00A Tube Regenerative Receiver

By Andre Adrian, DL1ADR The very first regenerative receivers (regenrx) from the 1910s were build with gas-filled detector tubes. The last of this kind was the RCA 00A triode or Cunningham CX300A with UX-4 socket. The plate voltage was 45 volts maximum. Production of the 00A started in 1926. Up to 1929 the tube was used for new receivers. Today you can still get the 00A tube and it still makes a good one tube regenrx for the short wave 49 to 41 meter band. I use a 1.5m (5 feet) wire antenna that is placed indoors near the window. A longer antenna weakens the resonant circuit and does not work. The copper tubes of the central heating are used as earth. The radio uses the Schnell regenerative circuit. One end of the tickler coil L1C is connected to ground, the other end is connected via capacitor C3 to the plate. Amount of feedback is controlled via R1. The inductance of the windings L1A and L1B is 22 Micro Henry (22H). Together with a 30 Pico Farads (30pF) variable capacitor C1 you can tune between 5800 kilo Hertz (5800kHz) and 7500kHz. The antenna is coupled direct to the resonant circuit. The 00A tube has a high grid to plate capacitance. The grid capacitor C2 is connected to a tap of the resonant circuit coil to have a weak coupling between LC circuit and tube. Resistor R2 weakens unwanted oscillations from the tube internal capacitances and parts of L1. Because of the tube's gas filling a grid leak resistor is not needed. The plate is connected via radio frequency choke L2 and primary coil of transformer TR1 to the positive pole of the B battery. Four 9V transistor blocks are used for 36V plate voltage. A walk-man earphone is connected to the secondary coil of TR1. An audio frequency low pass filter is build with C4, R2, TR1 primary coil inductance, secondary coil inductance and C5. Edge frequency is 5kHz, Version: 27sep2009 Page 1 of 3 see www.andreadrian.de/sdr for more

attenuation is 12dB per octave. As A battery I use 4 NiMH storage batteries size AA to get the 5V filament voltage. The filament voltage should not drop below 4.5V. The regenrx circuit was invented by the US radio amateur F. H. Schnell, 1MO, from Hartford, Connecticut. Instead of the original feedback control via variable capacitor a potentiometer is used. The circuit is a short wave band optimised variation of the Meissner or Armstrong circuit. The German Grundig Heinzelmann W regenrx kit from 1946 used a potentiometer to control feedback, too. The 00A tube is bulb shaped and looks very pretty if the thoriated tungsten filament glows bright yellow. With this radio you get something nice for your ears and your eyes. On the picture left you see the variable capacitor C1 with reduction gear top left. Top right are the two 9V batteries. Left on the breadboard the purple ring is the inductance L1. Below L1 you see the potentiometer R1. The tube CX300A glows in the middle. Right of the tube the little black cube is the audio transformer TR1. Filament batteries are below TR1. A very helpful reading in developing this circuit was regenerative receivers past & present by Charles Kitchin, N1TEV. The German page www.trommeltier.de presents many tube regenrx circuits. Parts C1 C4 C5 L1 L2 R1 R2 SP1 TR1 30pF variable capacitor 10nF capacitor 2.2F capacitor (Wima MKS-2) Ferroxcube TN14/9/5 4C65 ferrite ring. One coil with 30 windings with taps after 10 windings and 20 windings. 33mH Fastron Type 11P inductance 10k potentiometer 100 resistor Walk-man earphones 2 * 32 connected parallel (I use AKG K313) NFU 1-10 audio transformer 1:10. LPRI = 920mH, LSEC = 9.2mH C2, C3 1nF mica or ceramic capacitor Description

Real radios glow in the dark.

Version: 27sep2009

Page 2 of 3

see www.andreadrian.de/sdr for more

Today you have problems to find a 30pF variable capacitor with reduction gear. If you allow yourself to mix old and new, you can replace C1 with a capacitance diode. I use the Schottky diode SB1100. The SMD diode BBY40 works fine, too. Potentiometers R4 and R5 provide the voltage for D1. Resistor R6 decouples the resonant circuit D1, C1, L1A, L1B from the voltage source. This regenerative radio uses tricks to improve the radio frequency amplifier. To understand these tricks, you have to look at the tube model. Our model is very simple, for example it does not include the grid diode. The amplifying part of the tube is a voltage controlled voltage generator drawn as two circles. The three connectors A, G, K are anode (plate), grid and cathode (filament). The gas filling creates the resistor Rg with say 10 Mega ohms. The data sheet tells the values of tube internal capacities Cgk, Cga and Cak. The amplifying part is controlled by the amplification factor of 20 and the plate resistance of 30k. Resistor Ra, capacitance Cga and the inverting amplifier create together a Miller integrator. If the input voltage at G jumps up for say 1mV, the output voltage at A can not jump down immediately because the electric charge in Cga has to change. The current that flows into Cga to change the electric charge can come from connector G, from connector A or from the internal voltage generator. In a RF circuit every input connector is an output connector, too. The capacities Cga, C2, C3, the inductors L1B, L1C and the resistor R2 form a resonant circuit. R2 weakens this LC circuit and avoids that our regenrx oscillates on two frequencies. The Miller effect describes what happens if an impedance (a resistor, a capacitor or an inductor) is connected between amplifier output and input. An inductor can start oscillation. The old hams used to say: everything oscillates, except the oscillator. The RF choke L2 influences via Cga the input of the amplifier. The bandwidth of the amplifier gets larger, but the input impedance of the amplifier gets smaller. Because the amplifier has a low input impedance the grid is connected to a tap of the resonant circuit C1, L1A, L1B. L1A and L1B form an autotransformer. Primary winding is L1A and L1B together, secondary winding is L1B only. The winding ratio of the autotransformer is 2:1, the impedance transforming is 4:1.

Version: 27sep2009

Page 3 of 3

see www.andreadrian.de/sdr for more