On 11/23/2014 09:37 AM, DhiaDuit wrote:
On Sunday, November 23, 2014 4:16:05 AM UTC-6, dxAce wrote:
DhiaDuit wrote:
Gift for Christmas used to be a transistor radio. See that article
at Headline News Stories 24/7 at www.rense.com

I recall my very first radio. It was some sort of crystal set shaped
like a rocket. No battery required. I got it when I was 3-4 years old
(and living in Ft. Wayne, IN). It was some sort of cereal promo as I
recall. That must have been 1956-57.

A few of my friends had them when I was in grade school. Alligator
clip for an antenna connection - I thought it weird that many would
clip it to a heating radiator - and an adjusting rod that must have
been attached to a ferrite core in the antenna coil.

Back in the 1950s my mom and dad gave myself and one of my sisters a
Motorola transistor radio. Those two radios were identical models of
radios. They had a big tuning knob on them and a carrying strap/shoulder
strap. A year or two before that I had ordered a little transistor radio
from a radio company in Kearney, Nebraska. That little radio (I think
it had two transistors in it) wasen't worth a durn for picking up long
distance radio stations. That little (Kearney, Nebraska) radio used to
be advertized in magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Popular Science
and Mechanix Illustrated and Science and Mechanics classifieds ads.
I believe a simple 'foxhole crystal radio would have worked much better.

Interesting that you mention it. I believe the name may have
been Western Radio (later Western Manufacturing).

Turns out, and I just recently found an article about it, that
a member of the Beshore family in Kearney started the operation -
I suppose in their basement or garage - and it grew from there.
It started with the "Tiny Tone" crystal radio in 1933. When
I was very young we lived a block west of the Beshores, probably
the family of one of the brothers mentioned in that article as
being involved in the operation.

If you go to this locatioon (a book index at the local
historical society site),

http://www.bchs.us/buffalo_tales.htm ,

there's a link - see Volume 13, Issue 10 of Buffalo Tales.

It was a few years after we moved away that I started
reading magazines like Popular Science and first saw the
ads, typically in the classified section at the very back.

George

Direct conversion is all the rage these days. Or Direct conversion to
I/Q quadrature directly into a DSP. A crystal radio is direct conversion
so I guess we are back where we started (except now we have the DSP).

On 11/28/2014 11:42 PM, GCornelius wrote:
On 11/23/2014 09:37 AM, DhiaDuit wrote:
On Sunday, November 23, 2014 4:16:05 AM UTC-6, dxAce wrote:
DhiaDuit wrote:
Gift for Christmas used to be a transistor radio. See that article
at Headline News Stories 24/7 at www.rense.com

I recall my very first radio. It was some sort of crystal set shaped
like a rocket. No battery required. I got it when I was 3-4 years old
(and living in Ft. Wayne, IN). It was some sort of cereal promo as I
recall. That must have been 1956-57.

A few of my friends had them when I was in grade school. Alligator
clip for an antenna connection - I thought it weird that many would
clip it to a heating radiator - and an adjusting rod that must have
been attached to a ferrite core in the antenna coil.

Back in the 1950s my mom and dad gave myself and one of my sisters a
Motorola transistor radio. Those two radios were identical models of
radios. They had a big tuning knob on them and a carrying strap/shoulder
strap. A year or two before that I had ordered a little transistor radio
from a radio company in Kearney, Nebraska. That little radio (I think
it had two transistors in it) wasen't worth a durn for picking up long
distance radio stations. That little (Kearney, Nebraska) radio used to
be advertized in magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Popular Science
and Mechanix Illustrated and Science and Mechanics classifieds ads.
I believe a simple 'foxhole crystal radio would have worked much better.

Interesting that you mention it. I believe the name may have
been Western Radio (later Western Manufacturing).

Turns out, and I just recently found an article about it, that
a member of the Beshore family in Kearney started the operation -
I suppose in their basement or garage - and it grew from there.
It started with the "Tiny Tone" crystal radio in 1933. When
I was very young we lived a block west of the Beshores, probably
the family of one of the brothers mentioned in that article as
being involved in the operation.

If you go to this locatioon (a book index at the local
historical society site),

http://www.bchs.us/buffalo_tales.htm ,

there's a link - see Volume 13, Issue 10 of Buffalo Tales.

It was a few years after we moved away that I started
reading magazines like Popular Science and first saw the
ads, typically in the classified section at the very back.

George

On Monday, December 1, 2014 8:32:45 AM UTC-6, dave wrote:
Direct conversion is all the rage these days. Or Direct conversion to
I/Q quadrature directly into a DSP. A crystal radio is direct conversion
so I guess we are back where we started (except now we have the DSP).

On 11/28/2014 11:42 PM, GCornelius wrote:
On 11/23/2014 09:37 AM, DhiaDuit wrote:
On Sunday, November 23, 2014 4:16:05 AM UTC-6, dxAce wrote:
DhiaDuit wrote:
Gift for Christmas used to be a transistor radio. See that article
at Headline News Stories 24/7 at www.rense.com

I recall my very first radio. It was some sort of crystal set shaped
like a rocket. No battery required. I got it when I was 3-4 years old
(and living in Ft. Wayne, IN). It was some sort of cereal promo as I
recall. That must have been 1956-57.

A few of my friends had them when I was in grade school. Alligator
clip for an antenna connection - I thought it weird that many would
clip it to a heating radiator - and an adjusting rod that must have
been attached to a ferrite core in the antenna coil.

Back in the 1950s my mom and dad gave myself and one of my sisters a
Motorola transistor radio. Those two radios were identical models of
radios. They had a big tuning knob on them and a carrying strap/shoulder
strap. A year or two before that I had ordered a little transistor radio
from a radio company in Kearney, Nebraska. That little radio (I think
it had two transistors in it) wasen't worth a durn for picking up long
distance radio stations. That little (Kearney, Nebraska) radio used to
be advertized in magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Popular Science
and Mechanix Illustrated and Science and Mechanics classifieds ads.
I believe a simple 'foxhole crystal radio would have worked much better.

Interesting that you mention it. I believe the name may have
been Western Radio (later Western Manufacturing).

Turns out, and I just recently found an article about it, that
a member of the Beshore family in Kearney started the operation -
I suppose in their basement or garage - and it grew from there.
It started with the "Tiny Tone" crystal radio in 1933. When
I was very young we lived a block west of the Beshores, probably
the family of one of the brothers mentioned in that article as
being involved in the operation.

If you go to this locatioon (a book index at the local
historical society site),

http://www.bchs.us/buffalo_tales.htm ,

there's a link - see Volume 13, Issue 10 of Buffalo Tales.

It was a few years after we moved away that I started
reading magazines like Popular Science and first saw the
ads, typically in the classified section at the very back.

George

Google,,, Chromebook XMBC Synology Youtube Doggy and I want to know the name of that song that woman is singing in the background. If you can find it, I will dance at your wedding.

On Monday, December 1, 2014 6:32:45 AM UTC-8, dave wrote:
Direct conversion is all the rage these days. Or Direct conversion to
I/Q quadrature directly into a DSP. A crystal radio is direct conversion
so I guess we are back where we started (except now we have the DSP).

I guess you could call it a radio-by-numbers kit.

On 11/28/2014 11:42 PM, GCornelius wrote:
On 11/23/2014 09:37 AM, DhiaDuit wrote:
On Sunday, November 23, 2014 4:16:05 AM UTC-6, dxAce wrote:
DhiaDuit wrote:
Gift for Christmas used to be a transistor radio. See that article
at Headline News Stories 24/7 at www.rense.com

I recall my very first radio. It was some sort of crystal set shaped
like a rocket. No battery required. I got it when I was 3-4 years old
(and living in Ft. Wayne, IN). It was some sort of cereal promo as I
recall. That must have been 1956-57.

A few of my friends had them when I was in grade school. Alligator
clip for an antenna connection - I thought it weird that many would
clip it to a heating radiator - and an adjusting rod that must have
been attached to a ferrite core in the antenna coil.

Back in the 1950s my mom and dad gave myself and one of my sisters a
Motorola transistor radio. Those two radios were identical models of
radios. They had a big tuning knob on them and a carrying strap/shoulder
strap. A year or two before that I had ordered a little transistor radio
from a radio company in Kearney, Nebraska. That little radio (I think
it had two transistors in it) wasen't worth a durn for picking up long
distance radio stations. That little (Kearney, Nebraska) radio used to
be advertized in magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Popular Science
and Mechanix Illustrated and Science and Mechanics classifieds ads.
I believe a simple 'foxhole crystal radio would have worked much better.

Interesting that you mention it. I believe the name may have
been Western Radio (later Western Manufacturing).

Turns out, and I just recently found an article about it, that
a member of the Beshore family in Kearney started the operation -
I suppose in their basement or garage - and it grew from there.
It started with the "Tiny Tone" crystal radio in 1933. When
I was very young we lived a block west of the Beshores, probably
the family of one of the brothers mentioned in that article as
being involved in the operation.

If you go to this locatioon (a book index at the local
historical society site),

http://www.bchs.us/buffalo_tales.htm ,

there's a link - see Volume 13, Issue 10 of Buffalo Tales.

It was a few years after we moved away that I started
reading magazines like Popular Science and first saw the
ads, typically in the classified section at the very back.

George

On Monday, December 1, 2014 6:32:45 AM UTC-8, dave wrote:
Direct conversion is all the rage these days. Or Direct conversion to
I/Q quadrature directly into a DSP. A crystal radio is direct conversion
so I guess we are back where we started (except now we have the DSP).

How would you do quadrature at baseband? Two VCOs both digitally controlled and 90 degrees out of phase, or some witchcraft on the baseband signal itself?

-- ross


On 11/28/2014 11:42 PM, GCornelius wrote:
On 11/23/2014 09:37 AM, DhiaDuit wrote:
On Sunday, November 23, 2014 4:16:05 AM UTC-6, dxAce wrote:
DhiaDuit wrote:
Gift for Christmas used to be a transistor radio. See that article
at Headline News Stories 24/7 at www.rense.com

I recall my very first radio. It was some sort of crystal set shaped
like a rocket. No battery required. I got it when I was 3-4 years old
(and living in Ft. Wayne, IN). It was some sort of cereal promo as I
recall. That must have been 1956-57.

A few of my friends had them when I was in grade school. Alligator
clip for an antenna connection - I thought it weird that many would
clip it to a heating radiator - and an adjusting rod that must have
been attached to a ferrite core in the antenna coil.

Back in the 1950s my mom and dad gave myself and one of my sisters a
Motorola transistor radio. Those two radios were identical models of
radios. They had a big tuning knob on them and a carrying strap/shoulder
strap. A year or two before that I had ordered a little transistor radio
from a radio company in Kearney, Nebraska. That little radio (I think
it had two transistors in it) wasen't worth a durn for picking up long
distance radio stations. That little (Kearney, Nebraska) radio used to
be advertized in magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Popular Science
and Mechanix Illustrated and Science and Mechanics classifieds ads.
I believe a simple 'foxhole crystal radio would have worked much better.

Interesting that you mention it. I believe the name may have
been Western Radio (later Western Manufacturing).

Turns out, and I just recently found an article about it, that
a member of the Beshore family in Kearney started the operation -
I suppose in their basement or garage - and it grew from there.
It started with the "Tiny Tone" crystal radio in 1933. When
I was very young we lived a block west of the Beshores, probably
the family of one of the brothers mentioned in that article as
being involved in the operation.

If you go to this locatioon (a book index at the local
historical society site),

http://www.bchs.us/buffalo_tales.htm ,

there's a link - see Volume 13, Issue 10 of Buffalo Tales.

It was a few years after we moved away that I started
reading magazines like Popular Science and first saw the
ads, typically in the classified section at the very back.

George

On Mon, 1 Dec 2014, Ross Archer wrote:

On Monday, December 1, 2014 6:32:45 AM UTC-8, dave wrote:
Direct conversion is all the rage these days. Or Direct conversion to
I/Q quadrature directly into a DSP. A crystal radio is direct conversion
so I guess we are back where we started (except now we have the DSP).

How would you do quadrature at baseband? Two VCOs both digitally
controlled and 90 degrees out of phase, or some witchcraft on the
baseband signal itself?

I think his wording is throwing you off.

If they just convert to audio, there's now way to get rid of the audio
image. All the digital filtering in the world can't get rid of it,
because it's in the same area as the wanted signal.

If you convert with two mixers and an oscillator with two outputs, 90
degrees apart, you get two audio channels. The digital processing can
make use of that, and knock out the unwanted image.

It's just a more modern version of the phasing method of sideband
rejection (once upon a time common in SSB transmitters, and often used as
external devices to improve sideband reception on existing receivers when
SSB was new.

But instead of an audio phasing network after the two mixers (which is
what was used in all those sideband slicers in the fifties), digital audio
processing takes care of the audio phase network and can do a lot more.

What sometimes happens is they use the same scheme, but convert to a very
low IF. There, the two channels are used to get rid of the RF image, which
is relatively close to the signal since the IF is often below 100KHz, but
somewhere above audio.

Michael

On Mon, 1 Dec 2014, dave wrote:

Direct conversion is all the rage these days. Or Direct conversion to I/Q
quadrature directly into a DSP. A crystal radio is direct conversion so I
guess we are back where we started (except now we have the DSP).

No, a crystal radio is not direct conversion, not in the sense that we
came to know it.

WIth a crystal radio, the front end selectivity (and there usually isn't
much of it) is what determines selectivity. In reality you could have two
or more local signals, all about the same level, and they'd ride through
that front end filter, and land at audio. There is nothing you can do
then to get rid of the unwanted signals, except improve the front end
selectivity. The carriers of each station are mixing with the sidebands
and putting signals into the "baseband", ie audio. Since they exist in
the same audio space, they can't be eliminated.

A direct conversion radio actually uses a local oscillator to convert a
signal down to audio. That local oscillator will be much stronger than
any of the incoming signals, so it can dominate. That means that the
front end selecitivty doesnt' matter so much. You have a station on
1000KHz, and set the BFO there. The BFO in effect "captures" things, so
that signal on 1000KHz will dominate. If there's a signal at 1010KHz
that's also strong (not likely since adjacent channels aren't allocated
locally), the BFO at 1000KHz will convert the adjacent signal to "audio"
too, except since it's 10KHz away from the wanted signal, it will start at
10KHz rather than 0KHz. Above audio range for many people, if it's a
bother one can put a low pass filter after the mixer so the unwanted
signal will be well attenuated. Same thing happens on the audio image, the
unwanted signal at 990KHz will be out of audio range once converted to
audio. (Note that this works since AM broadcast channels are 10KHz apart,
if the signal was closer, it would translate to audible audio and be a
nuisance, and you'd never be able to get rid of it with a simple mixer and
audio filter).

And it goes on, up and down from 1000KHz. The front end selectivity has
little effect, audio selectivity can knock out unwanted signals. There
was that wave of "build your own AM receiver from a PLL" articles forty
years ago, and they all had little or no front end selectivity, yet were
selective because of this. A crystal radio would receive multiple signals
with little or no front end selectivity.

Michael

On Tuesday, December 2, 2014 1:29:02 PM UTC-6, Michael Black wrote:
On Mon, 1 Dec 2014, dave wrote:

Direct conversion is all the rage these days. Or Direct conversion to I/Q
quadrature directly into a DSP. A crystal radio is direct conversion so I
guess we are back where we started (except now we have the DSP).

No, a crystal radio is not direct conversion, not in the sense that we
came to know it.

WIth a crystal radio, the front end selectivity (and there usually isn't
much of it) is what determines selectivity. In reality you could have two
or more local signals, all about the same level, and they'd ride through
that front end filter, and land at audio. There is nothing you can do
then to get rid of the unwanted signals, except improve the front end
selectivity. The carriers of each station are mixing with the sidebands
and putting signals into the "baseband", ie audio. Since they exist in
the same audio space, they can't be eliminated.

A direct conversion radio actually uses a local oscillator to convert a
signal down to audio. That local oscillator will be much stronger than
any of the incoming signals, so it can dominate. That means that the
front end selecitivty doesnt' matter so much. You have a station on
1000KHz, and set the BFO there. The BFO in effect "captures" things, so
that signal on 1000KHz will dominate. If there's a signal at 1010KHz
that's also strong (not likely since adjacent channels aren't allocated
locally), the BFO at 1000KHz will convert the adjacent signal to "audio"
too, except since it's 10KHz away from the wanted signal, it will start at
10KHz rather than 0KHz. Above audio range for many people, if it's a
bother one can put a low pass filter after the mixer so the unwanted
signal will be well attenuated. Same thing happens on the audio image, the
unwanted signal at 990KHz will be out of audio range once converted to
audio. (Note that this works since AM broadcast channels are 10KHz apart,
if the signal was closer, it would translate to audible audio and be a
nuisance, and you'd never be able to get rid of it with a simple mixer and
audio filter).

And it goes on, up and down from 1000KHz. The front end selectivity has
little effect, audio selectivity can knock out unwanted signals. There
was that wave of "build your own AM receiver from a PLL" articles forty
years ago, and they all had little or no front end selectivity, yet were
selective because of this. A crystal radio would receive multiple signals
with little or no front end selectivity.

Michael

HUMPH! A short while ago Sheppard Smith on FALSE TV news said he remembers when there was just one phone company and that was not good, and that blonde woman said Ma Bell. I remember back in 1949 we had Southern Bell and that was the Very Best phone company. I told y'all before some TV news LIE. HUMPH!

On 12/02/2014 11:29 AM, Michael Black wrote:
On Mon, 1 Dec 2014, dave wrote:

Direct conversion is all the rage these days. Or Direct conversion to
I/Q quadrature directly into a DSP. A crystal radio is direct
conversion so I guess we are back where we started (except now we have
the DSP).

No, a crystal radio is not direct conversion, not in the sense that we
came to know it.

WIth a crystal radio, the front end selectivity (and there usually isn't
much of it) is what determines selectivity. In reality you could have two
or more local signals, all about the same level, and they'd ride through
that front end filter, and land at audio. There is nothing you can do
then to get rid of the unwanted signals, except improve the front end
selectivity. The carriers of each station are mixing with the sidebands
and putting signals into the "baseband", ie audio. Since they exist in
the same audio space, they can't be eliminated.

A direct conversion radio actually uses a local oscillator to convert a
signal down to audio. That local oscillator will be much stronger than
any of the incoming signals, so it can dominate. That means that the
front end selecitivty doesnt' matter so much. You have a station on
1000KHz, and set the BFO there. The BFO in effect "captures" things, so
that signal on 1000KHz will dominate. If there's a signal at 1010KHz
that's also strong (not likely since adjacent channels aren't allocated
locally), the BFO at 1000KHz will convert the adjacent signal to "audio"
too, except since it's 10KHz away from the wanted signal, it will start
at 10KHz rather than 0KHz. Above audio range for many people, if it's a
bother one can put a low pass filter after the mixer so the unwanted
signal will be well attenuated. Same thing happens on the audio image,
the unwanted signal at 990KHz will be out of audio range once converted
to audio. (Note that this works since AM broadcast channels are 10KHz
apart, if the signal was closer, it would translate to audible audio and
be a nuisance, and you'd never be able to get rid of it with a simple
mixer and audio filter).

And it goes on, up and down from 1000KHz. The front end selectivity has
little effect, audio selectivity can knock out unwanted signals. There
was that wave of "build your own AM receiver from a PLL" articles forty
years ago, and they all had little or no front end selectivity, yet were
selective because of this. A crystal radio would receive multiple
signals with little or no front end selectivity.

Michael

If you have an LO on freq how much gain can there be in the front end?
I have heard these on YouTube and they compete with Regenerative as the
most annoying radios ever built. Here's a chip that uses one analog
mixer at 70 mHz. There are others for TV tuners that span a GHz or more.
You can directly inject RF voltage of virtually any frequency into a
chip like this and get intelligence out, with a minimal parts count. Are
you saying the tiny radios today use monodyne architecture?

On 12/02/2014 11:29 AM, Michael Black wrote:
On Mon, 1 Dec 2014, dave wrote:


http://www.altera.com/products/ip/ds...ig-if-rec.html

sorry.