KIT-BUILDING

Ten years ago, I made my first appearance in these pages in what was supposed to be only a few articles about kit-building. The column caught on, and now I am marking the 10th anniversary of my first CQ magazine column, published in November 2009. As the Grateful Dead once sang, “what a long, strange trip it’s been.” I have really enjoyed bringing the latest as well as the historic kits to you and look forward to doing lots more kit building and writing as I enter my retirement years.

What a better way to mark this anniversary than to look at what is a watershed new kit put) is a digitally-synthesized VFO-tuned AM transceiver for 75 meters that also doubles as a general coverage shortwave broadcast receiver. The Nouveau 75 puts out about 5 watts dead carrier and 20 watts when fully modulated, and receives from 3 to 6.5 MHz, making such popular stations as WTWW, WWCR, and WBCQ available for listening when not monitoring 75-meter AM. Class G modulation techniques are used to eliminate the need for an expensive and bulky modulation transformer.