The ‘Retro-75’ 75/80 Meter AM Transceiver board kit & The ‘Retro-40’ 40 Meter AM Transceiver board kit
This project is a frankly nostalgic look back at our hobby of 50 years ago. It’s now been updated using all modern components.
Features:
Board size 3.5” x 5.27”
Tunable Receiver- 50 kHz, selectable, varicap-tuned
4 kHz receiver crystal filter
Room-filling speaker volume
Crystal-controlled Transmit- 3880 and 3885 kHz supplied (7290 kHz on 40M)
Transmitter output power: 2-2.5W carrier/ 8W peak
Transmit and Receive ALCs
Uses readily-available and inexpensive dynamic mics
Built-in Alignment function
Communication distances are reasonable, too. While you won’t expect to work DX with this rig, it’s fine for area communication. The map above shows the Retro-75‘s QSOs to date from my QTH in Newport, NH. Interestingly, distance didn’t correlate to length-of-QSO. The two most distant contacts- Skowhegan, Maine and Huntington, Long Island- were 30-minute ragchews with good copy both ways. My antenna is an 88-foot center-fed with balanced line, at a height of 45-50 feet.
Assembly instructions may be found at http://smallwonderlabs.com/Retro-75_Instr.pdf and at http://smallwonderlabs.com/Retro-40_Instr.pdf
There’s a user group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SWLRetro75
Board Kit price includes shipping, see “Pricing/Ordering”