I guess I am bringing this thread back from the dead...
After eyeing this kit for the last three years, I finally picked one up this year at the 2009 Dayton Hamvention. I was there as a vendor, so my buying time was limited (not to mention buying money with our lousy sales this year) and I had to make a quick decision on the last kit they had on hand. I stuck a cash deal for about $20 less than the sticker price.
I am not a stranger to kits. I love them and love building one when I have the time and money. Normally, I rush through a kit to get it built and enjoy, but I took my time with this one, stretching the build job over about a week. About an hour a night, just going slow with it. Someone mentioned or implied that proper soldering was a lost art and that you have to be old to get it right. I beg to differ, I am 28 and I have been soldering since I was 10. I can solder just about anything you put in front of me, including SMT parts down to 0603 size WITHOUT a scope or loupe. I do it professionally now as a tech for NASA.
My inital reactions to the kit is mixed. It went together well, they did a good job with the manual. The first thing that got me was two caps that are refferenced were not in the kit. I decided to mark these down and continue on. At the end of the kit, I had two 0.1uF caps left over. I assumed these were replacements for the originally spec'ed 22nF caps and I installed them. Big mistake? Maybe, we'll see.
Alignment was not as simple as they make it seem. They claim you can simply align it with a DMM and on-air signal. Yeah right. To PROPERLY do this, you really need a signal generator in addition to a DMM. The DMM is a good start on the VCO, but the signal generator is really handy in getting the RX cap aligned. Also, the tuning tool included doesn't fit the RX cap. It fits the audio adjustment can, but that is so stiff that it spirals the tip. I found myself looking for tuning tools in my personal kit. They claim a RX sens of about 0.1uV, but I found the best I could get was about 0.25uV, not bad, but not great either. The audio tuning was tough too. I had to generate a pretty stout tone into the receiver to really get it adjusted to where it was pleasing to the ear.
Once I managed to get it aligned, the best I could, I tried to listen to some short on-air transmissions. First off, the internal front speaker SUCKS. It's tinny and just really hisses at you when you are receiving anything. An external speaker is a must. Maybe this is why the audio adjusting was such a pain. I might go back and try to re-do that part with an external speaker.
I have the receiver sitting on top of my old BC780 on my desk at work. We have quite a bit of air traffic, so I was excited to get this receiver. So far, it works, but not as well as I had hoped for a dedicated air receiver...especially at a price tag of $200.
Has anyone since this thread started also built thsi kit? What are your reactions?