On Wed, 12 Nov 2008, Bruce & Judy wrote:

Yesterday I got an e-mail back from my query and they did send a .pdf file
of an advertising sheet with the schematic.
There is enough information here that I believe someone could put this kit
together and make it work.
It uses a 6BQ7A in a cascode RF amplifier with a 6U8 oscillator/ mixer. The
poop sheet claims
0.5 microvolt sensitivity. This particular converter has an output of 7-11
Mhz.

Somebody with knowledge of VHF and a good set of hands could have a lot of
fun with this.

By the 1980's, Nuvistor tubes (6CW4, etc) had pretty well become the
standard for 2m RF amps and converters.
The info from ICM shows a retail price of $12.95 for the kit, so I rather
believe it is from the
late 1960's or early 1970's.

I would still like to find the complete original construction information
for this FCV-2 converter kit.

Bruce
KB0PZD


No, it's most likely late fifties, or very early sixties, since shortly
into the sixties Nuvistors became king for converters (unless you had
a 417 or better 416, or a parametric amplifier). By the later sixties
JFETs were taking over, they were in converter construction articles about
1965, followed shortly afterwards by Mosfets, which came around about the
time they realized how to use bipolar transistors properly for receiving.

Checking old magazines would offer up a date, and I decided to do that.
The ICM ad in the December 1958 issue of "CQ" shows it among other of
their small kits. I had thought the model was descriptive of the band it
was supposed to tune (so it would be for 2 metres and an FCV-6 would be
for 6 metres) but apparently it came for both bands, "model 50" for six
and "model 144" for two. The ad shows the price as $12.95 without tubes,
$17.95 with tubes.

It doesn't say, but a lot of their kits were flexible, so you could
specify the output frequency (within reason), they'd designed the kits
to accomodate some level of change by the subsitution of a coil or two
(and of course the crystal).

It's the sort of thing that would have gotten a review somewhere, but I'm
not looking and I don't have a complete collection of back issues. At
least you know the era now.

It was likely a fairly standard converter for the time. Even when
Nuvistors came along, they were sometimes just used as a low noise rf
stage ahead of a 6U8 mixer/oscillator stage.

Michael VE2BVW


"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Bruce & Judy wrote:
I am looking for the schematic and (hopefully) the assembly instructions
for
a frequency converter (6m? or 2m?) kit Model FCV-2 that was sold by
International Crystal Mfg. Co. of Oklahoma City. It uses two tubes. I
have
the kit (NIB) and all the parts - but I don't have the schematic or the
instructions. Help? Anyone.
Thanks, Bruce
KB0PZD

Contact ICM! They still have instruction sheets on some of the modules
they sold in the 1980s.... I would not be surprised if they didn't have
instruction sheets on the earlier ones as well.

What is the front end tube used on this one?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."