A thread on the radiokits mailing list recently discussed the Radio Shack Science Fair three-transistor shortwave radio kit. The manual for this kit–and many other P-Box kits–can be found at KA9VNW’s Sparktron website.
This is a cool radio, but another subscriber pointed to another that seems like it would be easier to build. Designed by Charles Kitchin, N1TEV, the schematic appeared in the August 18, 1994 edition of EDN magazine. The article is titled, “$10 receiver has microvolt sensitivity.”
This radio uses three 2N2222 transistors, while the P-Box radio uses one NPN transistor and two PNP transistors. The 2N2222s are much easier to come by, I suspect, and I already have a package of 100 in my shack.
I built this kit when I was about 12 years old. It was very sensitive, but you had very little idea of what frequency you were listening to. I heard some really cool DX on this little thing… it was worth it and very satisfying knowing that I built it myself.
73 de N5PRE,
Kevin
Yet another great find that keeps me coming back to your site. The 2n2222 project sounds perfect for my high school radio class. Easy, fun, and a good excuse to learn.
Thanks again for the pointers.
73,
Ronny, KC5EES
Austin, Tx
Chris Trask N7ZWY recently described a single 2N2222 transistor TRANSCEIVER that uses a regenerative receiver. It’s being discussed off and on on the QRP-L email list. There’s rumor of a kit coming…
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~christrask/Gnat%2040.pdf
Tim, N9PUZ
Built two of these ca. 1972 or 3, still have one of them, still works! It’s very cute.
Scot, KU3E