G'day Mike, Tree, Jeff (and all)
It is great to read your emails - to me, these are totally in the spirit of
the topband, since hams were granted the use of the band.
I got onto the band back in 1971 as G3ZZD, when just about all the new G
hams started out on 160m with a homebrew 10W transmitter and an ex-WW2
receiver (HROs, BC-348s and AR-88s were favourite).
Some of us had neat transmitters (I was lucky - an uncle built me one for my
16th birthday - 5763 PA modulated by 6BW6 with an SCR-522 modulation
transformer) but others produced signals from transmitters that made Mike
WA5POK's Tx look neat.
One of the better signals at G3ZZD was from a similarly teenaged radio
amateur who lived about 10 miles from me. He always had a slight hum on his
modulation (which was much fuller than mine) and a much better signal.
Back in those days, as a matter of course, us teenaged amateurs spent the
school holidays on the air as much as we could - and we were regularly
visited by inspectors from UK GPO, who inspected our stations, sometimes to
complain about our signals or operating. I got visited regularly...
Anyhoo, one day I received the news on the 160m grapevine that my friend had
been put off the air by the GPO. The reason was his transmitter had no
chassis and had been built on his operating table by simply wiring the
components together on his table top.
This was (probably rightly) viewed as a death trap, but really brought out
the fact that a bit of stray capacitance or inductance has no effect on 160
- and you can get away with just about anything when it comes to building
equipment for it.
Vy 73
Steve VK6VZ (also Gee Three Zipetty Zipetty Doo-dah)
From: Mike Furrey <mikefurrey@att.net>
To: topband <topband@contesting.com>, Radio KH6O
<radio.kh6o@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Topband: Converting Heath DX-60 to 160M
Message-ID: <1217197760.1834648.1761838690219@mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Instead of converting the DX60, perhaps build a MOPA transmitter just for
160. A 6AG7/6CL6 to a 807/1625/6146 for 30 to 50 watts output would be
simple and steal voltages from the DX60 power supply. You can borrow the
tubes from the DX60. 160 crystals may be hard to come by and feeding it with
a Heathkit VF1 or Johnson 122 VFO would make it a sweet rig. I doesn't have
to be pretty and too neat as circuitry for 160 is a bit more forgiving than
the higher frequencies if you have a bit of stray capacitance or inductance.
You should see my butt-ugly 6L6 transmitter I built on a rusty steel chassis
(used to be a power supply) I found in a dumpster. I didn't have to drill
any holes ... found a photo, it is on the left ... I have used it on 160-40.
Have fun with it!
73, Mike WA5POK
On Wednesday, October 29, 2025 at 12:28:13 PM EDT, Radio KH6O
<radio.kh6o@gmail.com> wrote:
I have a couple of Heath DX-60 transmitters. I'd like to convert one of
them to 160. This would involve re-doing the 80m section of the rig.
Does anyone have a step-by-step article to do this? I did an internet search
but found nil. Maybe one of the magazines (QST, 73, CQ, HR) might have run
an article on this way back when.
73,
Jeff KH6O / 6
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