On Sun, 8 Mar 2009, SX-25 wrote:



Thanks to all who weighed-in with their ideas.

I too feel that this is a homebrew artifact although I know in the 1930s
there were many kits sold by companies that used
readily available parts such as the National vernier. I am waiting for a copy
of the book suggested by K7FM and will compare the schematic to what I find
underneath this receiver. Frank Jones also had a very similar receiver in his
Radio Handbook which is why I am anxious to compare it to the E&E Radio
Handbook version but there are subtle differences in the Jones version.

The Frank Jones radio handbook and the other radio handbook are the same
thing.

At some point, I'm not sure when or why, he gave up editorship of the
book and it morphed a bit. But even as it published its last few
editions, reference was made to the humble beginnings. The 23rd edition,
from 1987 (which I think was the last), has a foreward by Frank Jones
where he talks about the early days, and then preface by Bill Orr where
he acknowledges Frank Jones early involvement.

Since it's the same book, unless one was printed in a much later edition
than the other, there's no reason to believe it's not the same article.
It's no different from the ARRL Handbook, where things would remain
multiple years, but over a long enough period of time the contents would
be quite different.


Also, it was not uncommon in those days (up until the 1950s) for a homebrew
project to appear in a magazine and...voila'...it soon appeared as a kit for
sale in Popular Mechanics a year later, which is why I am still scratching my
head a little. In the early 1950s "Radio-TV Experimenter" ran a construction
article for a home "radio broadcaster/phono amplifier." Their schematic was
identical and photo of their prototype was nearly identical to the Knight Kit
"radio broadcaster/amplifier" that I built from a kit in 1963 as a very young
kid. Old Allied catalogues show the device appearing a couple years after the
article appeared. (By the way, that humble little functional toy is still in
regular service to this day as I transmit old time radio shows to antique
radios I have throughout the house.)

And it was never uncommon for someone to put together the parts to build
specific construction articles, not so much a kit as an aid to the home
builder. A company would collect the parts, maybe do the metalwork, and
then the builder didn't have to track down the parts. Wayne Green did
this when he was editor of "CQ", and maybe a bit after "73" started,
and even circa 1971 the ARRL Handbook had an ad in the back from B&W
selling kits of parts for specific ARRL projects.

For that matter, then we saw the rise of kit companies that created kits
and then sold articles to the magazines aobut the projects. You could
build them from the details in the article (well, up until the computer
age when the schematics got too big for the magazines and you'd at the
very least have to order a set of plans), or buy the kit. A lot of
companies started in Popular Electronics (and the other hobby electronic
magazines) this way, including what became PAIA and SouthWest Technical
Products. In the ham magazines, Hamtronics did this quite a bit in
the seventies, and the same company under a different name was doing
it in the sixties. VHF Engineering did it too.

Michael VE2BVW