{"id":8134,"date":"2017-02-09T10:53:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T23:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/02\/09\/vk2emus-biscuit-tin-direct-conversion-receiver\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T00:06:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:06:05","slug":"vk2emus-biscuit-tin-direct-conversion-receiver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/02\/09\/vk2emus-biscuit-tin-direct-conversion-receiver\/","title":{"rendered":"VK2EMU’s Biscuit-Tin Direct Conversion Receiver"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bill and Pete: <\/span><\/div>\n
First Sound<\/span><\/div>\n
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The enclosure came first, then the radio. The Homebrew challenge – build something in a Christmas Biscuit tin – only one rule, no mains power.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Step one – eat the contents.<\/span><\/div>\n
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VK2WI is an Australian version of W1AW and transmits weekly new bulletins on a number of bands from 160m to 23cm. On 80m the frequency is 3595kHz, so let’s build a DC receiver for that.<\/span><\/div>\n
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I used a 7190kHz crystal, divided by 2 with a 74HC74 to get 3595kHz. The rest of the radio is pretty standard – double tuned front end, NE612 mixer, followed by a TL071 and a LM386. The reduction drive on the tuning cap gives a band spread of about +\/- 300Hz.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The boards are all 2 inch x 2 inch and made on a PCB mill that I was given a few years ago. <\/span><\/div>\n
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There should be enough room in the bottom of the tin a pack of 8 C cells to make the radio truly portable. Next step is to fit an audio low pass filter.<\/span><\/div>\n
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It is a pleasure to sit on the rear porch and listen to the Sunday night broadcast on a home brewed radio, while eating the contents of another identical tin – I wonder what I will do with that one?<\/span><\/div>\n

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73 Peter VK2EMU<\/span><\/div>\n
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Bill and Pete: First Sound The enclosure came first, then the radio. The Homebrew challenge – build something in a Christmas Biscuit tin – only one rule, no mains power. Step one – eat the contents. VK2WI is an Australian version of W1AW and transmits weekly new bulletins on a number of bands from 160m … Continue reading “VK2EMU’s Biscuit-Tin Direct Conversion Receiver”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-direct-conversion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8138,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134\/revisions\/8138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}