My first and favorite ham radio station was a Heathkit HW16.  For those of you that recall those times, the novice license was CW only.  The HW16 was a CW transceiver with an input of 90 watts.  75 Watts was the limit, but a little "extra" would not hurt.  The Heathkit was a tribander, and worked 80 meters, 40 and 15.  The rig was crystal controlled, but you could buy an outboard VFO for it.

The HW16 was all tubes, with a TV horizontal driver for the output, if I recall.  It worked fine.  It took it a few minutes to settle down from drift, but I got generally good reports with it.  It cost about $119 in kit form.

For an antenna, I used some romex that I nailed up in the attic.  I cut it for 40 meters.  Well, I approximated it for 40 meters, which I recall was about 66 feet.  The attic was not that long, so when I got to each end, I turned it.

I used a little matchbox from Dentron.  I think it was called a Dentron Jr.  I bought it used.  I had a SWR meter that I bought at Radio Shack.  It was for CB, but it worked fine.

I kept the setting for each band written on a little card, and would give the system a final adjustment with the SWR meter.  It loaded fine into 40 meters and 15.  It would not load into 80, so I never worked that band.

I had good luck with it, and actually enjoyed CW.  I got my CW All States, and worked Japan and Australia and New Zealand with it.    I later upgraded to General and then Advanced, but I never enjoyed it as much as that little rig on CW.  It seemed like such a thrill.

73
Bill White
kb6si