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Reg, thank you for your interest on my topic! I am an old man too (66), I saved as much money as I could too, but the economic situation on my country is bad and I need to keep working after having retired (and I'm lucky I keep a job yet). I do know this is no place to talk politics, but so that you understand me, I am forced to mention the government tries to reduce debt by hindering imports, in a nutshell. If you are interested, I can elaborate more by private email.

And most electronics stores don't even know words such as "Amidon", "Minicircuits", "Analog Devices", etc. Their main interest is in sourcing components for digital systems and for repairs. For example, you can easily get Tx transistors just because they die and have to be replaced, BUT toroids never fail, so they aren't a common item.

Last but not least, I CAN afford to purchase those little wonders such as NanoVNA or TinySA, but I can't justify them in the face of my family, with a salary a fraction of those in USA or EU, I would use them only occasionally and an anticipated criticism would be why I spend in something that won't make any money. On the other hand, spending money on building or purchasing radios and making communications, a tangible usefulness, would make more sense for them.

That said, now you can understand better why I am resorting to old tech solutions. I would also enjoy building every stage. I do know I will face some inconveniences such as MHz versus time nonlinearity, and I will have to use birdy markers in order to find the frequency. One initial use will be to check HF response of DIY wideband transformers, a modest Ge diode detector plus 3/6/10dB attenuator will suffice. But if the opportunity to make more serious measurements ever comes, you can rest assured your advice will be taken very into account!
Daniel Perez
LW1ECP
P.D. Detector? Do you want to know an unusual detector? When I had the Wavetek 2000 at work, in order to get some decades in detection range I used an spectrum analyzer with its sweep frequency very different from that of the sweeper, in peak reading memory mode, and waited for the curve to fill valleys. Crude, a far cry from using a tracking generator, but I could get usable info even about an SSB filter.