) writes:
I have built a few dozen regen receivers and they all seem to work well
enough on AM signals--some extremely well--but kind of fall apart when
it comes to STABLE reception of CW and SSB.

Has anyone ever built a solid state regen that does well with CW and
SSB? If so I would love to know how you did it (I'd even share my some
of my massive collection of radio parts with you)...before I go off and
build another dozen regens.

I have a box full of prototypes affectionately dubbed my radio reject
graveyard (or dead radio pile)...I just don't want to be up to my neck
in more prototypes before I finally get a good one.

Seriously thinking of skipping it and building a simple DC or superhet.

I don't know. But for much of their life, they have been treated as
simple receivers. First in the twenties or so, when things were expensive
so it was as minimal as possible. In more recent decades, because they
were seen as a beginner item, an alternative to a complicated superhet.

Simple is bound to mean tradeoffs. Realistically they are oscillators,
yet how often is the care put into them that someone puts into a
free running oscillator? A thick piece of wire for the coil, built
really strong to avoid microphonics, with temperature compensating
capacitors and voltage regulation, just like in a vfo. Add a stage
of isolation between the antenna and the detector, just as you'd
isolate a vfo from it's load. Bypass it will, instead of saving
money by having only one capacitor. Use a good sturdy variable capacitor,
rather than the one you got out of the AM portable.

If you built an oscillator like most regens are built, would you
expect much stability?

One of the neat things about solid state is that the cost of
extra active components is virtually nill, in terms of actual price
and in terms of space. You're not blowing the food budget to
buy that single tube so you can try out the receiver you built.

Look at Charles Kitchins work. Unlike when solid state
first came along, he went back to the basics, read up on the
early articles about regeneration, and then proceeded to try
to make them better in solid state form. So you see that extra
stage to isolate the detector from the antenna. You see a voltage
regulator. And it will still be cheaper than that single tube
receiver in the old days.

I've never built a regen, but the things he puts in his
receivers were things I had been thinking about if I'd
wanted to build a good regen.

Michael VE2BVW