Welcome DIY electronic project fans! Why do I call this
The Best Of The Best? Quite simply, this website's aim is to offer
the best reprints of what has been presented on
The RadioBoard Forums.
I've noticed that on a forum, a super good thread will get started, run it's
course and then fade down the stack over time. Basically the subject is stale.
I thought it would be a great idea to take some of the highlights of those posts,
and place them in a blog atmosphere. That way, the post will always be available.
Myself and my unpaid staff are on the lookout for the best threads on The
RadioBoard Forums and will post them here at regular intervals. But since
the buck stops here, I am responsible for the outcomes and decisions of this site.
73, Dave Schmarder – N2DS
I’ve been wanting to play around with the “simple” radios based on the MK484 chip for awhile. Bruce Kizerian (ElmerDude) had kindly sent me some a few years ago and it’s about time to dust them off.
Reading-up on the MK484, its predecessor the ZN414, and successor the TA7642, I found that folks either love them or hate them. By far the biggest complaint is “they don’t behave well when faced with strong signals”. Those that love them seem to live in the country.
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A double tuned Mystery set is my favorite crystal radio. I’ll bet most of the “old timers” on the RadioBoard have built at least one.
By virtue of the Mystery set design, the tank circuit is lightly loaded so sensitivity and selectivity are generally better than most single tuned crystal sets. Double tuning the Mystery set removes even more load from the tank circuit. Even with budget components, the performance of a double tuned Mystery set is outstanding.
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Some time ago, we had a little discussion about simulating a crystal radio in spice in the german language forum. Now I want to share some examples about what can be done using the circuit simulator Spice (I used an elder version of PSpice, but using the freely available LTspice should be a good option as well). It might not be perfect into the last detail, but it hopefully shows what it can be good for.
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