Here's a project I was not expecting to take on. A Utah Radio Products UAT-1 80 watt transmitter. It showed up in an online auction back in December 2021. The auction was quite heavy with Collins gear, and I guess with everyone drooling over the KW-1's and 75A's I was able to fly under the radar and pick this one up. I was vaguely familiar with the Utah brand name but I certainly knew nothing about their equipment. I certainly wish now that I had been more than vaguely familiar with it.

The UAT-1 was Kit #1 in a 5 kit suite that Utah produced in 1937. It allowed depression era hams to upgrade their station one piece at a time. The other boxes included a 400 watt RF amplifier, a low and high powered modulator and an antenna tuner. They all plugged in to one another and you could eventually assemble a high powered station with everything bolted together in a rack.

But I didn't know any of this when the auction started. I was keyed in to a couple of the National FB-7s that were there. And I was keeping my eyes on the lower quality "junk" 75A-s. Even as they were disappearing for $500 and $600 a piece.

As the 75A-s got gobbled up I settled on the FB-7's and picked one of them up. And with my budget still flush because of the lack of 75A purchases I decided to go for the UAT-1 and was mildly surprised when I got it. And it was 2 boxes for the price of one. It was only later that I realized that there were other Utah boxes out there. Four of the five kits were up for grabs at the auction. My lot included Kit #1 and Kit #5, the high power Class B Modulator. Except box #5 was empty. Nothing inside. No modulator no power supply. Just the 2 front panel meters. The modulator guts were probably laying on one of the tables of miscellaneous parts in another bidding lot.

If I had known what I was looking for I could have picked up the #4 400 watt RF Amplifier. It went for less money than I paid for the Driver box. And the kicker is the winner turned it around on eBay three weeks later and got over $400 for it. That amplifier BELONGS here with my UAT-1. It took every inch of will power I possess to not hit the eBay Bid button on that amplifier.

So the UAT-1 is here all by its lonesome. I traveled down to Pleasant Valley, N.Y. to pick it up along with the FB-7 and a homebrew antenna tuner. Then headed over to Windsor, CT. to visit the Vintage Radio and Communications Museum. A good excuse for a weekend roadtrip. Now we'll open it up and see what this 85 year old box can do.