{"id":10380,"date":"2022-11-26T05:09:10","date_gmt":"2022-11-26T12:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/play.fallows.ca\/wp\/?p=10380"},"modified":"2022-11-26T08:39:58","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T15:39:58","slug":"building-a-first-receiver-you-can-go-back-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play.fallows.ca\/wp\/projects\/electronics-projects\/building-a-first-receiver-you-can-go-back-but\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a First Receiver – You Can Go Back, But…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"building<\/a>
Guest Article (1 of 2) by Scott McDonald, KA9P<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wanted to know how I would have done building a first receiver from scratch. So, fifty years later, I found out. <\/p>\n

John\u2019s recent column about his first receiver \u2013 a Knight-Kit R55A<\/a> \u2013 ended with an observation that he might have been better off not<\/em> building a first receiver. Last year, I built a single conversion radio to use with my old 1625 transmitter<\/a> in the Novice Rig Round-Up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The object of my desire was the Junior Miser\u2019s Dream (JMD, shown above), from a 1960\u2019s ARRL Handbook.\u00a0 The name suggested to me a beginner\u2019s receiver \u2013 subsequent events proved otherwise. Other novices built regens, or Handbook-favorite 80 and 40 meter band-imaging superhets. Boring.<\/p>\n

The JMD seduced me half a century ago.\u00a0 Cool dial, high IF 2 crystal filter, a 7360 mixer, AGC and a two diode product detector!\u00a0 It even had a RF (not IF) Q-multiplier! Years ahead of its time.<\/p>\n

And it probably was. Despite decades of researching emerging technologies in my day job, I decided to build it, without looking for evidence of a single working example built by a mere mortal. And definitely not by a novice vacuum tube receiver builder.<\/p>\n

It was a rocky road.\u00a0 Being a product of the ARRL lab whiz kids, the radio used special coils, an exotic tube, a hard to find AGC transformer and had a fairly critical layout.\u00a0 The Lab even had the sense to warn you that the inductors they selected were vital.<\/p>\n

Building a First Receiver \u2013 Finding Parts<\/h2>\n

Yeah, sure.\u00a0 In the true spirit of amateur radio I\u2019ll build with what I find.\u00a0 T.O.M. would be proud. I had a garage filled with 50 years of hamfest flotsam and jetsam.\u00a0 And I\u2019d been generously provided an old HR-10B chassis with a good power transformer.<\/p>\n

The chassis was stripped, and the holes naively filled with the JMD design.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t find a 7360, so I borrowed a 6U8 mixer circuit from the same Handbook chapter. The IF crystals were unobtanium, but I found on old Heathkit filter near the required IF.\u00a0 And I wound some coils on whatever cores I could find.\u00a0 If those coils didn\u2019t work, I\u2019d try some plug-in coils from the Handbook\u2019s DCS-500. And I\u2019d keep shopping eBay, or redesign the front end.\u00a0 I\u2019d be done in a few weeks.<\/p>\n

Or, maybe not. More on my actual build in the next article and on my blog, Scotty\u2019s Skunkworks<\/a>. Check out the original JMD article on page 126 of the 1967 ARRL Handbook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wanted to know how I would have done building a first receiver from scratch. 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