of the four radios featured in the 1944
edition of the ARRL handbook .. and, I’m constructing
the fourth one right now, so I’ll wind up with the complete
set :-)

Each design has it’s own pro’s & con’s & methods of
receiving signals, so it’s an exciting learning experience.

Here are a few more of my concoctions:

http://www.bignick.net/Morgan_Radio/Radio.htm

73!

Tom Nickel AKA KC9KEP

[ONAIR]

   That's awesome.  You can have tons of fun building and operating those old tube radios, and experiencing how it actually felt to be a ham almost 70 (or more) years ago!

[KC2RVD]

Nice job....

Where did you get the coil winder??

[KE3WD]

Good job, looks great.  

"I do not know why my front panel didn't have the enough "room" for the various band designations."

Might be that the original used vernier gear reduction.  They were readily available then, often incorporated right in the tuning caps.  Many touted a jeweled feel that was superb.  

I've got an original Spider Coil receiver, found at a thrift shop in PA, from the era, black wrinkle finish and all, never fired it up, just cleaned it up and put it into the glass case for display.  The workmanship of some long gone and unknown craftsman is astounding on this one.  Three separate homebrewed plugin Spider Coils were still with it.  

Once put together a superegen from an old article, it was amazing in operation actually, was very surprised at the sensitivity and the ability to tune CW and even Sideband in on the darn thing.  Touchy regen of course, but the fact that it did it was an eyebrow raiser for me at the time.  

Looks like the bug bit you real good over there, man.


Enjoy,



KE3WD

[KC9KEP]

KC2RVD,

You meam, this coil winder?

http://www.bignick.net/images/RadioPix/Gingery.jpg

I made it from a Gingery Universal Coil Winder book
purchased thru Lindsay publications :-)

--KC9KEP

[KC9KEP]

KE3WD,

Wow!  You are lucky to find such a treasure in
a "thrift" shop!

But, you'll never know what will show up, eh?

Yes, I'm perpetually amazed by the performance of
these "primative" units.

Once one learns how to operate them, they do a
remarkable job!

(Oh, & thanks for the kind words on my construction :-)

--KC9KEP

[KC9KEP]

ONAIR,

Thanks for the kind words!  Yes .. part of what I
love about this obsession is reading the old QST
and ARRL books, and going back in time.

Many of the most interesting technological advancements
spanned two world wars!

I can only imagine what this "new" technology meant to
people back then :-)

(It also reminds of how electornics looked as I was
growing up :-)

--KC9KEP

[KG4RUL]

I like your "B" battery in the 1934 Doerle TwinPlex Receiver (rear) photo!

[KC9KEP]

KG4RUL,

Thanks :-)

The "B" battery was printed from a graphic that was
made available on the www.antiqueradios.com homebrew
forum.

It actually contains several Radio-Shack "D" cells holders
inside, and be restored when dead by replacing
batteries.

There are other combo-battery graphics available, but
I'll need to get back to that project!

73!

--KC9KEP

[KC9KEP]

KG4RUL,

Woops!  Now that I go back & look at my photo's, you're
probably referring to the string of Walgreen's
9V batteries!

A class act, no?  :-)

Every once in a while, I'll carelessly reach over my
workbench, touch my arm to the innocuous looking
9V batteries and zap myself!

(And I thought electric shocks were over when 5V logic
was introduced :-)

--KC9KEP

[ONAIR]

  Shocks used to be just part of the mystique of amateur radio.  Many of us have more than a few good "jolts" under our belts!  

[KC2RVD]

Wow I totally forgot about this post till today.....  You referenced the Gingery Universal Coil Winder book
purchased thru Lindsay publications :-)

To make it would I need any specia equipment??  It looks like I would need some machine shop type of equipment??