40 Meter QRP Amateur Radio Receiver Kit

The headphone jack it comes with is 2.5mm, and the instructions act like that's standard. For reference, all phone/ipod headphone jacks are 3.5mm, so you probably don't have headphones or aux cords that will work with this. Luckily I was putting this together for an audio electronics course and my professor told me to just install a 3.5mm jack and not to bother soldering in the one it comes with. Overall way build though, and the instructions are ready to follow. The parts are a bit difficult to identify, but I imagine that's standard with electronic components that are barely big enough to label.

This receiver is hardly suitable for communications use. It is difficult to aline on the Amateur band (40 meters) At one point it was receiving WWV on 10 MHz and is easily overloaded by strong signals. I'm going to use it for experimenting to see if this simple design can be made to be usable. For that purpose, it was worth the $15.00.

An easy one-night build and a good working receiver. I made three mods to mine - I installed a PL259 jack since all my antennas are SO239 connectors. Also, the headphone jack that comes with it is useless. I substituted an after market 3.5mm stereo jack so I can use this with my earbuds. Finally, I added the LED power indicator mod that the instructions suggest. Performance is great. Price is a little high for what you get, but like I said, it's an easy one night build. It's an older kit - I wish Ramsey would update the kit to at least include a contemporary headphone jack!73 de AB1DQBedford, Mass.

I bought this kit with the available transmitter and amplifier kit. I was looking forward to hopping on the 40 meter radiowaves after getting my HAM license, but found out after building the receiver, that I would need a frequency counter, another transmitter, or other apparatus to calibrate and tune it. The transmitter kit that's available meanwhile would require a calibrated receiver to tune (so neither of the two can be used to tune the other). It seems that you would need another piece of equipment like a frequency counter or signal generator to do so (which can be rather expensive).The kit was easy enough to build. I have never worked on a radio in my life, and I was able to build the receiver within a three to four hour window. Just make sure you set all the pieces out on a white piece of paper before hand and identify them (the labeling of the parts wasn't the best so I had to use the process of elimination to identify some items based on their quantities).I didn't have to open the kit again after building, it worked on the first try. :-)I live in Connecticut, and was picking up Chinese on the first night. The receiver did require constant tuning though, as it seemed to have some drift. Also, the knob that comes with it is so small that its really hard to do any fine tuning.Needless to say, I returned the non-built transmitter and amplifier kits after building and trying out the receiver. I felt that the ~$100 that I spent on the transmitter and amplifier would be better put towards a pre-build QRP transceiver that comes pre-tuned and with a digital display.

This is another fiasco! Barely hear some AM station nothing else.

received kit, opened it up reviewed booklet to see what had to be done and what was included. far as part's was consernd and to my discovery 2 ic's was not included as the book stated that was included. U1 SA602 & U2 LM386.THIS KIT IS MORTHAN LIKELY $14 OVER PRICED WITH OUT THE IC'S NOT BEING INCLUDED!

This receiver kit is very easy to build and to get up and running. You will need some simple soldering ability, but it provides a good way to learn those skills.As designed, the tuning will be very, very sharp. You will probably find it quite difficult to hone in on stations. One reason is that 70% of the tuning range occurs in the first half of the dial rotation. You can install a larger tuning knob, and that will help -- somewhat.Fortunately the manual has a number of good tips to improve the receiver. One tip tells you how to provide some bandspread by changing just one of the capacitors. This will reduce the overall range, but it makes tuning much easier and more enjoyable. For example, I wanted it to cover all of the Morse code segment and just a portion of the voice segment of the ham radio band. After experimenting with several values, I found one that produced a nice range and easy tuning.Be aware that the headphone jack requires a 2.5 mm plug. If you have the more common 3.5 mm plug on your headphones, it won't fit. Adapters are available, but none is included with this kit.There are other serious limitations with this receiver, and the manual describes them well. Overall, though, it remains a very good value for the money.

I am a noobie to sw radios and this is my first kit to build.Had it built in a few hours. It works quite well. Frequency drifts a bit until it is warm then about 1khz drift each 15 minutes.I added a simple mod to get rid of the hiss: see here:[...]I also followed instructions in booklet to add frequency counter port so I can see the actual frequency (makes tuning a whole lot easier).Had to add a real headphone jack as the little one included in the kit is outdated.Would suggest building a noise buster: [...]to prevent loud noises from blowing out your eardrums in headphones.Have since homebrewed a transmitter, antenna tuner, rf detector and a few other things. Ham is quite interesting and will soon get my license.