Building The Pastime Projects 6V6 Transmitter Kit
On the suggestion of my good friend Larry NE1S, I ordered a neat little
transmitter kit
from the good folks at Pastime
Projects.
Glenn NN8G
promptly shipped the kit and it was soon in my hands and out on the
workbench. I was quite impressed with the kit,
which is
based on a
QST article from December 1946, page 33 to 35. The article is
entitled
"The Most Inexpensive Transmitter,
A Complete Crystal Oscillator for
$3.95,"
and was written by Byron Goodman, W1DX.
Click here to view or download the article
in Adobe PDF format.
As far as the Pastime kit, Glenn's documentation and drawings are
excellent,
and are written
so even a beginner would have
little problem with assembly. The kit does use some modern components, but as
they are under the wooden chassis, they are
not noticed during operation. The kit was complete with everything needed to
build the rig but solder and hand tools.
The quality of the wood finishing is very good, and overall I felt the kit was
really a bargain at the selling price of $55 + shipping.
A drill
press is ideal to drill
and countersink the holes, but with some care,
one could manage the
woodwork with a hand drill.
The wooden slats and base,
onto which the rig is built, are oak,
and nicely finished. The wood can be left
as is, or as in my case,
finished with a wood stain. A medium soldering iron is all that is required, and
there is plenty of space to solder and do good
lead dress. I tried to keep the component leads short, and wire dress neat
simply for aesthetic reasons, but because the set
operates on HF, the layout is pretty forgiving. I had an opportunity to practice
my cable lacing skills again, and really
enjoyed the project. The tank and antenna coils are wound on a wooden block with
a series of nails driven through for the
coil form. The kit comes complete with the nails, you just need to supply a bit
of scrap wooden for use as the base during
winding. The winding process is very direct, no more than 20 turns, which are
then secured with lacing cord or string.
I took my time on this one, drilling and staining the wooden chassis
with a
cherry
finish.
All in all it took me about 4 nights to finish,
at a very
leisurely
pace while listening to shortwave
broadcasts on the National
HRO-50. I'd highly
recommend this kit as fun and
enjoyable way to get
your
feet wet with building,
or
if you want to recreate a fun TX to use
on the air! The price of the set is
quite
reasonable, and Glenn even offers
a companion power supply kit which can
be used with the rig, or with many
other low power rigs.
John Dilks K2TQN, who authors the monthly vintage radio column in QST, has an nice review of
the kit on his excellent
website,
located at
http://www.eht.com/oldradio/arrl/2008-01/classic-xmtr-kit.htm.
I
also contacted Glenn during the build, and he graciously offered to sell
me his prototype rig. Thought that would be an interesting
project to compare
my efforts to,
and the deal was made.
Photos of Glenn's rig appear next to
my build efforts near the bottom of this
page.
I've got the matching power supply, also built with the same wooden base and
slats on order, and will report and post photos when
that build is complete.
Original Article - December 1946
Click on each photo to enlarge.
Photo Essay On the Build
Click on each photo to enlarge.
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| Pastime Projects kit unpacked | Parts laid out and inventoried |
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| Drilling and assembling the wooden chassis | Layout and test fitting of the wooden - note kit's excellent documentation |
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| Wooden chassis after finishing with cherry stain | Parts begin to be mounted on the underside |
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| Top view, the three wooden dowels will hold the coils | Underside wiring in progress, pretty simple layout |
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| Assembled and ready for the final step | The lost art of cable lacing, really fun to do |
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| Glenn's prototype build | W1UJR build |
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| Glenn's and the W1UJR rig side by side | Glenn's and the W1UJR rig side by side |
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| Glenn's and the W1UJR rig side by side | Glenn's and the W1UJR rig side by side |
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| Glenn's and the W1UJR rig side by side | W1UJR workbench |
