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Reviews For: TenTec 1001

Category: Receive Pre-amps

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Review Summary For : TenTec 1001
Reviews: 4MSRP: $9.00
Description:
Universal Low-Noise Broadband DC to 1 GHz RF Preamp
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.tentec.com/amaccyKit.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0044.8
DAVER Rating: 2011-04-19
Great low noise preamp Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I have the 1001 circuit inside of a homebrew pre-selector and it works great. It's not always on, I switch it on and off as needed at 9V. I have the attenuator before it, and then when switched on another one after it. This gives very good control of the RF line. How it will play with your AGC is up the air. Sometimes it can only be described as "magic". I use it mainly for HF with some Airband thrown in for good measure.

This preamp is solid in that it does what its designed to do and very well. It can be used for a lot of different applications. You can modify it's circuit if wanted to make a tuned preamp. The "kit" goes together in about 10-15 minutes taking your time as it's only a few parts. It's a very low noise preamp as well. I've seen people mod their radios to use this instead of the built in ones for improved performance.

Not sure what else to say, it's a tentec mini-kit! For the price you can't go wrong.
W3FIS Rating: 2010-12-21
Very handy item Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I am using it as a "front end" for a Ten Tec 1056 direct conversion receiver for 40 meters. More than enough gain to overload the mixer - needed to cut back the RF gain. Works fine with a Miracle Whip antenna, which allows for a better match to the antenna.
KC5GDL Rating: 2007-11-26
Works Great! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I built this as a fun project to see if I could get my scanner to get a readable signal from a distant aircraft VOR on 112.300 Mhz - to listen to the HIWAS broadcasts. I put it in a nice aluminum box and made it switchable, so I could do A/B comparisons with it on and off. The VOR signal did improve noticeably, although the noise level increased a bit as well. However, on stronger signals the receiver AGC clamps down with the preamp on, and it sounds more like the background noise just suddenly disappeared - rather than the signal getting louder. (Almost like DSP!)

The most spectacular difference was with NOAA weather satellite reception (137.x Mhz). With the preamp on I can hear the birds before they are above the horizon! With it off and receiving a marginal signal, there is a distinct "crash, crash, crash..." sound of noise bursts (also AGC related), but with the preamp on I get a much cleaner signal. The difference is really noticeable when comparing the quality of the received weather images with the preamp on and with it off.

I am using an aircraft band 1/4 wave vertical on top of my house and I am located in an area relatively free of RF interference - so the broadband nature of this preamp did not present any problems for me.
KC5CQW Rating: 2002-09-09
Simple to build and cheap! Time Owned: more than 12 months.

It has eight parts total including the 1.75" pc board. The main part is the Hewlett Packard MSA-0104. I got this amp a while back and I am now useing it to replace the preamp in my IC-730. It gives about 17-18db gain and it seems to be a little more then the original preamp in the 730. I have noticed that any signal less then S-2 w/o the preamp will be covered by noise when it is activated. However, signals around S-5 become LOUD AND CLEAR well into the +20-60db range! I gave it a "4" because of the low input signal problem.

For IC-730 owners: To put this amp inline and disable the original Icom preamp, (The transistors in mine are fried and I already had this preamp built. You could just replace them in yours I guess:-) ) On the RF board remove R2 and L3,4. Then solder the in and outputs of the amp into the primary winding holes where the transformers where. Next, ground the DC (-) and solder the DC 13.8+ to the input of the removed R2. Dat's it Doc.
Damon, KC5CQW