[AMRadio] Old school band monitor

[CL in NC]

Remember those old VHF tunable sets that came before the crystal controlled scanners?  No much use today except for a collection, but I got a wild hair and bought an old Radio Shack low band/high band tunable off ebay for 15 bucks plus it was also AM and FM.  Only thing it needed was a new fuse and it played fine.  I like 6 meters, and in 'ye olde days' a small TV left on channel 2 was a great band monitor.  No more channel 2's.  But this unit dialed in at 50.4, and all of those that have a dial that says 50 is the top end, will easily reach to above 51 off the scale.  I found 50.4 with a sig gen, and marked the spot on a piece of tape and leave it there hooked to a 6 meter dipole antenna.  The IF is broad enough to pick up +/- 50K or so, even if not dead on 50.4, it's close enough to show any openings.  You could leave it on 50.125, the supposed national calling freq for SSB and listen for BFOless SSB as sort of a band opening indicator. The high band is pretty much useless, I did try to bring it down to the phone portion of 2 meters, but it would not make it without work, but it does pick up  NOAA radio just fine.  I used to monitor 52.525 with my RCA Fleetfone basestation, but for years heard nothing.  Turns out, modern hams have no clue that 52.525 is the national simplex freq.  I worked all over the US with that 60 watt FM signal and a ground plane antenna, including the Caribbean.  A lot more fun to me than having my computer make QSOs.

Charlie, W4MEC