70cm in the early days

This transverter has been on before, but we forget just how much things have changed in 50 years. I built a version of it to get me active on 70cm. It produced about 100mW AM.   It was used with either a 4el or 8el beam made from PCB material.  Best DX was 160km.

Back then 70cm was almost a frontier band with little commercial gear, so if you wanted something you probably had to build it rather than buy it. Most people (like me!) were fixed on a crystal frequency and people tuned across the band to get a contact. In those days, activity was higher , so you had a much better chance of a QSO. Most contacts were AM.  

70cm SSB? Never heard of it back then!