| NO4L |
Rating:      |
2011-04-27 | |
| Latenight Fun! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
What positive can I say that hasn't been said already? I enjoy playing with this receiver late at night. It's hooked to a Radioshack amplified speaker, the sound is really quite decent for what it is. I've tuned into all sorts of broadcasts with 100' of wire wrapped 5' bamboo pole with a capacitance hat made out of aluminum on the top -- ugly but it works and doesn't take up much room. Even a 10' piece of wire will offer up some stations.
Received it as a gift for Christmas nearly a year-and-a-half ago, and it continues to keep me amused.
The wired version costs less than most 2M HT's, and offers up a lot of fun in a small package. Just get one! |
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| AI4HO |
Rating:      |
2010-08-04 | |
| Neat little receiver! |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I picked up one of these from a guy in Ca. for a couple a bucks, $35 or $40 by the time shipping to Fl was established. This is one neat little receiver,the one mod the guy I bought it from was too by pass the battery system altogether, and just have it powered by 110v. Not a problem as this was going to be in my shack and not go any where. Once I found a suitable wall wort in my junk drawer, I had some speaker wire that I attached to the rear of the radio, its performance at first was lousy. What I hadn't realized was that the wire was intertwined with a bunch of other stuff and was lying on the ground.
I then cobbled together an off center fed antenna using the same speaker wire. I attached one end to my tower and the other end to a tree in mt front yard. I guess the antenna was 20-25' in the air, what a difference, I was getting stations from all over, Cuba, BBC broadcasts, all over the US, I was in heaven. One thing I had to get used to was the tuning, the MFJ-8100 tuning control is quite smooth, and using the regen in conjunction with the tuning knob was at first a little tricky, but with a little practice and a lot of patience, I was able to tune pretty much anything.
Well, tragedy atruck, we bought a pop up camper and to work on it we moved it into the front yard. In cranking the camper up I forgot about the wire antenna for my regen receiver, next thing I knew there was this wire hanging down in front of me and I'm thinking what the hell?? At first I didn't realize what it was, then it dawned on me,what it was. OK, I get to it and get it fixed in a couple of days. Not so, it got really, really hot hot here in our part of Fl., work has pretty much ceased on the camper at least for now, got most of it done, just a few other minor things to do. I have the pieces of wire and its all together again, I just have to get it up in the air. I moved the 8100 into the back room with my other radio collection, and when I went to plug the wall wort in the radio wouldn't turn on. My el cheapo wall wort, on the one side the spade plug had pushed into the assembly, n problem I can fix this.......not yet any way, the assembly is sealed, so I'm either going to have to disassemble the unit all together or find a new one. Think I'll just find a different one in my junk drawer. I do like this receiver, it may not be a high end Icom, Kenwood,or Yaesu, but for what it is its a neat little receiver that will be part of my shack for a while yet.
73 de Mark
W3LZK |
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| AA1UY |
Rating:     |
2009-05-28 | |
| Still using it years later |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I assembled one of these in kit form a few years back and still use it from time to time. You really need to use an outdoor antenna and it works better grounded than not.
It is, as someone said, a 3 (three) transistor radio based on an almost 100 year old design but built using more modern components. It's just about one step up technology-wise from the crystal set (cardboard tube, a rock and some wire). As such, I think it performs very well for what it is.
It's not an $800 communications receiver, nor a modern portable and it's not even a superhet design. It's a regen and as such, displays traits common to regenerative receivers in general (surprise, surprise).
My MFJ 8100 kit went together without a hitch and works as advertised; in fact, it can be quite sensitive if you patiently adjust it correctly.
Those of us who enjoy back to basics radio and QRP can find regens quite addictive (if frustrating at times). |
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| W0IW |
Rating:  |
2009-05-27 | |
| RUNN... AWAY !!!! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I bought this second hand from Gigaparts... Cost $20.00 used.. I thought wow what a great deal for a cool kit that would receive ham/shortwave..
The radio is totally unstable... the tuning is so touchy you wont be able to seriously use it !!!
The sensitivity is pretty mediocre at it's best !!
OTHER THAN THAT GLOWING REVIEW ENJOY !!! |
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| N3NXD |
Rating:   |
2009-04-10 | |
| Needs surgical intervention |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I bought mine way back in 1998. As a kit experience, no problems. Had for years, a problem with hand capacitance, and signals easily overloaded. I first tackled the overload with installation of a 10 pot in series with antenna internal wire. Later, tackled hand capacitance issue with removal of all surface of board wires, and internal antenna wires. Replaced with sections of junkbox sheilded phono wires hooked up in place of original wires. Grounded braid of each wire to enclosure. No more hand capacitance! Better signal strength, much reduced interference too. |
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| W3FIS |
Rating:      |
2008-05-01 | |
| Lots of fun |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I first ran a parts inventory. All of them were there, though the list did not call out the IC socket for the audio amplifier. The regeneration and audio pots were not marked for values, so I need to break out the ohm meter to check them. The inductors for the tuning system are just like in the Ten-tec 1253, except for the single toroid to be wound by me.
There is lots of space on back panel for a UHF connector, battery jack, and toggle for the power. I want to be able to use an external power supply, and feed the receiver with a shielded coax, if I desire. I have a lot of EMI in the shack, so my antenna feed is with coax.
I will need to decide about the RF gain control, as it may be a little tight for a 10K pot I got at Radio Shack without drilling another hole. A careful reading of the instruction manual suggests that I won't have to adjust it often. This is the case on my Ten-tec 1253, where I only have to cut the RF gain back when I have one of those megawatt SW broadcast stations in the evening.
I can decided when I get the board populated and fit it to the case, and see what sort of space I have. At that point, I'll drill the hole for the power jack and power toggle (would have used "steering" diodes, but no good place to hang them). I couldn't find one of the power jacks with the built in transfer switch, or would have used that. I can just use my 5/8" Greenlee punch to punch out a hole for the UHF connector. I will leave their binding post in place, so I can easily switch from coax feed to wire, as I wish.
General small parts insertion and soldering went well. A 30 watt iron is clearly necessary to get enough heat. This board doesn't use the plated through holes that I am used to, so the soldering technique is a trifle different. As usual, examine each soldered joint as you make it, and then clip the excess wire off. Some of the pads are pretty close, and I had to fix one solder "bridge." The discussion on mounting the LED pilot light is simply wrong. You need it off the board about 1/4", and then bend 90 degrees to fit the hole in the front panel.
Larger parts need a little coaxing, etc., to get them in place, especially the main tuning capacitor. The single toroid is easy to do, especially as hookup wire is used to wind it. Mechanical assembly issues next, and I need to decide about the RF gain control. I think I'll go with the standard setup for the time being, so since I deferred soldering it in, I'll do that now.
Time to lay out and drill the holes for the power jack, power switch, and UHF chassis connector. I'm going to use one of the single nut attachment types, which has a locking washer under it. Neater in appearance, and no holes to get lined up.
Attaching the dial pointer is a PITA. Very tight fit. Reamed it open a tad with an Exacto knife, then secured it with a drop of contact cement. I also used some hot glue to secure the toroid to give it more mechanical stability. I also used more zip ties to secure the battery cable, etc. I still need to calibrate the receiver, but I'll do that some evening when I can hear WWV.
The tuning is quite smooth. The vernier tuning is just right for tuning in a regenerative receiver. Regeneration goes in and out smoothly. The usual stuff of tweaking up the regeneration point on the top band.
Right now, I'm feeding the audio through a amplifier/speaker, but headphones are quite satisfactory. I have not tried an external power supply yet, though of course, I do have the jack and switch in place. The current antenna is a 1/4 wave end fed for 40 meters that I use for my QRP transceiver.
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|
| HFHAM2 |
Rating:     |
2007-02-27 | |
| Works well ! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
This is a 3 transistor (FET) radio with an audio amp IC.
Doesn't sound like much at all does it but boy will it surprise you if you give it a decent length of antenna wire strung outside.
AM Shortwave Broadcasts, SSB, CW, it can resolve all of these and with good clarity too.
Yes, tuning and Regen require a safe-cracker's steady hand (could use a fine tune control) but that's all part of the fun!
Good construction/operation manual, solid case, unbelievable performance for the parts count, what's not to like? |
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| CAPNROB97 |
Rating:     |
2007-02-26 | |
| Very sensitive with a slinky antenna |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I bought the wired version from MFJ and it arrived today, along with a slinky antenna I bought off eBay that I am using with it.
I am currently picking up Trenton (Ontario) Military Aviation weather conditions (never heard this station before from FL, can't really tell what freq. it is, seems to be around 6.80 - 7.0 from the dial settings).
I am very happy with this rig so far. Utilities are fun to listen to, and this one pulls them in if you have the patience to 'work' the tuning on it. |
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| AD5YU |
Rating:   |
2006-11-27 | |
| A little dissapointing |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I bought this kit for my nephew (age 11) as an intro to Amateur Radio. We built it together over Thanksgiving. My problem isn't with the performance of the receiver, in fact it was a little better than I was expecting from such a simple design, however I was dissapointed with the kit & manual.
There were numerous errors/subsitutions that were confusing to my nephew, and the quality of the PCB was barely acceptable. I have built and tested many other kits including an Elecraft K1 and K2, and put together my own projects from scratch with PCBs I desgned and had made in Eastern Europe, so I have some experience with this. It is well within the cost structre of this kit to provide a decent PCB and an errata sheet to cover changes from the manual and instructions. I didn't feel like we got value for money, but the kit did eventually go together and work as expected. |
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| KA8DLL |
Rating:    |
2006-10-24 | |
| fun radio needs a amplified ant . tuner for good ssb perform |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| This is a fun radio. With a amplified ant tuner for a little better front end selectivity and sensitivity. Don't worry about calibration,can't read the dial from any distance anyhow. For casual listening this is a nice radio. With some work this is a capable perfomer |
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