[HBR] Cost Of Homebrewing?

[Tom Smith]

Very intersting observations Jim. Apparently many of our friends to the
north joined their Brittish cousins in building the DAF receiver. I wonder
how accessible commercial equipment was for them from the US?

 73,
Tom  N5AMA

----- Original Message -----
From: <N2EY@aol.com>
To: <hbr@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 1:26 PM
Subject: Re: [HBR] Cost Of Homebrewing?


> A few more thoughts....
>
> Looking back through the ARRL Handbooks, it seems to me that about 1960 or
so the focus of the construction projects changed.
>
> Before that time, many of the projects were aimed at the "general purpose
amateur application". For example, a bandwitching transmitter would be
described that would do AM and CW. Or a 500 watt GG amplifier for SSB.
>
> IOW, many of the projects were direct competition for commercially
available products.
>
> But somewhere in the early '60s the focus started to move towards 'niche'
projects. Looking at the receivers in my '67 Handbook, I see:
>
> - a bandswitched solidstate regen set
> - a tunable 80/40 converter from QST, several years earlier
> - a regenerative preselector from QST
> - a 20/15/10 xtal controlled converter
> - the Junior Miser's Dream rx
> - the HB-67
>
> None of these is a general-purpose receiver - nor do any of them have
competing manufactured or kit products.
>
> The last truly general-purpose tube HBR I recall from ARRL Hq was the
DCS-500. Its front end is obviously of HBR lineage, but it also had a number
of really good features such as the roofing-filtered first IF at around 4.5
MHz (excellent image rejection and the upper bands have somewhat-lower freq.
LOs), three bandwidths in the second IF (500 Hz CW, ~2 kHz SSB, 6 kHz AM),
nice big open chassis layout with not much complex metalwork, not trick
circuits, no expensive unobtanium parts. Quite practical for exact
replication without lots of tools or test equipment.
>
> Of course the dial was only so-so, no bandswitching, and the choice of
tubes completely unimaginative. But except for the bandswitching, that was
all easily fixed by the imaginative ham, either during initial construction
or as a modification.
>
> But after the DCS-500 (which originally appeared in QST about 1960 - not
much.
>
> Meanwhile, across the pond, the RSGB books were full of stuff that was
"general purpose". Heck, the 3rd edition has a complete bandswitched hybrid
SSB transceiver!
>
> Perhaps the explanation is simply economic - the cost of manufactured or
kit gear in the UK may have been so high that homebrewing a G2DAF rx from
new parts was about the same cost as a much-inferior imported kit or
manufactured rx.
>
> Which would you rather build for the same price - an SB-300 or a G2DAF?
>
> Would be interesting to know what it would have cost to build a G2DAF in
the UK back in those times - and in the USA!
>
> 73 de Jim, N2EY
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ************************************
> Visit the HBR Receiver Web Site with over 100 pictures of receivers and
> construction notes...... via http://www.qsl.net/k5bcq/
>
> Retrieve reflector archived data via
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/hbr
>
>