6 Jan 2013

Codar AT5 transmitter

Image on G3XTZ's Radio Museum website
Way back when I was first licenced for VHF/UHF only in early 1967 as G8AWG, I used to operate under supervision at the HF station of Bill Honeywill G4PJ in Salcombe on 160 and 80m. Bill Had an old KW Viceroy TX and a Codar AT5, which was "state of the art" in its day.

The AT5 was a small valve TX producing around 10W on 160m and 80m. Using the AT5 we could work right up the English Channel in daylight on AM and CW over a mostly sea path.  I noticed a page about the AT5 on the W3EEE website and it took me back 45 years.

Image on G3XTZ's Radio Museum website
There was a companion RX called the T28 which I owned at one time - I got it as a university prize for writing one of the better final year theses - which was made using a couple of Mullard modules. The T28 was nothing special, but did make a useful tunable IF for my 2m converter used to copy signals from Oscar 6 and Oscar 7 amateur satellites.

Nowadays in a volume less than half that of these rigs one can have a complete multi-mode HF-VHF-UHF transceiver with performance far exceeding the AT5 and T28. We forget how much our hobby has changed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Roger

I still have a fully functional AT5 with mods and mains PSU, although I'm still looking for a T28 to go with it (not holding my breath though!). Hoping to use it for some local AM work once I get a decent aerial up. Here in ZL most/all AM activity is concentrated around 3.850MHz.

73; Kevin ZL3KE

Unknown said...

Hi there,

I have a Codar T28 and the matching inverter for sale.

Stephen G7VFY

07956-544202

m i s t e r 3 5 m m AT yah00 dot co dot uk