In the early years of Amateur Radio, long before factory-built gear was easily available, most hams built their own transmitting and receiving equipment, a process that came to be known as "homebrewing." In the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, hams handcrafted reasonable-quality vacuum tube -based transmitters and receivers which were often housed in their basements, and it was common for a well-built "homebrew rig" to cover all the high frequency bands (1.8 to 30 MHz).
Homebrewing was often encouraged by Amateur Radio publications. In 1950, CQ Amateur Radio Magazine announced a ‘‘$1000 Cash Prize ‘Home Brew’ Contest’’ and called independently-built equipment ‘‘the type of gear which has helped to make Amateur Radio our greatest reservoir of technical proficiency.’’ The magazine tried to steer hams back into building by sponsoring such competitions and by publishing more construction plans, saying that homebrewing imparted a powerful technical mastery to hams. In 1958, a CQ editorial opined that if ham radio lost status as a technical activity, it might also lose the privilege of operating on the public airwaves, saying, ‘‘As our ranks of home constructors thin we also fall to a lower technical level as a group."
In the 1950s and 60s, some hams turned to constructing their stations from kits sold by Heathkit, Eico, EF Johnson, Allied Radio's Knight-Kit, World Radio Laboratories and other suppliers.
Today, only a minority of hams own and operate completely homebrew or kit-built amateur stations. However, there are many new ham radio kit suppliers, and the "art" of homebrewing is alive and thriving.
How true that is! There are many among us who absolutely love kit building. Many others of us love putting pencil to paper and coming up with a new idea on how to improve our stations or just design something that has never been seen before. And what a hoot that is. Building something that is unique or making something work in some fashion that it was not designed for -- that is a "kick in the head." Being able to improve or modify a piece of equipment designed by someone else to serve another purpose is really fun. Those engineers who came up with the original concept might have never considered what you might want to do with it. So what's stopping you from doing just that? NOTHING. Go for it. Just don't tell your YL or OM about what you have in mind for that lovely radio in the kitchen.
Anyway, this November 19 SBARC club meeting, in addition to having our annual election of officers, will give everyone the opportunity to bring along one of their neat homebrew gizmos, write up a short story on what they did and put it on one of the tables and show it off. We hope that this will be the first of a traditional event and even create a desire to get out there in the shop and do something novel. Do some research, come up with a new design or concept, modify someone else's model or just throw something together yourself and we'll give you a big pat on the back for doing it. You have over a year to get ready for next year's event but for the meeting next week just bring along something you made or modified and show it off.
This is going to be a lot of fun. I am looking forward to it. Your Board of Directors has even agreed to come up with a prize for the one who garners the most votes for his or her gizmo. Perhaps you will be that lucky winner. Now go write up your little article and get ready.
Oh, please bring with you some goodies for the dessert table!