On 7/18/2012 6:48 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote: > Sure, but the "transceiver" goes way back into the 1930's, long before Art > Collins.
Yep, and there was also the KWM-1. None of these truly became popular in the sense of "all over the place," and none of them hastened the transition to SSB like the KWM-2 did. Tuning SSB on a receiver was hard, and then getting your transmit freq zero beat was daunting at first, and still hard even as SSB caught on. The KWM-2A [same rig with a second crystal deck], became the HF workhorse of the US military [and I know several others too] in the 60's/70's. Unbelievably sturdy and survivable, we pulled 42 of them out the back of low flying C-130's that snagged our LAPES cable, and 42 of them worked and JJY was exactly where it should be. Our mission rules called for us to turn each pair [2 per mission], along with the rest of the gear, to slag puddles with thermite before we were recovered. Team of 25, 3 hams, really really hard. :-(( It wasn't the first transceiver, or the only, but it, and the S-line which would also transceive, probably changed ham radio as much as the transition from spark to CW. Now, we take it for granted, we have "radios" and they go both ways. I always meant to write to Art and tell him how sturdy his transceiver was. Alas, never had time while there, and by the time I came home, I was marrying Andrea, there followed the usual kids, and I never got around to it. Then, he died. 73, Fred K6DGW - Northern California Contest Club - CU in the 2012 Cal QSO Party 6-7 Oct 2012 - www.cqp.org ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
