Scratchbuilding an AM receiver--maybe a replica TR-1?

Hey Everybody,

I'm a computer science student doing the dreaded "today you know nothing about electricity. In 3 months you must be able to build a computer from the transistor level up" class. Anyway, the one redeeming thing about this class is that we get a very open-ended choice for our final project. I figured building a transistor receiver would address the tech in the course while being a boilerplate enough project that the hazards of pure experimentation would be minimized.

Since I enjoy technological history, I thought maybe building a device electronically equivalent to the Regency TR-1 (the first handheld transistor radio ever) would be cool. I found an awesome tech manual for the device here: http://www.regencytr1.com/images/TR-1_tech_serv_man.pdf and couldn't believe my luck when a full circuit diagram was in the back. (Anybody take a look at the wordless 3-page 'manual' that came with their ipods lately? Things have changed a lot.)

I haven't asked extensively yet, but I'm pretty sure that building from kits will be disallowed. That said, I already cleared the idea of a transistor radio with my prof as a potential project, soo....time to investigate. I really found this video helpful: ... since the builder did a good deal of research and improvement on the initial design after encountering problems and documented his work with links.

At the moment I'm looking for the best resources and advice I can muster before really planning this project out. I'm especially interested in knowing if anybody's done a 'replica' TR-1 and/or what challenges are involved in such a project. Regardless, any and all newbie radio-builder advice is hereby solicited.

Cheers,

Brian

 

Why's that? What's changed so much that I can't do a prototype board build of this sort?

 

Awww..that sucks. Thanks for the info, though. I won't even ask if it's just possible to supplant period electronics for modern parts.

 

Thanks for all the input, guys. I'm really impressed with the feedback.

As far as course expectations are concerned, that's actually what were were more or less told in the first lecture. I know it's a silly impractical thing build a computer with such simple equipment, and the prof added that it wouldn't be a very good computer, but....it's one of those courses. I wouldn't be surprised if the pedagogical sentiment was "They're not going to learn anything more about electrical engineering after this credit, so just stuff everything there is to know in there!". Even our prof was depressed and apologetic about how hard this course is going to be.

I'm somewhat enamored about the idea of building from a kit, but I'll have to see how acceptable that will be and how much "design" I'll be required to input myself. I can solder just fine and have done lots of kits in the past, have my own equipment, etc., so that's not a problem.

Can anybody recommend a good transistor radio kit to build from? I'd like to not make any purchasing mistakes given the loss of time and money that buying a bad one could produce.