{"id":1831,"date":"2015-11-25T11:31:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T00:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2015\/11\/25\/octalmania-kg7trs-amazing-thermatron-rigs\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T12:17:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T02:17:26","slug":"octalmania-kg7trs-amazing-thermatron-rigs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2015\/11\/25\/octalmania-kg7trs-amazing-thermatron-rigs\/","title":{"rendered":"Octalmania — KG7TR’s Amazing Thermatron Rigs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Grayson in Turkey alerted us to Mike’s homebrew rigs: <\/strong>
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Bill, Pete: <\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

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I had to pass along photos of the latest work of Mike Bohn, KG7TR. Mike is a long time thermatron home brewer, having built several SSB receivers and transmitters. He is famous for his \u201coctal mania\u201d designs that only use octal tubes. His present SSB transceiver is no exception. Some of his work is shown in my HSD book.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
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This is SERIOUS homebrewing, a work of art. According to Mike he spent \u201csix months of pretty much full time work (6-7 hours per day, 6-7 days a week) to get the radio to the state shown in the pictures. Probably 750 to 1,000 hours. I retired in January and this was one of my bucket list projects.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
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This is way more time than most of us who still work ever hope to devote to a homebrew project, but it gives me hope. Someday we will hopefully retire.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
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This is a 80,40,20 meter rig with a pair of 6146\u2019s on the output. Tuned the good old fashion way with 5-5.5 Mc L\/C colitis oscillator. It does have an IC freq counter as the frequency display.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
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Even though the metal work looks like it was done in a well equipped machine shop, Mike says \u201cThe sheet metal work was pretty onerous. I don’t have the tools to shear metal or make right angle bends, so everything had to be done with a jig saw, angle stock and files.\u201d This also give me hope, but I have a hard time believing he doesn\u2019t have a numerically controlled, laser mill!<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
Thought you would like to see some super nice work. Certainly \u201craises the bar\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
73<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n

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Grayson<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
TA2ZGE – Ankara, Turkey<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
KJ7UM<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Follow the Hollow-State Design Blog<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
hollowstatedesign.tumblr.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Pete’s STUNNED reaction: <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>
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Hi Bill,<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Thanks \u2013you have ruined my day \u2013almost wants me to take all my radios to the scrap heap. Those are not radios but works of art. Lots of man hours in those projects and more amazing is finding many of the parts \u2013 the thermatrons are easy to find \u2013it\u2019s the other stuff that is nearly unobtanium.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Pete<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Much More Here: <\/strong><\/span>http:\/\/qrz.com\/db\/KG7TR<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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Grayson in Turkey alerted us to Mike’s homebrew rigs: Bill, Pete: I had to pass along photos of the latest work of Mike Bohn, KG7TR. Mike is a long time thermatron home brewer, having built several SSB receivers and transmitters. He is famous for his \u201coctal mania\u201d designs that only use octal tubes. His present … Continue reading “Octalmania — KG7TR’s Amazing Thermatron Rigs”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,23,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-old-radio","category-ssb","category-tubes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1836,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions\/1836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}