Regenerative Receivers http://www.techlib.com/electronics/regen.

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Regenerative Receivers
Regenerative receivers provide a surprising level of performance with only a handful of components.
They excel at receiving amplitude modulated signals from below the AM broadcast band up to the
higher short-wave bands above which the superregenerative detector becomes the better choice.
Many designs for regenerative receivers are available and most will do a fine job. The regen is basically
an oscillator circuit with a gain control that allows the user to adjust the feedback to a point just below
oscillation or, quite often, just above the critical level such that a small oscillation is present. The
typical regen uses a tapped coil or additional windings to connect into the tuning tank and the tuning
capacitor provides the total tank capacitance. The advantage to this approach is that the tuning
range is maximized since there are no fixed capacitors contributing to the tank. The disadvantage is
that special, hand-made coils are required. The regens shown below use capacitive taps to achieve
the required feedback and, as would be expected, the tuning range is restricted to about two to one.
For example, the AM broadcast band would require two inductors to tune, perhaps from 500kHz to 1MHz
and 900kHz MHz to 1.8MHz. This disadvantage really isn't all that important when one considers the
advantage of being able to use factory-made molded inductors! If a multi-band receiver is
constructed, there will be a couple more band switch positions. Actually, the lower tuning range makes
fine-tuning a little easier which is critical for achieving the maximum performance.

The basic receiver is shown below. The components are not critical and the values were pretty much
the first ones found on the bench that were near the "right" value so don't hesitate to experiment. The
transistor could be just about any small-signal NPN including the 2N4401, 2N3904, 2N2222, or others. The
audio output is fairly weak and will need an amplifier to drive headphones or a speaker. See the audio
amplifier page for suitable amps.

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The receiver was constructed on a piece of painted MDF (medium-density fiberboard). This material is
great for little projects like this and it is readily available from home improvement stores. Look for the
lumber with dull white primer and a very fine "grain". The solder connections were made with solder
lugs secured with 1/2" wood screws (see close-up). Predrilling the screw holes is recommended.

The inductor is the highest component in the close-up and it plugs into tiny sockets for experimentation.
This inductor could be selected with a double-pole multi-position switch for a multi-band receiver. A
220uHy will tune the lower part of the AM band from about 570kHz to 1.15Mhz, a 5.6uHy will tune from
about 3.5MHz to 7.5MHz and a 2.2uH will tune from about 5.6MHz to near 11.6MHz. For calculating
inductors, the effective tuning capacitance is from about 85pF to 370pF.

Another receiver was constructed with a single-stage audio amplifier suitable for driving sensitive
headphones or a crystal earphone:

The regen control was mounted using an ordinary right-angle bracket from the same home
improvement store. Just drill out one of the holes to accommodate the pot. The audio amp. does not
show a capacitor on the input because there is already one on the receiver's output. This amp is
nothing special and many substitutes are fine.

When the regen control is set too high, there will be a lot of squealing and whistling as the radio is
tuned. When it is set too low, there will be no sensitivity. There is no substitute for experience! After a
desired station is found, the regen control can be carefully advanced along with careful fine tuning to
get the best results. The regen is actually oscillating in this mode but it is synchronized to the signal. In
fact, with careful adjustment, a sinewave may be extracted from the collector of the oscillator

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transistor which is locked to the radio transmitter's frequency. I was able to get about 0.1ppm stability
from wwv and from local radio stations! When this poor man's frequency standard looses lock, the
speaker squeals out a warning!

Here are some enhancements from a reader:

Thanks for your great TechLib webpages!

I've built your regen receiver and was pleased with its performance. I've added a few "bells n' whistles"
which enhance its ease of use.

Mods include a bandspread cap, a fine regen control, a BCB Trap, and a simple multiband coil/switch
arrangement which allows it to tune most of the SW bands (2.5 - 20 MHz), using WWV signals at the ends
of each band (2.5, 5, 10, 20 MHz) in order to simplify "calibrating" the tuning cap/coil. An SPDT switch
simply selects the proper tap and shorts out unwanted coil turns for each band.

If you can use any of this info, feel free.

Thanks again, for a fun project.

Mike H.

Thanks Mike!

Official Digi-Key Site

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