VHF - UHF band reciever


Posted on Dec 31, 2012

Here is a nice little receiver for narrow-band FM reception. It can also be used to receive FSK, RTTY and PACKET signals from the HF bands. Basic receiver sensitivity is in the region of 1uV PD and the receiver can be tuned to almost any frequency from 100KHz up to probably 120MHz. It is a bit big and cramped, but I think you will have no difficulties reading it. The receiver is built on a single- sided PCB, which is quite unusual for this type of circuit. I do have a PCB available, but more about that later. The RF transformers T1 & T2 and the capacitor Cy are chosen for the frequency you are interested in. As an example, using re-wound IF transformers (from Antique Electronic Supply, Tempe) the former is about 3.5mm Dia. and 10 turns (thin wire) plus Cy=33pf tuned 26MHz to 35MHz. This covers CB, 10-meters and the radio control bands.


VHF - UHF band reciever
Click here to download the full size of the above Circuit.

Although the circuit looks quite complex it is really very simple. The first transistor is a harmonic oscillator so arranged that it will oscillate at any valid harmonic of the crystal. Replacing the crystal with a capcitor will result in VFO operation but the frequency stability is not so good. The oscillator and antenna tuned circuit, T2, are fed into a dual-gate FET where mixing takes place and produces the 455KHz IF. This is filtered by the CFK455 ceramic filter, amplified by the next two transistors and presented to the TBA120 (pins 13 & 14) which does all the rest. It delivers AF from the output, pin 8. Without the 10uf output capacitor you can see a DC shift corresponding to the frequency shift of the input signal. All NPN transistors can be replaced with almost any NPN transistor, such as the 2N2222 etc. Due to the choice of IF, the wanted and image frequencies are only 910KHz away from each other. This means that with just one tuned circuit in the antenna circuit the image rejection will be poor for frequencies above about 20MHz. I thought that doesn't worry me because there are fewer stations above 20MHz to worry about. Image rejection is quite reasonable on the prototype at 14.1MHz but there was almost no image rejection at 100.455KHz. If you want a better image rejection at HF then I suggest you add another tuned circuit in the antenna circuit. Consider a converter circuit if you want to receive VHF or UHF...




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