Hello all AM,ers. I have been making great progress on the second homebrew superhet receiver. I have the chassis all punched out, holes drilled, and primed and painted light gray to match the push pull transmitter. Front panel is drilled and painted black. Last night I mounted the transformers, chokes, tube sockets, IF cans, bfo crystal, terminal strips, filter board, lo coil and switch box, and output jacks for audio, mute, IF output (for scope), antenna hookup.
I have to add the handles to the front panel, paint the side supports, then I can center and mount the tuning cap and preselector cap, install the controls and switches. I also forgot to drill holes for the s meter sensitivity and zero pots. I have a nice heathkit S meter, and will use 3 ultra bright red led's to light the meter up. I tested it, and it looks cool. The digital display is built and tested. Wiring the power supply will be first, once I have the HV, I can wire and test the LO, then the mixer, then the filter setup, then one IF amp at a time, and so on. So far, it looks very good! No extra holes from changes like the first homebrew, hope it stays that way! I am already thinking about the next project, a homebrew AM transceiver. Something running a pair of 6146 tubes, or a 4d32 (I have lots of those), simple superhet, all in a small package as possible, say dx100/32v3 size. Maybe just 40 meters, since 100 watts wont do on 80 very often. That will also make the design simple, no band switching. It should be really fun, putting both receiver and transmitter in a small package, and integrating both systems together. I am not sure if a stable homebrew vfo will be possible, I may have to go with one of the VFO kits that are available, digital frequency display, pair of KT88 mod tubes. That should keep me busy for quite some time, but sure would be fun to build and operate! I have been all fired up on ham radio and building lately! Brett N2DTS
