Are Walkman radios superhets?

I wonder if the walkman type AM/FM radios are superhets. I took one apart and could not find any IF transformers. Same would apply to 400 MHz FRS band walkie talkies. I could not find a schematic.

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Reply to
Cass Lewart
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Not really my field but...

They are sure to be superhet if not double superhet. They may not use wound components in the IF filter see IF filter on this page...

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Reply to
CWatters

I've answered this thread elsewhere, months ago.

Certainly, those cheap FM only two button radios use a variant on the Phillips TDA7000, ie a conversion to a very low IF frequency where an active filter supplies the IF selectivity.

And it's slightly possible that some cheap AM radios use the later variant on the old Plessey ZN414 (I think I got the prefix wrong) TRF IC. Certainly, in the Phillips datasheet for the IC (I forget the number offhand, something like a 7088) in those two button radios, they show in one schematic circuitry for an AM section, and it's something like those TRF ICs. Certainly, they must be used somewhere, since they are being made.

I have no idea if such schemes are actually being used in "Walkmans" though if they are, likely it's limited to the cheap ones.

I've opened up recent tiny cellphones, and hardly any of it is recognizeable, let alone reusable. I suspect that's the case in FRS radios. In the old 49MHz superhet walkie talkies, they had fairly decent receivers; certainly they were the same basic scheme used in a lot of low deviation FM receivers, dual conversion with a wide ceramic filter at 10.7MHz and a ceramic filter at 455KHz. I can't see them going to something inferior as they move up in frequency, especially considering the FRS tend to be more expensive. It's just that they use surface mount to make manufacturing cheap, and once something becomes surface mount it's not nearly as identifiable as those big green or orange filters of days gone by.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Black

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