In the April 1941 issue of Radio News, William D. Hayes, W6MNU, of Oakland, California, recounts that since he liked to build his own equipment and constantly improve as the state of the art progressed, he had amassed a large collection of perfectly good spare parts. To put them to use, he put together this transmitter-receiver. It was intended for portable use while vacationing, but could also be put to use as a backup rig from the home station.

The receiver employed a 27 tube as regenerative detector, with a 47 used for audio output to drive a speaker, mounted on the wooden front panel with a piece of window screen for protection. The receiver covered 70 through 550 meters in two bands. The author noted that tuning the broadcast band was a useful feature, since the set would be used on vacation. He reported that the simple receiver provided very good reception on the broadcast band.

A bandspread capacitor covered the 80 meter ham band perfectly.

The 80 meter transmitter was a crystal oscillator also using a 47 tube. The use of the same tube as used in the receiver was intentional, to minimize the number of spare tubes that had to be carried. With the type 80 rectifier tube, only three spare tubes had to be brought along.

The author reported that from his cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains of California, and with a 130 foot antenna only 10 feet off the ground, he made numerous contacts with California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada.