bcdlr wrote:
I know I'm not ready to build my own receiver, unless I went the micro
R2 route (I'm going to build one some day).

You can build yourself a regen out of literally junk box parts. Direct
conversion is a step up and not much harder. The micro R2 is even
nicer.

But that still doesn't solve my need for a ham band(s) receiver - to
use as a receiver and as a necessary piece of test equipment.

If you are looking for "the ultimate receiver as a first step" then
homebrewing is NOT for you.

I know that the Drake 2b is good. But how easy (and cheap) is it to get
one? Are most "wore" out?
I've heard that a common ailment is that the mechanical filter will be
screwed up.

They weren't talking about the 2B then. The 2B is LC filtering
throughout. It's nice for the era.

What are some receivers to look for (don't say the Collins - I don't
have enough money)?

The new $100 shortwave receivers with a BFO will get CW and SSB OK. Not
spectacularly well.

Again, you seem to be struggling with both building your first
receiver, and making it the end-all-and-be-all-receiver that you'll
never need another one. Those are largely incompatible goals.

You can build yourself a little QRP transceiver for a smallish amount
of money. Will probably only cover one band and only the CW section,
but that's OK.

You can buy an older all-ham-band (well, pre-WARC) transceiver for
circa $100-$200. Might take some tweaking/cleaning, but that'll be good
for you to learn. Will do CW and SSB just fine, maybe even AM and FM
too if you want that (of very marginal use for most ham activities).

Test equipment on the used market is outrageously cheap. You could set
yourself up with a dual-channel scope and a frequency counter for $200
real easy, less if you shop around. This sort of stuff would've been
unobtanium to a ham in the 60's or early 70's.

Tim.

All good answers. The main reason I was not going to build a Micro R2
was not the building but the single band.
I wanted something multiple band and as to frequency readout I was
thinking of adding a digital dial.
This guy has a neat (and cheap) frequency counter:
http://www.foxdelta.com/products/fc2.htm
And the shipping is only $5 to the US. (Haven't bought from him yet or
before, BTW).
---
Yes, I'm trying to maximize my purchase but I don't expect it to do
everything. And I probably should just bite the bullet and build
something but I'd like to have something commercial to fall back on.
This maybe werid reasoning but I'm trying to stay away from a
transceiver because I don't want the transmitter part. I want to try
and build my own transmitters and transceivers.
My first big project plan is to build a BITX20 SSB transceiver. I've
had a blast on 20 meter QRP SSB.
I've built an antenna tuner (Hans Summers' site) and I just finished a
KD1JV 'Tenna Tuner' - that's how I found out my frequency counter was
shot. It was given to me a year or so ago and I had never really used
it.
I also have a Softrock 6.x 40 M receiver I just finished but haven't
tested yet and a Micro 80 XCVR in the same boat (Micro80 is a Russian
Pixie type rig). I also have a AMQRP DDS60 on the bench but haven't
started it yet.
I have a RF signal generator (old Heathkit), two o'scopes but both are
low bandwidth, one is an old Tektronix solid state 3", 4 MHz BW and the
other is some dual trace that is like 5 or 10 MHz - but frankly I don't
remember how to use them correctly. I have a DMM, an AADE LC meter (I
love this thing), some odds and ends single board stuff I've built.
As one of you said, I need something to listen to the oscillator
with... But I'd like just a tad bit more.
Could I really get by with a newer digital dial SW receiver? I thought
they were just too wide open on the front end side to be any good at
all.
I have been eyeing the Drake R4 series... But that's probably more
liquid cash then I have.

Please keep it coming. I learning and asking questions. And some of it
is really starting to make sense!! :-)
---
On the receiver I've put messages on eHam and QRZ for a 'receiver
wanted' - I have some P4 class desktop machines I could trade, but I
haven't gotten any nibbles at all yet. I've been hesitant to put the
same message on rec.radio.swap due to the volume of traffic there.

Dan KB9JLO

"bcdlr" ) writes:
All good answers. The main reason I was not going to build a Micro R2
was not the building but the single band.
I wanted something multiple band and as to frequency readout I was
thinking of adding a digital dial.

But this goes back to the previous thread.

It's far better to build a single band receiver well, and get it
working, than to deal with the issues of multiple bands.

But, that receiver will work all over the place, with some changing
of frequency sensitive circuitry. One of those R2 receivers is
even set up for using modules to change bands.

One of the points of building a receiver that tuned a fixed range,
and then putting converters ahead of it, was that you could build
the main receiver, and use it immediately, and then deal with adding
the other bands.

I've often felt it makes lots of sense to make a good receiver, minus
the frequency selective elements, and then put it into a good box.
Put the "variable oscillator" in a separate box, so you can have a simple
single band VFO to begin with, or even a crystal oscillator for a fixed
frequency, and get the receiver going easily. Then you can work on
the fancier wide range synthesizer, or go through various iterations.
The basic receiver is always available, and so is the fallback variable
oscillator, which is not the case if you need to put the receiver on
the workbench to make some modification.

Now that broadband techniques have come to amateur radio, your "black
box" receiver can keep the frequency selective elements outside the
box. You can play with plug-ins for the desired bands, or something
that switches the LC circuits. Or both, migrating from the simple
to the complicated. You might find that on some bands that are less
important to you, you can get by with a simpler front end filter,
but other bands you want something fancier. If you build a receiver
all in one box, and the ultimate is the end goal, then you don't have
the chance of having the receiver relatively early, and you don't learn
from the experimenting. Plus, your ultimate standards have to be
there across the bands, rather than applied selectiviely.

Ray Moore wrote an artilce in Ham Raido magainze about 1973 or '74 about
receiver design, and showed off what was to him his "ultimate receiver".
But it was a broadcast band receiver, which few of the readership would
be interested in. He was merely using it as an example. His point was
that it's easier to build a really good receiver for a dedicated task
than to build a general purpose receiver that does everything well. He
mentioned that commercial receivers were often a series of tradeoffs because
they needed to provide something to a wide range of buyers, yet then
people are often paying extra for features they will never use.

Starting with a "black box" provides a lot more flexibility than when
putting the frequency selective elements in the box.

It doesn't even have to be the R2. Get a good passive mixer, a decent
SSB-bandwidth 9MHz crystal filter (or build one), and then build up a good
basic receiver that doesn't work without added circuitry. ANd use
that as the "black box".

Michael VE2BVW

bcdlr wrote:
Could I really get by with a newer digital dial SW receiver? I thought
they were just too wide open on the front end side to be any good at
all.

Where are you at, Cental Europe? If so, then the front end is too wide
open.

If the middle of the US, then there's not much problem. If it becomes a
problem, just put an attenuator in front.

The user interface on the new digital dial SW receivers is univerally
sucky. They do awfully bad at "tuning around the band looking for a
QSO", they are really built around the concept that someone will want
to listen to Radio Netherlands at 15735kc and just punch in that number
and expect to find it. There might be a tuning dial but it feels more
like you're dialing through channels than tuning up and down the bands.
The filters are only middlin' for AM, and will be "too wide" for SSB or
CW on the ham bands if things are at all crowded. But contrasted with a
$250 receiver from the 1960's they have a lot of nice things that were
purely pie-in-the-sky back then!

On the receiver I've put messages on eHam and QRZ for a 'receiver
wanted' - I have some P4 class desktop machines I could trade, but I
haven't gotten any nibbles at all yet. I've been hesitant to put the
same message on rec.radio.swap due to the volume of traffic there.

Lots of stuff goes through E-bay. Including the general coverage
receivers you seem to desire, for example I got a WJ-8716 (something
that was almost entirely out of the reach of a non-millionaire ham in
the 70's or 80's) at a tiny tiny fraction of what they originally sell
for. Still not "cheap".

If you like CW, I have recently become very enamored of the Heathkit
HW-16. There's a lot to be said for simple single-mode
limited-bandwidth receivers (or in the case of the HW-12 transceivers).
Break-in on the HW-16 with a couple mods is seamless, it's so good that
I FEEL like I can hear even when I have the key down.

Spring is coming and there will probably be some hamfests near you.
Hamfests tend to be better than say 10 or 15 years ago, when they were
all computer junk. Even if you don't buy, you get to see and usually
touch the stuff.

Tim.