In single lots of 1 you can buy this amazing integrated circuit for $0.35 and if you buy 10, less than a quarter apiece. Yes, they can be bought at Newark Electronics for that pricing.
[Again, Kudos to N2CQR and KK4DAS for their Direct Conversion Receiver Project and recognition by the ARRL. This post presents a slightly different approach to fabricating a DCR. The results are comparable and that is the clean sound of a DCR.]
The above schematic says Product Detector, but it is also a Direct Conversion Receiver. Where it says Carrier Input you connect your LO or VFO and the SSB input is where you feed your output of a medium gain RF amp which has a BPF ahead of that amp. The AF output is fed to an audio amplifier module. See https://www.n6qw.com/MC1496.html
A second MC1496 can be configured as a Double Sideband Generator. The Motorola Data Sheets for the MC1496 has all of the circuitry information.
Two MC1496's will cost you $0.70 and W1REX has circuit boards for the $0.35 SMD MC1496.
DSB Transmitter
Craig Westons DCR Based on the N6QW Design
The MC1496 is a really old product (> 55 years old) but it is cheap and can provide an excellent basis of a simple homebrew radio transceiver. I even took four MC1496's and built a two band SSB Transceiver. Now you spent $1.40 for the all-important critical devices. One is the balanced modulator; one is the product detector and two are used as mixer stages.
Them that know can make it go.
The USA used to be the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. We now are the poster child of Pay More and Get Less (PMAGL). Play a game by taking the sum of $100 and seeing what groceries you could buy 2 years ago and what that buys you today. Next in line for a price hike is the formerly cheap "wooden furniture" and those "fureign (foreign) movies". What's next?
73's
Pete N6QW