Hi,

After increasing my vast knowledge with study, I am ready to up my game and reattempt some AM and FM receiver circuits. This time, on PTH protoboard for noise reduction.

I have scoured the internet for circuits and have tried many of them on the breadboard. I don't have any of the special components radio circuits call for such as ferrite bead inductors, so I have had limited success.

I am asking the community for circuits they have tried that are:

1) Relatively simple in concept

2) Modest component count as soldering together a big circuit takes considerable skill and troubleshooting ability

The primary issues I had with the (regenerative) receivers I tried was:

- frequency drift
- significant noise as volume is increased, unable to increase gain beyond some limit

I'm willing to shop for specialized components as well as, if I know what I'm looking for, salvage from old radio equipment as people are always giving stuff away around here on the local classifieds.

Thanks for your time and please do not suggest to Google circuits otherwise I'll be forced to throw my multimeter at you.

Regards,
Mark

 

Hi,

After increasing my vast knowledge with study, I am ready to up my game and reattempt some AM and FM receiver circuits. This time, on PTH protoboard for noise reduction.

I have scoured the internet for circuits and have tried many of them on the breadboard. I don't have any of the special components radio circuits call for such as ferrite bead inductors, so I have had limited success.

I am asking the community for circuits they have tried that are:

1) Relatively simple in concept

2) Modest component count as soldering together a big circuit takes considerable skill and troubleshooting ability

The primary issues I had with the (regenerative) receivers I tried was:

- frequency drift
- significant noise as volume is increased, unable to increase gain beyond some limit

I'm willing to shop for specialized components as well as, if I know what I'm looking for, salvage from old radio equipment as people are always giving stuff away around here on the local classifieds.

Thanks for your time and please do not suggest to Google circuits otherwise I'll be forced to throw my multimeter at you.

Regards,
Mark

A great first radio project I did back in the 70s was based on the ZN414 single chip AM receiver.

Here's a great starting point.

The original ZN414 is no longer made but these are modern equivalents that you can get from Amazon: MK484, TA7642. I'm originally from Britain and now live in the US. I can tell you that if you can get copies of the old magazine Practical Wireless you'll find some extremely good receiver projects in there.

There was one rather prolific author named F.G. Rayer, he was a gifted receiver designer and did most of the serious receiver designs for Practical Wireless for many years (he was also a science fiction writer).

Here is one he designed based on the 40673 dual gate MOSFET, pretty cutting edge at the time, a dual conversion receiver from the Aug 1975 issue of Practical Wireless.

Rayer was an accomplished designer and builder of receivers from the earlier tube/valve era and was able to adopt semiconductors very well as they began to develop. He had a deep understanding of receiver design.

Radio was once a huge thing in the electronics hobbyist world, the subject of electronics in fact began as radio and so there was a great deal of effort invested in designing and building radios, much more than we see today. For the first twenty or so years of radio almost all radios were home built. So getting some back issues of this and similar magazine from the late 60s through early 80s will give you some good quality designs.

 

A great first radio project I did back in the 70s was based on the ZN414 single chip AM receiver.

Here's a great starting point.

The original ZN414 is no longer made but these are modern equivalents that you can get from Amazon: MK484, TA7642. I'm originally from Britain and now live in the US. I can tell you that if you can get copies of the old magazine Practical Wireless you'll find some extremely good receiver projects in there.

There was one rather prolific author named F.G. Rayer, he was a gifted receiver designer and did most of the serious receiver designs for Practical Wireless for many years (he was also a science fiction writer).

Here is one he designed based on the 40673 dual gate MOSFET, pretty cutting edge at the time, a dual conversion receiver from the Aug 1975 issue of Practical Wireless.

Unfortunately, if doesn’t include the August 1975 issue but this is a good resource for a lot of others.

 

Hello,

Perhaps the following books might interest you:
https://archive.org/details/build-your-own-transistor-radios
https://archive.org/details/radio-electronics-cookbook

Bertus

 

Unfortunately, if doesn’t include the August 1975 issue but this is a good resource for a lot of others.

That's a good resource. I ocassionally buy the odd batch of such magazines from eBay, but the shipping can be prohibitive sometimes, then again these are UK magazines so I don't expect to find them in the US although very occasionally one can.

I have a whole bunch and quite a lot from the 1930s, fascinating history.

 

Hello,

Unfortunately, if doesn’t include the August 1975 issue but this is a good resource for a lot of others.

@ApacheKid
Here you can find much more magazines of Practical Wireless:
https://worldradiohistory.com/Practical_Wireless_Magazine.htm

Bertus