R10 Shortwave Receiver Kit Follow-up

[@AshishVerma_Awesome]

Hi RJ , i am a embedded software developer and in this digital era i like how peoples like you explain analog circuits in very good way , from your experience i wish if you can make more videos on how you learnt by your mistakes and curiosity , and i dont know anything about radio circuits but yes i loved your video , thanks alot

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thank you so very much, I will try to come up with some content that hopefully provides you with what you are looking to find. RJ

[@davidswitzer8787]

Thanks for taking the time with these R10 videos. I too was very disappointed with the design. Had hopes for listening to aircraft and with a decent antenna outside, however unless I went to the local airport parking lot it wouldn't receive anything and even then terrible. Actually received a couple strong local FM stations but AM was very scrambled. Had much better luck with a Charles Kitchin Super-Regen circuit for FM/VHF. Thanks again.

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Your welcome, Thanks for your personal review which matches my finding. Some of my viewers are under the impression that my poor experience is caused by something I am doing with this unit. I am looking for a good shortwave kit that I could build to put side by side with the R10 and show the difference. Haven’t found a good shortwave receiver kit. A number of am/fm units. Might build my own just to prove the point of how bad the R10 is as a receiver. I wonder if anyone else would like a good kit for this? RJ

[@graemezimmer604]

It's an AM Shortwave receiver. It can't receiver aircraft as they transmit on SSB (on shortwave) or on VHF, which this doesn't cover.

[@davidswitzer8787]

@@graemezimmer604 Oh brother I apologize with egg all over my face, you are very correct and I am corrected! I was talking about the R80 kit FM receiver which also somewhat works and receives air band if you are next to an airport. However very disappointing at being so deaf even with a good antenna. Maybe RJ can do a build of the R80! Again I apologize for my confusion. David

[@Chriswilliams-lx9mx]

I think it’s a case of you get what you pay for sometimes,great channel by the way 👍

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

True, Thank you so much for your kind compliment. RJ

[@Dennis-mq6or]

Do you always run your unshielded antenna wire right past the biggest digital noise sources in the room?

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thanks for your input. RJ

[@grahamford8970]

Thank you for such a wonderful instructive video, was your big yaseu difficult to build and can you do a video? how much is the yaseu kit , is it more expensive than the R10? 👌

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thank You for your nice words. The Yaesu FT-710AESS is a ham radio transceiver produced by the Yaesu company. It is not a kit. If you search for “Yaesu FT-710AESS” You should easily find it. hopefully this helps. RJ

[@grahamford8970]

@@LynxElectronicsLab Wow, thats over a $1000 and it is already built. I am not a ham ; yet!, perhaps when I get to college. I have built crystal sets, TA7642 radios, regens - all good but just looking for my next build on my journey. Any recommendations? thanks GF

[@F_Tim1961]

@@grahamford8970 Qdx from Qrp labs It can do in theory CW as long as you have it with a Computer and the computer will require a USB key like Winkey. Qdx does RTTY teletype and FT8 by design . In order to use it on any mode you need FLDigi running on the attached PC Base kit is about 60 USD. The Qmx is too advanced for a begiinner and it has a lot of issues.

[@uni-byte]

Good info. I hope it helps others to not waste their money. However, it might work a tad better if the antenna did not route behind a digital monitor. But that would only make a bit of an improvement. Modern equipment can cause us problems. I'm forever trying to squash the gremlins in my lab. It's like chasing the tail I don't have.

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Hey Uni, It didn’t matter. It’s rubbish! On a good antenna it’s overloaded and blends everything together. On a poor antenna it only rx a few powerful local stations and does so poorly even then. RJ

[@rmccombs66]

Maybe it would work with the big antenna with an attenuator. Did you try to get WWV on any of it's frequencies?

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

I tried WWV on 5,10,15 and could not hear them. Only a few very strong local stations and they were not that great. RJ

[@Bartok_J]

I've built one, and, while it's hardly a great receiver, I can't agree with some of the negative comments here. Firstly, mine is NOT "insensitive", quite the opposite. I've not had time to watch all the previous videos, but I presume you have adjusted T1 (the little blue IF transformer) on a weak but stable signal? That considerably improved sensitivity. ☺ However, it doesn't like big antennas, as you've found out. Treat it like a portable, e.g. try a telescopic whip (preferably outdoors, away from computers, monitors and other sources of noise) or (in my case) a few feet of wire. While testing mine, a meter test lead as an antenna brought in numerous (genuine - not sprog or intermod) signals - very pleasing. Selectivity leaves a bit to be desired, but what can one expect for the price? The thing I've not experimented with yet is item 3 in the menu, the IF frequency adjust: I'm guessing it fine-tunes the difference between the displayed frequency and the local oscillator to optimise performance through the crystal filter. Building it (relatively straightforward once I'd found some just-about-English instructions: all components were correct) kept me entertained on a wet, windy day, and I'm happy enough with the finished result. ☺

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thanks for your input. I did adjust T1, and I tried long wire, short wire antennas. I think the issue is where I am located. I have one of the largest am station complexes in the world only 50 miles away. It’s the old voice of America site that went to commercial years ago and has many stations in it all blasting high power on many frequencies. I also radio Cuba south blasting my direction. So a receiver that is poor in selectivity is problematic. As could be seen in the videos I put up is either deaf except to those massive signals or is a blended mess with them. It’s not shocking as the radios design has very poor filtering. Hang around it will get its chance again. In the coming weeks I will building some other kits to put side by side to compare its performance against. I might even mod it to see what it could be with some redesign work. RJ

[@johncherish7610]

you might be picking up computer generated RF in the room the square waves generated by computers are harmonic and cause a lot of interference and noise

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thanks , Didn’t make any difference. I had to run the computer and hf radio to make the video, I had tested a lot off camera with everything but the unit off. RJ

[@lifeafterlife9939]

Buongiorno, ho letto che il kit non è molto sensibile. Tu puoi indicarmi un kit sw molto sensibile? O eventualmente che modifiche apportare per aumentare la sensibilità di questo kit?grazie mille

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thanks for the question, Keep watching as in the next couple weeks we will be build a few other sw kits to test out against each other to see which works best. We might even modify this one to see if we can improve it. RJ

[@lifeafterlife9939]

@@LynxElectronicsLab ok grazie

[@graemezimmer604]

If it was distorted on the exact channel, then you haven't adjusted the discriminator properly. (It's not an envelope detector but a quadrature detector, eg the phase of the coil is critical for clear audio) Plus you cannot rely on the auto tune, until you have the detector tuned properly.

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thanks for your input. RJ

[@joatmonuk]

Hi, just to let you know. There is no right audio in this video. Your last 3 videos are all missing the right channel. 👍

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Hey, Thanks so much for letting me know! I just changed my editing software and I must have a setting incorrect. I will look into it and get it resolved. I have a few videos already up so they may be the same. But I will get it resolved on any new videos. RJ

[@joatmonuk]

@@LynxElectronicsLab Your welcome.

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

@@joatmonuk Just a note, turns out my new editing software generates mono audio tracks unless you tell it to make them stereo. I am having to learn this new much more professional software. My monitor sound bar did not have enough seperation for me to notice it was only single track audio. Thanks for the heads up again. At first read I though you were talking about the receiver that just by chance is designed to only output left channel audio. RJ

[@joatmonuk]

@@LynxElectronicsLab I usually just watch on my phone or tablet. I just by chance decided to have audio through my bluetooth headphones which highlighted the issue. Really glad I mentioned this, as for receivers, etc i'm only just learning and only have 3 communication devices. A TIDRADIO H3, Uniden Bearcat UBC 60XLT handheld scanner and an Realistic TRC 1010 for now.

[@buckwheatz666]

Yeah. Take the test outside.

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thanks for the comment, Even if it would suddenly be a great sw receiver by taking it outside which it will not (I already had it connect to an outside antenna in the previous video). Sitting outside in 95f temp 95% humidity be eaten by mosquitoes so my sw receiver can receive anything would not count as practical or good in my mind. No matter how bad you guys want to make this a good sw receiver it isn’t and an old used cheap sw receiver off eBay in the same setup would make this thing look silly. It so bad! RJ

[@charlesharkin2165]

Always the annoying hands in view get a pointer

[@LynxElectronicsLab]

Thanks for the input. RJ