- #ASTRO SABER SQUELCH 1 OR 9 HOW TO#
- #ASTRO SABER SQUELCH 1 OR 9 PORTABLE#
- #ASTRO SABER SQUELCH 1 OR 9 PRO#
- #ASTRO SABER SQUELCH 1 OR 9 LICENSE#
Since it happened around the same late-70's timeframe and shares a similar appearance, it's always been my belief that the highly valued Stoner PRO-40 CB radio was part of the same business venture by Don Stoner.
#ASTRO SABER SQUELCH 1 OR 9 PORTABLE#
Later variations on the same design produced the highly popular "Benton Harbor Lunchbox" series of small portable rigs for the 10, 6, and 2 meter ham bands. This was not only one of the first articles about CB radio but evidently Heathkit thought enough of his design that they more-or-less copied it in their CB-1.
#ASTRO SABER SQUELCH 1 OR 9 HOW TO#
Two of them are highlighted in the photos below - his 1959 "Six Meter Walkie Talkie" which earned him a manly-appearing cover photo, and the introduction to his construction article in March 1959 "Radio News" showing how to build a simple transceiver for the new Citizens Band radio service that had been authorized only 6 months earlier. He also edited various columns for several of the monthly electronics magazines and publised many articles, mostly ham-oriented. By the way, Don Stoner is also the "father of OSCAR" having outlined the idea of putting amateur radio satellites in orbit in a 1961 article in QST. I've always envied Don Stoner for making a career out of writing about and building radio equipment, mainly SSB gear, but it's unlikely his last sideband transceiver design made him much money, although at least parts of it certainly had a decent run in the Cubic Astro transceivers. Chuck made 34 of the Force 5 and about 12 of the matching power supplies before the project ended. But the most obvious similarity - the two toggle switch up/down controls (mirrored on the hand mic) are the same as on the Stoner design and the would-be KLM That's because the synthesizer in all three - and in the later Cubic Astro models - is the Stoner design.
#ASTRO SABER SQUELCH 1 OR 9 PRO#
It was virtually the same size as the PRO 80-10 but with different cosmetics including a metal cabinet rather than Stoners trademark walnut side pieces (which also appeared on his CB designs). Chuck Inskeep, President of CIR looked at Stoners design and found it lacking several important features to make it acceptable to hams, and did a bit of redesign to add the CW mode and narrow filter, a fine tuning and RIT feature, noise blanker, and even a squelch. KLM was introduced to the Stoner design by a start-up ham manufacturer called CIR Industries of El Cajon CA. According to one of the founders of KLM even though prototypes were built and worked well, the market never materialized and the project was dropped after a few dozen radios were produced. KLM was a big "force" in antennas and linear amplifiers at the time and launched the production of what essentially the Stoner PRO 80-10 under the name KLM FORCE 5 (there's a photo in Joe Veras' book). It bears the the same similarities to the Astro 150 that were noticed in the CIR Astro 200. His sales tool was a working 80-10 meter 100 watt synthesized SSB (only) transceiver bearing the name "Stoner PRO 80-10".
#ASTRO SABER SQUELCH 1 OR 9 LICENSE#
Instead of bearing the burden of capitalizing another manufacturing company he shopped the design of a compact solid state HF transceiver around to various ham manufacturers under some sort of license or royalty arrangement. By 1977 Stoner, now in Mercer Island WA, evidently chose to pursue a different business model. Stoner had been in the mil/commercial SSB business by way of Stoner Communications of Cucamonga CA in the 1960s, and more recently was the "S" in SGC, which he formed with Pierre Goral in 1971 and which still exists today. But the Astro 200 was based on a design by SSB pioneer Don Stoner, W6TNS. I have done a little research on the CIR Astro 200, and the commenter was right - it is the progenitor of the Astro line we are much more familiar with as a result of Swan (already owned by Cubic) taking over CIR in 1978. How many of these rare transceivers have you seen? Posted By: Robert Nickels (ranickels)Ī recent post on the Cubic-Astro mail reflector noted the similarities between the rare CIR Astro 200 and the much more common Cubic Astro 150 transceivers.