Regen vs Direct Conversion: Which receiver type is best?

Both can be simple to build but what type is best for what you want? Watch and find out.
Contents:
0:00 Introduction
0:27 Circuit descriptions
2:23 Frequency coverage
3:46 Use as part of a transceiver
5:38 AM reception
6:46 Strong signal handling
9:46 Simplicity
11:14 Ease of use
14:18 Selectivity
20:16 Summary
21:04 Books
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[@OldF1000]

Back in the 90s I had a lot of fun building Direct Conversion receivers, using the NE602 chip with a LM386 for the audio amp. The thing that I like about both regen and DC was how clean and clear the audio was.

[@vk3ye]

Try replacing the LM386 with a 4 or 5 transistor discrete transistor audio stage. That might make it sound even better!

[@Steve-GM0HUU]

Yes, simple DC receivers are nice. I usually think that, although they don't have the performance you get with complex commercial receivers, they are usually more pleasant to listen to.

[@johnwest7993]

@@vk3ye, my very best sounding radio ever was a Xtal AM rig fed into a guitar amp.

[@southernexposure123]

@@johnwest7993 ha ha ha You reminded me way back when I made a VFO for one of the lower HF bands and one day I had my AM receiver turned on. While tuning the VFO I thought I heard a different station come on my home radio. I tuned the AM radio a little and tried again. Eventually I tuned the AM radio to a clear frequency and started hearing foreign stations from way off. I accidentally discovered I turned my home radio into a short wave radio.

[@johnwest7993]

When I was a teen I volunteered to help a 10 yo kid build a tube regen receiver kit, since I'd already built a tube CB kit. We built it very carefully, but when we were done we could hear radio stations, but if you turned the regen control up too high it squealed. I considered the project a failure because I didn't understand how a regen rig was supposed to work. All of the radios I was familiar with were either crystal sets or superhet. It was many years before I learned that the rig was doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

[@MirlitronOne]

I've had a lot of fun with both. My first kit radio was a one-valve regen (Codar Mini-Clipper). It was good, but on reflection I never got the best out of it because there was no clear explanation of how to use it. My first (homebrew) DC receiver, albeit only for 20m, worked fine from the off and still provides fun. I've built several simple regen receivers and the available gain can be incredible.

[@G7VFY]

Tuning an FRG-7 is a 'two handed' affair' and that's a triple conversion, Barlow Wadley loop, with heaps of transistors.

[@chuckmaddison2924]

I have a 2 tube regen broadcast band, a kit from UK. I'm about 25 k from city of Perth, and I get the AM stations very well. The only downside I don't like is if you have headphones on and accidentally go into oscillation, it can be painful. A note with the kit states that some poor regen sets can radiate a single from antenna.

[@trevorwoods3367]

I'm in the process of building a direct conversion receiver. In my eagerness I've jumped ahead and done some experimentation with the minimalist of parts. I won't for one moment say I've yet built a DC receiver, but I have cobbled together a few things and experienced direct conversion. My crude setup consisted of a single germanium diode for the mixer. I used my nano vna for the oscillator. This went to one end of the diode. A short lead also went to this end for the antenna. I then connected the other end of the diode to the input of an FM transmitter I had made years ago. This was built for an electronic guitar, to send it to an FM receiver. I knew a DCR needed good amplification, and if this was going to work, this might do it. While I knew a DCR can't receive AM clearly, I used the three local AM stations for my experiment for their strength of signal. An FM broadcast receiver was used to receive my little transmitter. This I hoped would give the amplification I needed. I set the oscillator to one of the frequencies. It worked. My first thought was, is this just acting like a crystal set and a strong signal is coming through? But no, I could change the oscillator to any of the three stations and hear that alone. While not that clear, I could understand any speach. As someone else said in the comments, the music sounded warbly. If I set the oscillator to 1khz either side of the stations frequency, I would get a 1khz tone. Like they do for CW I think. With later experiments I was able to do away with the FM transmitter setup and use a small amplified speaker. Volume is extremely low with this minimalistic setup though. I was also able to transmit to this receiver on the UHF CB band. It worked from a couple of rooms away. I also did the 1khz tone thing on UHF. This gave the loudest results. As crude a setup as all this was, it worked as an encouragement to me. I had experienced direct conversion and now to continue with my real direct conversion receiver.

[@bill-2018]

This is good stuff, excellent information for a beginner. My first receiver was a regenerative set. I like a regen. Aged 14 (Wow, 54 years ago) I saw in a magazine my neighbour gave me, and sent off for the H.A.C. kit, Hear All Continents, a one valve kit requiring six soldered connections and also sent for two extra plug in coils so coverage was 160 to 10m. I later got the m.w. and l.w. coils. My neighbour gave me 2,000 Ω headphones as well. Eventually valves were no longer available from the company and 90 Volt batteries no longer made and like a fool I took it apart and used parts for other things. I could have joined ten 9 Volt PP3 batteries and got valves from elsewhere. I have bought 4 pin valves like the PM2 at rallies and want to make my own. G4GHB

[@peterfitzpatrick7032]

I bought the HAC DX1 one valve regen kit as a young teen too... loved that little radio and got QSL cards from all over the world ... our mailman used to be fascinated with this kid getting mail from all over ! 😏 Living in Dublin Ireland, my greatest DX station was HCJB in Equador and their QSL was my pride and joy at the time. 😎👍☘🇮🇪🍺

[@bill-2018]

Love the mailman story. Made a wavemeter out of it when I got licenced, now Range 4 coil in my Wireless 19 Set for independent rx tuning. G4GHB. @@peterfitzpatrick7032

[@maramassaferro]

Siempre es un gran placer seguir tus videos, he aprendido mucho. Muchísimas gracias por compartir tu saber con la comunidad

[@davidportch8837]

have built many a regen over the years Peter, both valve and transistor and performance varied quite a lot, especially on solidity of build... and all your points make sense. I have never built a DC receiver, so I might give that a try at some point.. Thanks for another excellent video...

[@gillestheron3522]

Hy Peter, may be on synoptic diagram, RF stage could be appears, PBF for DC receiver and front head isolation between oscillator detector and antenna for regens receiver. Very interesting vidéo, first regen avantage is probably it Can easily both detect AM and CW/SSB . Huge congratulations for disseminating your technical knowledge. 73's from F5LAS 😉

[@justinelliott3529]

Built both and a superheterodyne

[@4youian]

Very interesting Peter! Yeah, I've just finished building a DC receiver to test some ideas. I wanted it to be small, good strong signal handling, stable and have AGC. I think I succeeded with the uDCR. I've just started documenting it on a popular software repository. You can find it by searching for ianm8 and uDCR . PS, thanks for the nice QSO today. 73, VK7IAN

[@JxH]

0:40 "...Oscillating Detector..." Not a great name choice for the first stage since a Regenerative Receiver is still a Regenerative Receiver even when used to receive AM stations, and the first stage (here called "Oscillating Detector") is, as you noted, not oscillating in such cases. Going back many decades (e.g. 1950s-1970s), the primary application of Regenerative Receivers would have been reception of international shortwave stations, which are (were? sad...) AM. Such receivers were even sold at Radio Shack (North America's version of Dick Smith) and I'd bet that they were used in SWL (AM, not oscillating) mode far and away more than half the time.

[@JxH]

0:53 "...increased gain..." *And* narrower bandwidth, as the filter is also in the feedback loop.

[@chronobot2001]

I recently built a direct conversion receiver using an Arduino/si5351 for the vfo. It also used a diode ring mixer. It works surprisingly well for ssb/cw but, as you said, the am stations sound bad...warbley. I want to build a regen next. I already have a regen that was built by ten-tec and it works very well... I find that tuning it is half of the fun. I want to build my own regen. Thanks for the vids. I am always eager to watch when you put out a new one.

[@useruser5780]

Здравствуйте Питэр, идея стара как мир. А как нащет механического приемника прямого преобразования?))), А?))), канешно чем выше частота тем нужны больше обороты гетеродинного блока, но тем не менее на 160 метров реально создать)))))73/UZ7QAO.

[@arnoldgrubbs2005]

Very interesting vid. I built a regen RX a few years ago from a kit from the 4 States QRP group and had a lot of fun with it. I was going to build a RX using the NE602/612 chip, but now I see they have been discontinued. I wonder if there are newer chips available that replace that device? I suppose that using a mixer driven by an Si5351A would work if you want to jump into the world of digital control systems... but would prefer for experimentation something to build with knobs and buttons..

[@southernexposure123]

@arnoldgrubbs2005 I don't know about replcement chips for the 602. Years ago I made a DCR with a diode ring dectctor. I heard a lot of signals with it. I don't know if it made much difference, but I went through the trouble of resistance matching the little diodes. I think they were 1N914 diodes. Next time I made a project I'll use the LM386 audio amp. I know they're discontinued, but they're still available and there's videos showing how to improve them beyond what was usually done with most schematic examples of how to use them. Good Luck.

[@emiconstantino2699]

Hi Peter,the 10 meter band is unused in our locality.Which is better for receiving Wide band FM for a simple FM transceiver?Tnxs Emi,DU1 CBO

[@vk3ye]

You still wouldn't use wide band FM on 10m - that's just used for 88 - 108 broadcast transmitting. A regen can receive narrow band FM but it will be distorted. A possibility is a superregen receiver for NBFM as I've described in previous videos.

[@Steve-GM0HUU]

Ashamed to say I have never built a regen 😳. Only DC receivers. Probably because I was mainly inteteresed in HF QRP CW and the DC circuits just seem like a better bet.

[@MIKROWAVE1]

CW and SSB -Once you go much above 40m, I vote for the DC receiver. With a simple down conversion, you can use a regen IF detector to good advantage.

[@loverofthelostnarc]

What about WBR ? There are some magazines that say that the WBR are best in term of regenerative receivers and direct conversion receiver. Now please help.

[@vk3ye]

I've had mixed success with it. If I recall correctly it has close to a dead short across the antenna with very low impedance.

[@YamazakiKaoru]

Is it possible to create a direct conversion receiver for the CB band?

[@2ftg]

Sure.

[@YamazakiKaoru]

@@2ftg Thank you!

[@trcwm]

Best receiver to use for ham radio: Direct Conversion Best receiver to crush with a car: A Regen

[@vk2wgw]

Graphics????? would rather see the circuit boards than stick men

[@MIKROWAVE1]

Of course I loved the simulation of going into regeneration using aural mouth sounds - ZZZZZZZSHHHEEEEEEUUUUUUUW. "From VK3YE I could Learn!" E Armstrong

[@jeromeGrzelak]

YEP kg6mn

[@andrewandrosow4797]

when you reject the image - direct convertion is better