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Old 18th Dec 2009, 8:40 pm   #1
cendoubleu
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Default Practical Wireless Amateur Band Receiver.

Evening all
Just got some old copies of Practical Wireless (well not so old as I bought em first time round!!). One is from Dec '72/Jan '73 featuring a valve amateur bands receiver. I was wondering if anyone had built this either in the past or subsequently. If so, what were the results like etc. It seems a pretty advanced design with 3-4 Mhz tunable IF and crystal filter @ second IF of 465Khz. More like the sort of construction project from recent years, rather than the general coverage designs which all seemed the order of the day in the late '60's early '70's.

regards, Charlie
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Old 19th Dec 2009, 10:20 am   #2
Al (astral highway)
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Default Re: Practical Wireless Amateur receiver

Quote:
Originally Posted by cendoubleu View Post
... rather than the general coverage designs which all seemed the order of the day in the late '60's early '70's.
I wouldn't agree with this: many designs for receivers and converters, even from the early part of that era, were for a specific band and were appropriately sophisticated.
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Old 19th Dec 2009, 11:03 am   #3
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Default Re: Practical Wireless Amateur receiver

It depended on the particular magazine that you preferred. There were some very sophisticated double superhets in Rad Coms and Wireless World. I don't have details now as it was so long ago. There was, of course, the well-known double superhet design in the RSGB handbook by G2DAF with 20 valves and a somewhat simpler design in the same handbook using a pre-assembled RF amp and first mixer. I'd love to build the simpler one but it would probably be impossible to source the pre-assembled front-end now.

To answer the original question, I built quite a few SW radio's from Radio Constructor by FG Rayer and they all worked very well. There was another that I built from Practical Wireless in the early 70's which was a 12 transistor job in modular form that was really good...very sensitve, with a product detector that was superb with SSB reception.

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Old 19th Dec 2009, 11:36 am   #4
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Default Re: Practical Wireless Amateur Band Receiver.

In the very late 80's there was a great 10 watt ssb/cw transceiver designed by G3TSO and published as a series of articles in Radcom. This design was based around a plessey component set of devices.

I built the design and it outperformed a lot of commercial recievers of the time.

There is a great low power tranceiver kit available from the States which can be home built and again receiver wise has superb peformance and that is the Elecraft K1 or K2 . I built the K2 and its performance is as good as any commercial receiver.

Nothing beats building your own receiver especially if it is of high enough quality to be used "in anger" on the bands.

Today with modern components it should be possible to build a high performance receiver with continuous coverage from very low frequency to 30 Mhz.Somebody needs to design it of course !

Finally have a look on the net for HBR valve receiver designs, there was a series of articles to produce a high quality valve receiver in the States. Some homebrewers over there built some fantatsic looking receiver examples of the same qulaity as the G2DAF.

Mike
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Old 19th Dec 2009, 5:34 pm   #5
cendoubleu
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Default Re: Practical Wireless Amateur Band Receiver.

Thanks for all your replies. Nice to know Rich that you built some of Rayers designs and they all worked well. Regarding my comment re general coverage designs, I was just going on the copies of mags that I own or have seen from that era as most if not all of them used the Denco coil range.
As for building the set, its one to add to the list of ones I should like to do eventually when time permits. As I am sure with many others on here, time is the one commodity which always seems to be in short supply, and seems to become less the older I get!
As regards Elecraft transceivers, yes I have heard they are extremely good and have seen the comparison of IP3 etc with commercial units. But at the moment I am 'regressing' to valves. I have made several receivers and a transceiver over the years which were all SS. Having acquired an AR88 and brought it back to life, I just love the valve sound and the 'feel' of operating a valve receiver. Somewhat intangible I know but its rather like the difference between vinyl and CD.
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Old 19th Dec 2009, 5:56 pm   #6
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Thumbs up Re: Practical Wireless Amateur Band Receiver.

Yes, I know what you mean about the 'feel' of operating a receiver like the AR88. It's not just that smooth but heavy tuning mechanism - it's also about the ergonomics - all the controls are placed where you expect to find them and the symmetry of the front panel - with the horizontal aluminium strips - gives it a balanced look. The fact that an AR88 doesn't move around the operating table when being used also adds to it's appeal! You get a psychological sensation that you're operating something serious

Al. / Skywave.
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