15 meter VXO "crystal Controlled" transmitter, design circa 1970's

Here it is, a real neat transmitter I found in the pages of ARRL handbook. It was supposed to be designed for use in 3rd world countries, I guess. It was very fun to build! It has about 5-7 kHz of tuning, 2154kHz to 2162kHz. It uses a 21.060mHz crystal but you can "bend" the xtal a bit for tuning. The first contact I made with this rig was a cat from Washington! His call was WA7CS. Yup, I had to use my DX-398 from Radio Shack as a receiver. It was quite fun! You have to zero beat your receiver with a "spot" signal, a real faint signal from the VFO. It oscillates all the time, but it is so faint you can't really hear it when you are just a few feet away. Then you call CQ, and listen on the old R/S. I was using my 40 dipole that I modified with "capacitance hats" for transmitting, and a "giant loop" antenna that encircles my yard for my receiver antenna. Not bad huh?

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