On Thu, 2 Apr 2015, gareth wrote:

Anybody tried the single band SSB transceiver kits available
from SDR Kits, for coming in at under ?100, can only be good
for the homebrewing that is the mark of _REAL_ amateur radio?



At one point, I was on the mailing list for some IC manufacturer,
I cant' remember the company now. And ever second month or so, they'd
send out a newsletter sort of thing, all professionally done, announcing
the latest devices. And ob boy, those were interesting, since many were
for cellphones. I'd look at them and wonder if they had frequency
limitations or not. It was the era when the devices were starting to
convert to a very low IF, using a phasing type mixer to get rid of the
image, and they were so tempting, if they could be used on a wider range
of frequencies. I never pursued it, but that's where to look for the
cutting edge, see the raw information and work with it, rather than
waiting for others to see the initial potential. I remember looking at
the Motorola IC for AM stereo demodulation, and thinking "this might be a
synchronous detector", but again never pursued it, until later learning
that someone had taken the IC and used it for that purpose.

Michael