Interesting 2 meter FM rig

[WQ9E]

With apologies to the "Church Lady" from SNL, could it be SATAN???

When I was a brand new young novice back in 1975 the oldest member of our local radio club had a couple of interesting rigs that were permanently burned into my memory; a Signal One CX-7A and a Brimstone 144.  The owner was Tom Braidwood W5BW who was very elderly by the time I knew him and he was full of interesting stories and had been a shipboard radio op including a stint on FDR's presidential yacht during WWII.  Tom traded his Signal One in on a much more reliable Yaesu FT-101B but he kept the Brimstone 2 meter rig.  A couple of years ago I picked up a CX-7A and recently I acquired a Brimstone 144.

The Brimstone 144 was one of the earliest synthesized rigs and appears to be well constructed.  This one had a flaky 5 volt regulator (apparently problematic even back then according to the service manual) but after replacement it works fine.  I need to find some matching front panel screws and then little Satan will be ready for action again.  It will make a fine companion for my Trio QR-666 general coverage receiver.

Does anyone know the back story on this rig?  Having a rig named Brimstone produced by Satan Electronics (complete with a pitch fork logo) with a synthesizer code named Warlock indicates the founder either had an odd sense of humor or some serious issues.

[Fred k2dx]

I saw one years ago but don't remember much about it - other than the owner had problems with it. I had a Clegg FM-27b at the time, also an early synthesized rig. What a POS that was! It would key up several repeaters at the same time the transmitted spurs were so bad (no PL back then)! Alignment/diddling would never get it clean. Using it today would be a worse disaster. I don't know if the Brimstone was cleaner or not but keep that in mind...

[W1ATR]

Has that look like it was a kit or something. (crooked meter, off the shelf switch and knobs, etc.) I find it interesting that even for just an FM 2m rig, it used a mother/daughter socketed circuit board design.

The designer of that rig definitely listened to too much Ozzy.

73

[WA3VJB]

Rodger I think it's great you want to spend time getting that old devil of a radio back up and running.
"runs like Hell," I guess you can honestly say.

Anyone remember the GLB synthesizer? The output frequencies for receive and transmit were tailored for whether it as a GE ProgLine or Motorola Motrac you had on the bench.

Among "HAM" transceivers, the earliest synthesized box I remember was the KDK FM 144. A 10 watt radio, it was like $400 or something crazy, and if I remember right, the value dropped through the floor when the FCC granted a new repeater sub-band in the 145.49 and downward area of the band.

By then, other synthesized rigs like the Clegg FM-28 had come out. It was made by Uniden and re-branded. I bought one in 1976 or 77 for the exorbitant price of $329 using summer-job money. I got a good ten years out of it and passed it along to HUZ who got another few years out of it before the T/R diodes gave out.

Cool stuff.

[w3jn]

I had a GLB synthesizer on a Wabco ex-railroad radio that I converted to 2 meters.   That thing was interesting, it ran off 64VDC or 12 neg or pos ground.  Pair of 6883s in the final.

[WQ9E]

Fred,
I will take a look at the output on my spectrum analyzer later.  I have heard about the horrors of trying to keep the Clegg 27B "crystalplex" system adjusted to minimize spurs.

Jared,
It was definitely not sold as a kit  but I am sure Satan was a small company.  The misaligned meter is probably due to it being around 35 years old.  I didn't notice that earlier but will correct the alignment next time I have the cover off.  The construction quality actually looks very good and is far better than the older Regency and other similar vintage stuff.  Hopefully I will be able to find more about the history of this odd product.  The included service manual is well written.

Paul,
I remember seeing the GLB synthesized rig.  My first synthesized 2 meter rig was the much later Icom IC-25H which I still have in a box somewhere.  Another oddball is a KLM Multi-2700 that followed me home from a hamfest several years ago.  It is an interesting all mode box with a VFO and switch selected synthesizer along with a built in 10 meter receive converter for the early OSCAR birds.  The synthesizer drifted horribly when I got it but a few replacement components and it settled down nicely.  Another interesting and nice looking setup from that time period is the Icom IC-21A with matching DV-21 digital VFO.  Repairing a DV-21 several years ago was my first in-depth experience with major PLL/VCO repair.  A week after I finished I finally acquired a schematic for it-that would have been really handy earlier!

[KA0HCP]

From discussions a couple years ago on other boards, I recall that Satan Electronics was located in Salina, Kansas, North of Wichita.   I can't even imagine that name flying today.  heh.

[The Slab Bacon]

I still have a GLB Synthisizer!! Also have all of the BS needed to make it work, the manual, and a dual front end Motrac with the extended range transmitter that was fitted to use with the GLB. Got the whole kit and kaboodle as a package from WB3ARZ many years back. I never bothered to hook it all up and try it out, just had too many other projects in the fire at the time. It is still all around here somewhere.

[N8ETQ]

Yo'

 Perfect timeing OM,

   http://www.arrl.org/news/aim-high-in-the-arrl-january-vhf-sweepstakes

IMD means nothing up there, Well to be honest, we try. but not too hard.

 SSB ? Yeah, Put it up on 2m where there is room for it!

/Dan  EN91

[K3ZS]

I still have a GLB Synthesizer connected to a Genave GTX-200.   When I first used it, I still had some transmit crystals installed.   It would transmit on whatever the synthesizer was set on, in addition to all the transmit crystal frequencies.   I used to drive all the repeater empire builders nuts until I removed the crystals.   I still have some old 2M FM rigs gathering dust.

[WB2EMS]

I remember the GLB synthesizers, they were popular around the Rochester VHF crowd since we were just down the road from Buffalo. In fact, I remember that the VHF group had a group project of a GLB clone which I did join and build. I mated it up to a radio I built out of modules from an IEC Electronics HT and ran it mobile for a year. I think I still have the thing in the basement on a shelf someplace. Eventually got an S5 thumbwheel synthesized HT with 5 watts and moved on to that.

I also recall the KDK radios. I think KDK made aviation radios and tried to leverage their expertise in the VHF spectrum into the ham market.