Actually J.P., if you think about it, a common emitter transistor amplifier IS a voltage divider. The input signal isn't the signal that is being divided, it is your Vce supply that is divided between the transistor and your collector resistor. A common collector amplifier functions like a current divider in the same manner, it all depends on where you take your output from.
If the capacitive or inductive reactance on one side of an AC voltage divider can be made to vary in proportion to a signal, the amount of a separate AC supply voltage it will drop on each side will also vary in proportion.
EDIT: The ARRL pointed me in the direction of this book
Instruments of Amplification
-- Fun With Homemade Tubes, Transistors, and More
written and illustrated by H. P. Friedrichs
Are you interested in building sensitive audio amplifiers from magnets, a shoe-polish tin and a couple of carbon rods? How about a working triode vacuum tube built from candle holders and old glass ashtrays? Perhaps you’d like to construct your own transistor from plumber’s fittings, glass beads, and a tiny crystal. If so, you’ve come to the right place.
Instruments of Amplification is jam-packed with history, science background, basic theory, and hard-to-find hands-on details pertaining to the construction of an amazing array of homebrew amplifying devices. Rooted in the same ‘build-it-from-scratch’ philosophy that made his first book, The Voice of the Crystal, a success, Instruments of Amplification reduces complex devices to their essential elements and then shows how they can be constructed from commonly available materials.
In the process of building, you’ll also learn secrets that will find application to the other projects. Learn to drill a hole in a glass, generate high voltages, or create and measure a high vacuum. Learn how to dismantle a light bulb, harvest carbon from old batteries, or deposit a layer of metal onto a glass so thin that it is transparent! How about creating your own primitive semiconductor materials from garden-shed chemicals? The list goes on and on!
The wealth of information contained in this book is augmented by 150 photos, illustrations, and engravings, in addition to numerous charts, tables, and formulas. Readers interested in further exploration will appreciate the 120+ references to period books, magazines, CD-ROMs and Web sites.
302 pages. © 2003, by H. Peter Friedrichs.
(ISBN: 0-9671905-1-7) #9163 -- $19.95
Sounds like a lot of fun. I'll try and hunt it down.