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Reviews For: Ten Tec model 1056 rcvr.

Category: Ham Radio Kits

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Review Summary For : Ten Tec model 1056 rcvr.
Reviews: 15MSRP: $29.00
Description:
Direct conversion receiver for any HF ham band
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00154.7
KB2HSH Rating: 2004-10-06
Great RX for the price Time Owned: more than 12 months.
In 1998, I purchased a 1056 to use in place of a receiver circuit board that had ceased functioning. Now, everyone has undoubtedly heard the HORROR stories of the DC receiver section in the HW-7 and 8...and the lack of performance therein. Ramsey makes a DC kit...that is in the same price class, but still as unuseable. So, I was skeptical. BOY, WAS I WRONG. For a DC receiver, this kit is great! The instructions are very Heathkit-like....in that, they really make it easy to locate and install each componant properly.

When finished, a very nice radio is had. The sensitivity, while not close to modern radios, is still very good for a kit of such a small size. Simply put, if I can hear it with my Argonaut or my Hammarlund, I can hear it with the 1056. At 2 inches by 5 inches, it'll make that mini-QRP transceiver a possibility.
KJJ4321 Rating: 2004-10-06
Well designed & easy to build Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Ten Tec has the right to brag about this one. it was a pleasure to build & for a DC receiver it plays well. I added a freq-mite circuit to it & it works great with the 1056. Just press the button & you get the exact frequency in CW. I built it for 80 meters. The parts were well organized & manual was simple to follow.
G1DDY Rating: 2004-02-23
excellent beginners receiver Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Being a mere beginner in SWLing, this reciever is an excellent kit. Build time was two hours and was up and runing on 40 meter band. This kit deserves a shielded box and works so much better with one. Stability is rock solid after 15 mins. 40 Meter band not bad but the best band for this kit is 80 Meters. This reciever was designed for SSB and CW and perfoms excellently. Broadcast bands are ok if you can get zero beat on the station but it wont stay on this frequency for long. due to very strong signals can slightly change the recieving frequency (but not by much), and no agc control but hey for £23 who complains.
runs for 20 hours easily on a 12v 1.3ah sealed lead acid battery.

currently using a 50ft thin wire horizontally placed running the length of the garden. This reciever has no problems picking up hams from all of europe and america.

My receiver is calibrated to pick up volmet (shannon very clear) and I have also picked up denver and gander volmet in lift conditions. Based in the U.K. All of these are broadcast in LSB mode.

Mods : very worth while. I have removed Jumper 1 (power from power amp to tunning circuit) and placed an on led in its place. swapped two resistors (R4 and R5) to swap over the fine and main tunning. the main tunning is now the center dial. Attenuator added on the input through a switch. used the L3 coil for the 160meter band in series on the input to cut signal levels. This receiver picks up so much and the rf gain will only cut down so many signals.

Does not suffer from bad interferance at all. Normally this kit sits on top of my pc. tis is possibly due to the antenna being at the end of a 15ft 50ohm coax lead and also the box is shielded.

Total cost. probably nearer £50 after adding box, sheliding material, sealed lead acid battery, charging circuit etc

Last but not least band switching. very hard to do since several components should be changed but dont have to be.

I have added DPDT switches for dual band switching between 40meters and 80 meters. The switches just change L1 (tuned circuit) and L2 (local oscillator).

Future mods : Dont know if it is worth it but remove the oscillator and then place a dds kit into pin 7 of the ne602 chip. this will really widen up the recieving frequency of the kit.

Add a third tunning dial for very fine control. so that any drift can be rectified.

overall a very good kit and would reccomend to anyone who is interested in shortwave or good for them times away from the shack. very portable even with sealed lead acid battery.

any questions email : r.didd@ntlworld.com

I will gladly recieve and give advise.
K2PJT Rating: 2003-08-03
Best in its price class Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
My reason for building the TenTec 1056 was to compare simple and similarly priced receiver kits such as the SOP and the Vectronics. The later is currently assembled by my high school technology class.
The TenTec assembly was a little more difficult than the Vectronics and far easier than the SOP but still it went together perfectly in two unhurried evenings.
Subsequently I housed the receiver in a sturdy box made from four 1/16” thick aluminum plates screwed into two wooden end blocks. The receiver board rests in grooves cut in the end blocks with my circular saw while 8 AA batteries mount inside the housing beneath the receiver board. A Radio Shack on-off switch was added to the front panel. Instead of using the stereo earphone output supplied by TenTec I appropriated the speaker output for mono earphone use. The stereo worked too. Its only that I have several good pair of mono earphones.
There are five control knobs on the 1056. An rf gain control allows one to reduce sensitivity when shortwave broadcasters flood these direct conversion designs. There are two tuning controls. One for general tuning and the other for bandspread tuning. This combination works quite well. Finally, there is an audio volume control and an audio tone control. The latter provides a bit more selectivity for CW and somewhat wider audio range for SSB.
In practice the TenTec worked fine. Mine was set up for 40 meter operation. Even with recent lackluster propagation I heard hams all over North America and many throughout Europe. This is with a 25 foot length of wire strung irregularly in the attic. I found the frequency stability to be far better than the drifty Vectronics, making this receiver perfectly suitable for communications. The audio is smooth and easy on the ears, even under noisy atmospheric conditions. Although it is not up to an expensive multi featured commercial receiver, especially in selectivity, I found the 1056 the best of the three receivers in the $30 price range.
N9AP Rating: 2002-11-14
A useable ham receiver Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Assembly was easy an tune up involved tweaking two coils with a plastic wand(not provided)Pleasant to use and temperature stable after 15 minutes.Largely unaffected by strong signals on the band.No agc so I tended to adjust volume often.some selectivity offered by Lm 386 operated as an audio passband filter.Helps. After warm up I could listen to an ssb signal for a few minutes w/o retuning.Natural sounding audio with receiver adding very little noise.A natural for use w/a qrp transmitter or for listening away from the shack.Certainly portable!A 1/8" stereo jack provided for speaker/earphone.Lots of audio.Some mechanical instability,which makes the 1056 'good' instead of "great".Any ham band between 160 and 10 meters can be selected.Changing bands involves removing several soldered components and replacing w/others for new band.I just decided to make it a 40 meter receiver. Pluses:Sensitive,low noise and pleasant,plentiful audio.Easy to tune in ssb with the fine tuning control.a measure of selectivity derived from LM 358(active filter). Negatives:Signals heard on both sides of carrier,mechanically somewhat unstable,sharper selectivity would be welcome!An enclosure is needed.this thing is pretty good and deserves one. Bill N9AP