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Thursday 1 January 2015

Spilsbury and Tindall SBX-11 Portable HF SSB Transceiver

A few months ago I managed to buy a Spilsbury and Tindall SBX-11 Portable HF SSB Transceiver on eBay.  This radio is a piece of Canadian history having been used for arctic and polar communications for over 40 years.

The SBX-11 is designed to provide 10w SSB on 4 crystal controlled channels in the range of 1.6 to 8 MHz.
It is self contained in a robust water resistant enclosure and is powered by 9 D cells - Alkaline or NiCAD.

SBX-11


The top lid of the SBX 11 covers the front panel and the hard wired microphone .

it also contains a set of brief operating instructions  -


the top lid clips on to the main body of the set to act as a stand


the bottom lid is the battery compartment which contains 3 tubes each with 3 D cells.



My set has already been converted to the amateur bands and has been crystalled for 1918 KHz, 3745 KHz and 7060 KHz on LSB.   Each channel requires 2 crystals and 2 coil packs , however there is a modification available for single crystal per channel.

Internal view showing crystal banks and RX/TX coil packs on right hand side -



As the set is crystal bound I hadn't much luck in making any contacts on it , however today was the IRTS 80m counties contest so I decided to try it out on 3.745MHz and I was able to make 4 contacts - EI2KA ( Cork) , EI9DZ ( Leitrim) EI8JN ( Galway) and EI8HL ( Waterford).

I was thinking about adding a DDS VFO to this set, however I think I will keep it in its original condition . Might try and add a 60m channel to the 4th position if I can get a suitable coil pack.

For more information on the SBX-11 see here .
VA7BC has posted an interesting video of the SBX-11 in use here.

see also SBX-11 group here  - https://groups.io/g/SpilsburySBX11/ 

5 comments:

  1. I have a set of two of these exact radios ,looking to sell do you know anyone interested? the link for the group is broken.You can contact me at juker0274@gmail.com name is jonathan. thanks! cool post

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Intersted in SBX-11. Please contact me a jjhaggerty01@excite.com

      Delete
  2. I have orange one in mint condition, only 2 channels unmodified. Where can I get coil packs? ve7pge@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. The yahoo group for the sbx-11 is a good place to start https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SBX-11/info

    People post details of radios/parts for sale or wanted here.

    Andrew

    ReplyDelete
  4. SBX-11 group now moved to here - https://groups.io/g/SpilsburySBX11/

    ReplyDelete