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If you're a programming type guy, you might be into these:
open source rebel
open source patriot
I might pick up the second one after I pay off christmas..... haha

If you're a programming type guy, you might be into these:
open source rebel
open source patriot
I might pick up the second one after I pay off christmas..... haha

If you want to order a kit similar to a Heathkit right now this evening, try TenTec http://www.tentec.com/ Their kits are mostly radio related and the manuals aren't quite up to what I remember from Heathkit, but they are pretty good.

Or ....

Get yourself a best-of-class kit radio from Elecraft - K3 or K2 or one of their other kits. Or a cutting edge Open source High Performance Software Defined Radio from HPSDR and TAPR.

Get yourself a radio kit from Ten-Tec, or MFJ.

Or from Oak Hill Research, or Hendrick's QRP Kits, module kits from W8DIZ who also sells parts, or from various non-profit QRP groups selling kits from time to time, like NorCal QRP Club.

Get yourself a copy of Circuit Cellar or Nuts and Volts from the US, or Everyday Practical Electronics (EPE) and Elektor from Europe or Silicon Chip from Australia.

Heck, you can even get vacuum tube based kits still.

Forget it, just go buy a new chinese made mp3 player!

Wow, +4 Insightful for a parent Troll..

Ten-Tec has radio kits. The two regenerative shortwave receivers are fun. Vectronics also has some non-ham radio kits.

Or, for even cheaper ($350), Ten-Tec's RX-320D, with digital radio. Everything from DC to 30MHz (shortwave).

I've never used any of them, your milage may vary, etc.

Since we're talking about Software Defined Radio, I urge everyone with an interest in the subject to look at the GNU Radio project. They have designed a front end board using generic cable TV tuners feeding an FPGA to perform some initial processing, such as decimation and filtering. The data is then transferred over USB to the host, whose software performs the demodulation and decoding. It's a fascinating project and a great stepping stone into the field.

To really get started on SDR, check out the Ten-Tec RX320D shortwave receiver. It outputs a 12 kHz-wide IF signal from the front end to an audio jack, which can then be fed to a PC soundcard. There are a number of packages that can take this data and demodulate it, including DREAM, an open source DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) decoder which allows you to listen to the new digital shortwave transmission standard that many of the world's broadcasters are beginning to experiment with.

...and as long as TenTec continues to make same damn fine HF rigs... there'll still be HF here in the US at least.

I was interested in building a kit radio and had heard of a company called Elecraft. After checking their page today, seems they have open sourced their DSP source code used in some of their HF rigs. Users are free to modify the code and post to web site to share with other users.

They and TenTec are the last of American made and assmebled hame radio equipment makers left.

Wonder how this will spur interest in custom DSP desgined radios. There's also a link from the elecraft page to a samll and inexpensive DSP development platform.

73's

N2PDB

Yeah, funny you should mention that. Maybe these guys should get involved. Or maybe these instead. Software-defined radios have been built and marketed for hams for quite a while now.

I haven't seen one available for VHF/UHF until now. I'm sure someone will correct me though.

llamafresh

There is a lot of software for the Ten-Tec RX320 computer-controlled HF receiver. Ten-Tec openly publishes the commands needed to control the receiver, which is controlled by a 9600bps serial connection, and even some example source code. My favorite software is by Gerd Niephaus. It isn't flashy, but it sure is functional. And this radio is darned good, too.

There is a lot of software for the Ten-Tec RX320 computer-controlled HF receiver. Ten-Tec openly publishes the commands needed to control the receiver, which is controlled by a 9600bps serial connection, and even some example source code. My favorite software is by Gerd Niephaus. It isn't flashy, but it sure is functional. And this radio is darned good, too.

Whoops. It looks like tentec's web server is case sensitive. The correct URL for the schematics and programmers guide is http://www.tentec.com/RX320FTP/htm

TenTec has had a similar product out for quite awhile. The RX-320 has been out for a couple of years, and (IMHO) is a much better solution. The RX-320 is an external general coverage receiver that is completely DSP based. I've had one of these for a couple of years and love it. TenTec even publishes a complete "programmer's guide and schematic" on their website, which includes the entire spec for controlling the radio. Using this spec, I've written control programs in C, PHP, PDP-8 assembler, and am now working on one in PDP-11 assembler.
The RX-320 is encased in a steel box and seems to be fairly impervious to RF interference, at least in my environment. It also doesn't take up a slot inside the pc which could be used for other things.

TenTec has had a similar product out for quite awhile. The RX-320 has been out for a couple of years, and (IMHO) is a much better solution. The RX-320 is an external general coverage receiver that is completely DSP based. I've had one of these for a couple of years and love it. TenTec even publishes a complete "programmer's guide and schematic" on their website, which includes the entire spec for controlling the radio. Using this spec, I've written control programs in C, PHP, PDP-8 assembler, and am now working on one in PDP-11 assembler.
The RX-320 is encased in a steel box and seems to be fairly impervious to RF interference, at least in my environment. It also doesn't take up a slot inside the pc which could be used for other things.

TenTec has had a similar product out for quite awhile. The RX-320 has been out for a couple of years, and (IMHO) is a much better solution. The RX-320 is an external general coverage receiver that is completely DSP based. I've had one of these for a couple of years and love it. TenTec even publishes a complete "programmer's guide and schematic" on their website, which includes the entire spec for controlling the radio. Using this spec, I've written control programs in C, PHP, PDP-8 assembler, and am now working on one in PDP-11 assembler.
The RX-320 is encased in a steel box and seems to be fairly impervious to RF interference, at least in my environment. It also doesn't take up a slot inside the pc which could be used for other things.

Ten-Tec has some decent radio kits. For $24 you can get the 1054 which is a stripped-down regen shortwave receiver. For $69 you can get the 1253 which is a complete regen receiver. Either will provide decent listening to both ham and shortwave broadcast stations.

Ramsey kits are ok, but you need to read carefully. For example, they advertise kits like the SR2 with a photo of it in a case. The case is a $14.95 option and you still don't get a speaker.

As for building ease, I can't really comment. The only recent kit I've built is the Ramsey SR2. It was easy but time-consuming and a bit boring, as I've soldered thousands of components in my time.

Nuts & Volts magazine is a good source of ads for kits.

I'm not sure how much you can learn from one of these kits. They tend to not have much in the way of experimentation. You build the kit, play with it for an hour or two, then stash it on a shelf. If you're going to go the kit route, I would start with a simple blinking LED kit or something to learn soldering, then maybe a decent radio kit that you'll actually be able to use.

If you want to get the kids interested, I would go to Radio Shack and dig around in the back. There you will find some dusty books from the Engineer's Mini-Notebook line ($1.99). They have easy explanations, circuit diagrams, and lots of experiments to try. They don't make it trivial to find the parts and you'll be spending quite a bit of time prowling Radio Shack parts racks, but it's worth it. The kids will get to do some of the design work themselves.

Ten-Tec has some decent radio kits. For $24 you can get the 1054 which is a stripped-down regen shortwave receiver. For $69 you can get the 1253 which is a complete regen receiver. Either will provide decent listening to both ham and shortwave broadcast stations.

Ramsey kits are ok, but you need to read carefully. For example, they advertise kits like the SR2 with a photo of it in a case. The case is a $14.95 option and you still don't get a speaker.

As for building ease, I can't really comment. The only recent kit I've built is the Ramsey SR2. It was easy but time-consuming and a bit boring, as I've soldered thousands of components in my time.

Nuts & Volts magazine is a good source of ads for kits.

I'm not sure how much you can learn from one of these kits. They tend to not have much in the way of experimentation. You build the kit, play with it for an hour or two, then stash it on a shelf. If you're going to go the kit route, I would start with a simple blinking LED kit or something to learn soldering, then maybe a decent radio kit that you'll actually be able to use.

If you want to get the kids interested, I would go to Radio Shack and dig around in the back. There you will find some dusty books from the Engineer's Mini-Notebook line ($1.99). They have easy explanations, circuit diagrams, and lots of experiments to try. They don't make it trivial to find the parts and you'll be spending quite a bit of time prowling Radio Shack parts racks, but it's worth it. The kids will get to do some of the design work themselves.

Ten-Tec has some decent radio kits. For $24 you can get the 1054 which is a stripped-down regen shortwave receiver. For $69 you can get the 1253 which is a complete regen receiver. Either will provide decent listening to both ham and shortwave broadcast stations.

Ramsey kits are ok, but you need to read carefully. For example, they advertise kits like the SR2 with a photo of it in a case. The case is a $14.95 option and you still don't get a speaker.

As for building ease, I can't really comment. The only recent kit I've built is the Ramsey SR2. It was easy but time-consuming and a bit boring, as I've soldered thousands of components in my time.

Nuts & Volts magazine is a good source of ads for kits.

I'm not sure how much you can learn from one of these kits. They tend to not have much in the way of experimentation. You build the kit, play with it for an hour or two, then stash it on a shelf. If you're going to go the kit route, I would start with a simple blinking LED kit or something to learn soldering, then maybe a decent radio kit that you'll actually be able to use.

If you want to get the kids interested, I would go to Radio Shack and dig around in the back. There you will find some dusty books from the Engineer's Mini-Notebook line ($1.99). They have easy explanations, circuit diagrams, and lots of experiments to try. They don't make it trivial to find the parts and you'll be spending quite a bit of time prowling Radio Shack parts racks, but it's worth it. The kids will get to do some of the design work themselves.