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Reviews For: Ten-Tec Universal BFO Kit #1050

Category: Ham Radio Kits

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Review Summary For : Ten-Tec Universal BFO Kit #1050
Reviews: 14MSRP: $10
Description:
455 kHz BFO kit
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.tentec.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00143.4
OLLIEOXEN27 Rating: 2009-11-09
drifts Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Mine drifts and has to be retuned every 5-10 seconds plus there's usually a heterodyne floating around the signal. Also if the signal is much stronger than the oscillator signal it doesn't work (only weaker signals). Sad that a person wanting to listen to single sideband signals (a future ham perhaps?) should have this as their first experience. Probably turn him off to the hobby.
N4AUD Rating: 2008-03-21
Great accessory Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
The kit couldn't be any simpler, takes no time at all to assemble. It works as advertised. One thing I don't like about it is I have to adjust the can coil quite a bit if I move around much in a band. If I go from say 3900 khz to 3950 khz, I have to center the knob, then use an adjustment tool on the coil. No biggie, and it is a blast to listen to CW or SSB on a Transoceanic, or your favorite portable SW radio.
W8ZNX Rating: 2007-04-01
just the thing for that old GE or Zenith receiver Time Owned: more than 12 months.
very very easy kit
once the soldering station is warmed up
takes less than 10 min to build
standard TenTec manual

works great

have used this with more than one
older shortwave receiver

80 cw late winter night
its fun during a qso
to send
rx hr is Zenith or Philco

dit dit Mac
NS6Y_ Rating: 2006-03-22
Univeral BFO the QRM's free Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I got this in a box of stuff, and decided to build it, it was an early 90s packaging so it had the older type Ten-Tec manual, you know, color cover and actually readable. Building this was easy, and the kit's manual has some interesting info on BFOs in general, it powered up the first time and no problem, I soldered on a 9V battery holder (not included) and an antenna wire (ditto) and put it on the frequency counter (A good HP oven stabilized one) and this circuit seems to be very nice and stable, probably more so than most of the radios it will be used with. Fine business there BUT..... I then decided to look at the waveform on the 'scope. No, not a junk scope, a Tek 2465A. The waveform is........ interesting. Imagine on each cycle, first a half of a sine, then a sharp drop downward, then a square wave! Weird!! This probably works great but it can be a source of harmonics due to the harmonic content of the complex waveform described. It puts out a decent amount of voltage so you can always put the output through a 455kHz IF can or 455 kHz filter to clean it up if you like.

It's really hard to go wrong for $10, in my experience the kit will work OK on first power up, and while the output's not pure it's not going to cause trouble in your neighborhood due to the overall QRPp power level. It should work great for that old non-BFO shortwave radio.