AM

Receiver
Circuit : Andy Collinson
Email :
Description
This is a compact three transistor, TRF receiver with xed feedback. It is
similar in principle to the ZN414 which is now replaced by the MK484. The
design is simple and sensitivity and selectivity of the receiver are good.
Circuit Notes
All general purpose transistors should work in this circuit, I used three
BC549 transistors in my prototype. The tuned circuit is designed for
medium wave, but the circuit will work up to much higher frequencies if a
dierent tuning coil and capacitor are used. I used a ferrite rod and tuning
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Simulation Updates
capacitor from an old radio which tuned from approximately 550 -
1600kHz. Q1 and Q2 form a darlington pair featuring high gain and very
high input impedance. This is necessary so as not to unduly load the tank
circuit. There is only one tuned circuit in this design so sensitivity and
selectivity will not be as good as a regenerative or superhet design but
good results can still be obtained nonetheless. The 120k feedback resistor
impacts on both the gain and input impedance of the circuit so varying
this value is a crude way of altering sensitivity and selectivity. In my test
circuit Q2 had an emitter voltage of about 0.71V and collector voltage of
1.34V.
For audio ampliers, Q2 collector would be biased near half supply
voltage, however the input signal levels at RF are tiny, typically 50uV
appearing across the coil being amplied by Q2 and being about 5mV RF
across the 2k2 load resistor.
The 120k feedback resistor, between Q2 output and the tank circuit L1
aects overall performance of the receiver. The value of 120k was found
to just enough gain for the receiver to work well. In strong signal areas its
value may be too high and a lower value of 100k or 82k may weork better;
in weak signal areas increasing the value may work better. Too much
feedback and the circuit will become unstable producing a "howling
sound". Insucient feedback and the receiver becomes "deaf". R1 could
also be replaced by a xed resistor say 33k and a preset resistor of 100k.
Transistor Q3 has a dual purpose; it performs demodulation of the RF
carrier whilst at the same time, amplifying the audio signal. Audio level
varies on the strength of the received station but I had typically 10-40 mV,
this is audio voltage, not RF signal level. This will directly drive high
impedance headphones or can be fed into a suitable amplier.
The tuning coil, L1 can be salvaged from an old AM receiver, or to make
your own wind about 50 to 60 turns of 26 SWG enamel coated copper
wire over a 3/8 inch ferrite rod about 3 inches long. This will create a
tuning inductor of about 200uH. AM stations are directional so rotating
the rod (or whole receiver) should allow nulling of some signals whilst
boosting others.
If you are in an area of weak reception then an external antenna may be
required. Wind about 4 or 5 turns (indicated as 4 or 5 T on the schematic)
of 26 SWG wire onto the ferrite rod, close to the main winding and
connect one end to a cold water tap or ground connection. Use several
feet of exible wire as an antenna.
The frequency coverage or tuning range is controlled by L1 and VC1. If
VC1 is fully meshed (closed) then its capacitance will be about 500pF. The
resonant frequency is given by:
where F is frequency in hertz, C capacitance in Farads and L the
inductance in Henry's. With a meshed 500pF variable capacitor and 200uH
coil the lowest frequency works out to be:
When the vanes are open a small capacitance is still present (about 40pF).
The coil connections add a slight amount of stray capacitance which may
be 7 or 8pF. With 48pF capacitance and a 200uH coil, the highest
frequency will be about 1624kHz. Some variable capacitors, have built in
trimmers to adjust the highest frequency. For any coil and capacitor that
tunes too high, a 50pF trimmer may be added in parallel with VC1 to
control the highest tuneable frequency.
The coil details below were kindly submitted and tested by David from
Germany and tunes 500 - 1700kHz with a 500pF capacitor. Construction is
shown below 35 turns of 32 SWG enamel covered wire are wound 30mm
from one end of a 10mm diameter ferrite rod. Now a paper sleeve about
20mm wide is looped around the ferrite rod. The coil is continued winding
a further 40 turns, the start of the 36th turn being approximately 50 mm
from the same end of the ferrite rod on the paper sleeve see image
below.
The MW coil described above results in an inductance of approximately
200uH. If coupled with a 500pF capacitor (full mesh) will tune to about
500kHz and open mesh (about 43pF) tunes to 1700KHz. This covers the
top part of the MW band used in North America and some European
Pirate stations. If desired a LW coil can also be made on the same rod, this
is 330 turns of 32SWG wire starting 70 mm from the same end of the
ferrite rod.
All connections should be short, a veroboard or tagstrip layout are
suitable. The tuning capacitor has xed and moving plates. The moving
plates should be connected to the "cold" end of the tank circuit, this is the
base of Q1, and the xed plates to the "hot end" of the coil, the junction of
R1 and C1. If connections on the capacitor are reversed, then moving your
hand near the capacitor will cause unwanted stability and oscillation.
Finally here are some voltage checks from my breadboard prototype.This
should help in determining a working circuit:-
All measurements made with a fresh 9volt battery and three BC109C
transistors with respect to the battery negative terminal.
Q1 (b) 1.31V
Q2 (b) 0.71V
Q2 (c) 1.34V
Q3 (b) 0.62V
Q3 (c) 3.87V
Simulating the Receiver
I have simulated the performance of this receiver in LTspice. Below is the
circuit re-drawn for simulation in LTspice. There are some minor changes;
namely the output requires a load resistor which is R7 and in parallel with
R7 is C6, a 2n capacitor. C6 functions to remove any residual RF carrier
from the audio output.
RF Input
To simulate an AM radio signal, a carrier frequency of 1 MHz is chosen,
and a modulating signal of 1kHz used. These are mixed by the arbitrary
source B1. The amplitude of B1 is around 400uV pk-pk and this may be
high in real life, except in very strong signal areas.
Input RF stages
The above diagram shows the RF input signal (green) measured as
dierential across input coil L1. The output is taken across the output of
Q2 where it is been amplied. The non-symmetrical distortion is due to a
higher than normal input signal.
Audio Output
After being demodulated and amplied by Q3, the recovered audio is
displayed in red in the above diagram.
Selectivity
Finally RF selectivity can be seen by applying a xed carrier signal to the
input and varying C1. This is shown above for various AM frequencies.
Selectivity is around 40k which is to be expected for a reciever with a
single coil.
Finished Receiver
A nished receiver made on veroboard is shown below. This one is built
by David in Germany and has received all medium wave stations in
David's locality.
More of David's radio work can be seen in my Pics section in the Practical
Pages.
PCB Layout
The following single sided PCB layout was created with Kicad , a free
open source schematic and PCB drafting program. Its available for both
windows and linux, the image below is a 3D (enlarged) view of the
component side. The copper layer (solder side) is the dark green layer on
the bottom of the board.
The top view (component side) of the PCB board is shown below. This is
without the 3D components, the silk screen (drawings on the component
side) allow for size of physical components.
The image below is an actual size (1:1) copy of the copper layer. Note that
this is reverse so the veropins appear now on the left hand side at the top.
Remember that this is the lower (solder) side, by viewing the top image
you should be able to match up the positions of all components.
Finally you may not like my layout and prefer to create your own. The
follwing am_rec.zip le, contains the schematic, component list and
pcbnew diagram in one convenient zip le.
Download all les for kicad am_rec.zip
More Construction Tips
The following tips come from Austin Hellier in Queensland, Australia and
may assist with building this project. Generally speaking, matrix board
construction (spread out a bit) seems best. Recently, when I ran out of it, I
was forced to use an 8 x 2 way tag strip arrangement, which suered from
several problems. Feedback howls and 'motorboating' were prominent
until I moved the tuning coil and capacitor apart, but even then, there
were still some feedback problems, as I also used a 100k 'A' tapered pot
as the feedback control. I think that there's probably too much stray
capacitance with this method of construction. also, some of the longer
(180mm) ferrite rods of better quality material, seem to cause this
overloading, as they tend to generate a larger, more powerful EM eld
around the rod. Smaller rods will probably work better with the more
compact plastic boxes or cases that constructers tend to use.
More of Austin's radio work can be seen in my RF Pics section in the
Practical Pages.
Reducing C1 from a 0.1uF cap to a smaller 0.047uF cap helped a lot, but
the nal 'xit' occurred with the placement of the removed 0.1uF cap
across the c and e terminals of transistor Q2. These and the above
methods have allowed me to x the two most recent AM receivers that I
made last week, with no residual side eects at all. Both units can receive
ten out of eleven local AM stations here in Brisbane, Queensland,
Australia, and with all parts new, cost around $12 to $15 AUD, depending
on which shops you buy them at.
When I was down south in Wollongong some years ago, I made up my
very rst 'AM Receiver' cct, and picked up stations 1ZB and 2ZB, across the
Tasman in New Zealand! If I use this circuit with a loop antenna of any
appreciable size, I can also pick up 4RK up in Rockhampton (I live in
Brisbane myself,) and 531 AM, a NSW radio station down near Cos
Harbour - quite a few kilometres in either direction. Station frequencies
and locations for Brisbane and the rest of Queensland can be found at
www.ausradiostations.com .
Austin's Homepage also has some nice radio projects.
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