Comment by drmpeg
2 years ago
When I started with VHF and UHF amateur radio back in 1982, it was somewhat difficult to even get on the 1296 MHz band. My friend who was an RF designer used to joke that the L-band power transistors at the time had more reverse gain than forward gain.
Yeah that. Particularly when it came to test equipment which was pretty much down to building it yourself (or being rich). I saw a lot of things that looked like plumbing in the 80s rather than electronics. Not until the 90s did I understand this stuff and it was actually pretty amazing what people were building with no gear and no tools. One of the finest things I saw was a Lecher line or movable short. And some weird stuff on 10GHz that used micrometers for tuning!
As for plumbing goes: relatively recent 25GHz+ breadboard single transistor sine wave oscillator[0]
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR9TweWf3w8
Ah yeah I watched that thread in EEVblog.