40m Direct Conversion Receiver - Completed

Update: Also read this for fixing AGC for weak signals

It doesn't matter how good something appears on the test bench, it's the on-air baptism that counts. This weekend there was an ARRL contest. A proper baptism of fire. So imagine the smile when I turned the receiver on with a dipole connected. Wall to wall signals. North American stations, JA's, VK's.  They were all there. Strong, loud and clear.

This morning, Sunday, I listened to the local new broadcast on 40m. I could hear every station that checked in. And I could just cope with the strong signal of Chris VK6JI who runs the broadcast and call-backs. Chris's station is perhaps 5km away so it is a full scale signal on every radio I have. I hope to simultaneously  record the call backs one day, my homebrew receiver on one channel, my IC746pro on the other. I know there will be a difference, but not much.

Now that I have the bugs of this approach sorted out I'm using one of the commercial boards for an 80m version.

There is one thing that I learned from this version: how a voltage inverter can cause trouble. I used an ICL7662 to create a negative rail for the op amps.  What I failed to catch until I tested the unit was the ripple from the ICL7662 was large enough in amplitude to upset the squelch circuit. That was my fault for not bypassing the V+/2 rail the squelch used. One capacitor and problem solved.

Now all of my design goals have been met.

• lots of volume from a speaker since headphones don't work if you're moving about the workshop while you listen to a net,
• Passed - I can easily listen to a net while moving around my very large workshop.
• no audio instability, 
• Passed. Micro-phonics solved by using tantalum's instead of MLCC's in certain parts of the circuit.
• no hum, 
• Passed.
• good AGC so you are not jockeying the volume control, 
• Passed
• good audio filtering
• Passed
• a squelch. 
• Passed.

That's 6 from 6. I'll finish the 80m version soon but it's time to focus on updating the synthesiser and transmitter to accompany this receiver. Then I'll have a working homebrew 40m transceiver again.

Complete schematics except for the squelch. I'm happy to pass on details of the squelch circuit privately. But as far as I know it is copied from a Codan radio so I'm mindful of copyright.

Regards
Richard VK6TT