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February 25, 2024. Homebrew rigs can sound excellent.

Gotta ask? Does your homebrew rig sound this good? The 2.7KHz wide filter brings a bit of extra presence to the sound. Indeed, you would expect no less from two 90 Derees Out of Phase Direct Conversion Receivers.





I am having a bit of fun with this rig, as I purposely have set the Si5351, so it is about 20 Hertz low. This is so I can drive the FLEX and Apache SDR Police bonkers as they tell me I am 20 Hz low. I then will say that is to give you something to do besides tout your expensive radios! This is the original prototype based on ZL2CTM's work that has undergone some repairs and a tune up.

Interesting how I calibrate the Si5351. I have a Hermes Lite2 SDR which is superb and rivals some of those boxes costing $3 to 4K. [At about 10% 0f the cost.] Step one is to sync the HL2 to WWV and have those two signals' dead nuts on. Then I bring a lead from the HL2 antenna port near the divide by four 74AC74's so it is detecting the LO frequency. I adjust the Teensy 3.5 software until the detection of the signal, the HL2 and the 40MSDR are all on the same frequency. 

Changes I made to the original work of ZL2CTM is to add modem transformers to the Line In / Line Out on the two ADE-1s to abate noise. I also built and installed a new 100 tap point 2.7kHz wide filter using the Iowa Hills software. The Hilbert transform coefficients are not 0 and 90 but +45 and -45 degrees, which of course means 90-degrees.

Some of the construction details can be seen at this website. www.n6qwradiogenius.us

Certainly, you can just go out and buy a Xeigu 6100 for around $500 and it is all band and compact. But you didn't build it!

True also, the "Al Fresco" Helter Skelter look is a put off to some, but it also is a testament to what is possible. Just listen to the signals.

Of note the signals just seem to pop out of a quiet background and the background "noise" is not like I have on other rigs. WYKSYCDS!

73's
Pete N6QW



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