Inexpensive SWL recievers

[Gary L. Sanders]

I had both the GR-64 and GR-54 when I was a teenager. The GR-64 is a
simple regenerative receiver, but with a nice look. It does receive CW
and SSB, but take some twiddling to bring in the signals right. The
GR-54 is more sophisticated heterodyne with a tuned RF stage and
selectable USB/LSB modes to ease SSB tuning.

Now for why I responded to the group---
If you have a GR-54, you can significantly increase the sensitivity of
the receiver on each of the bands by increasing the Q of the circuits
for each band on the RF PCB that is part of the band switch. As I
recall, you increase the values of the resistor in each circuit until
you reach a point where the receiver breaks into oscillation on that
band, then back off on the value some, so it won't oscillate. It may
help to experiment using a pot, then solder in a fixed value. You will
now find that the receiver is more sensitive at a certain frequency in
each band, so re-adjust the peaking coil for each band to maximize the
sensitivity at those frequencies that you are most interested in. It
makes a big improvement in performance.
--
Regards,
Gary L. Sanders, Staff Analog Eng., gsanders at csidaq.com
Celerity Systems, Inc., www.csidaq.com, A Microdyne Company
Cupertino, CA USA (408) 873-1001 fx (408) 873-1397
Ultra Fast Acquisition & Data Generation Systems

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