Pye Cambridge

What a wonderful hybrid transistor / valve PMR rig this was!

This super AM Tranceiver could be tweeked and modified to run AM and FM on 2m at about 5 Watts output. The rig was a hybrid, mainly transistors but used a QQVO-310 valve to supply the RF output. It had a built in invertor power supply to provide the high voltage needed for the valve PA.
Neil, G3ZPL used a dash mount Cambridge on AM to go mobile in his Hillman Imp back in 1972. Had some great fun with this rig and on one occasion while visiting 'The Wilton' Pub on Belmont Rd, Neil decided to try to use the Cambridge to interfere with the loud jukebox in the pub. We sat outside shouting into the microphone...never did know if it worked!!

Later, I managed to get hold of a bootmount Pye Cambridge with it's wires and remote control console and moutted it in my Austin A35. A few crystals and a bit of modding got me on the air mobile on 2m with a Halo antenna!
The bootmount Cambridge was great, so when I got a company car...a Ford Escort...I decided to modify the bootmount to make it dashmount. I did this by building a front panel for the box and adding an LED channel display. The channel display was the biggest job, it consisted of a matrix of about ninety diodes mounted on several layers of circuit boards. It worked a treat and displayed channel numbers to match the crystal frequencies. The whole unit was mounted under the dashboard held with a couple of big stetchy rubber clips. Some great contacts were made while driving around, later a quarter wave whip, (mag mount) was mounted onto the car roof.


Gosh...I spent so much time tweeking these beasties. They were so well made and the boxes were completely sealed so that even though the outside looked rough, the insides were like new!