[NLRS] Poundshop FM radios at Dollar Tree

[Doug Reed]

<http://www.hanssummers.com/poundshop.html>
I remember seeing articles about this cheap FM radio early this year and 
being surprised that anyone managed to turn a $1 FM radio into a 40M CW 
receiver. At the time we were doing a little email about using the 24GHz 
Gunnplexers to make simple WBFM rigs for the 10GHz & Up contests.

One of the standard problems with using the Gunnplexers is always the 
30MHz WBFM IF receiver. If you go looking in the old info, you will see 
that designs using the TDA7000 chip were common but not many people ever 
got them working.

I was at the Dollar Tree store in White Bear (Cty Rd E & Hwy 120) 
yesterday and found they had a supply of the little auto-tune FM radios 
back in stock again. I bought one and opened it up this morning. It has 
a SC1088 FM receiver chip, which is a clone of the TDA7088 chip, which 
is a newer relative of the TDA7000.

So take a $1 radio and change a cap on the PCB to move it down to 30MHz 
as a Gunnplexor IF receiver. Or follow one of the other articles on the 
web to make it a 40M CW receiver or anything else you can figure out. 
The various data sheets I've found would also give enough info to modify 
the unit for fixed or mechanical tuning and AFC if you wanted to operate 
that way....

The other interesting thing is that I didn't see a frequency spec on the 
data sheet. It will probably handle 50MHz wouldn't it..... 50MHz CW?

If you go looking for one of these receivers, you should look for two or 
three buttons. One is RESET, one is SCAN, the other is a flashlight. If 
you are lucky it also has a volume control.

Beats the heck out of trying to build the TDA7000 receiver from 
scratch.... May not be as good as the Ramsey 10M FM receiver modified 
for crystal control, but it is at least $40 cheaper. :-)

The HansSummer web site has another page about the "SuperDRG" AM-SW 
portable radio that often sells in the $10 range and various mods you 
can make to it. What is interesting about this radio is the 4-digit 
frequency counter it uses for a display and with various mods for CW & 
SSB from 20M and down. I haven't read that article in depth and haven't 
checked the local stores to see if I could find anything like it....

73, Doug Reed, N0NAS.