On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 17:17:25 -0700, matt weber wrote:
WRONG! There is no requirement that that the envelope detector be
linear.

It *must* be non linear otherwise no detection takes place...

BFO and a Diode detector will work just fine for CW. It
doesn't work very well at all on SSB unless the BFO signal level is
much much greater than the SSB signal level.

Phase and waveform distortion have no impact the ability to receive
CW. They have a pretty serious impact on the SSB quality.

Nope! My regens produce fairly good quality ssb...as does my Racal
RA-17 which doesn't have a product detector either. Resolving ssb is a
mixing process, any form of mixing device will do the job, and a product
detector is just a (non-linear) mixing device (which may be made from
diodes). A regen detector in ssb/cw mode is a tube or transistor self-oscillating mixer and makes a quite good ssb detector.

Obviously a well-designed product detector is *better* at ssb detection
though, but simple detectors can work well.

Anyway, playing around with simple regen sets is good fun... :-)

--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb .at. dial .dot. pipex .dot. com
(Remove any digits from the addresses when mailing me.)

The future was never like this!