Anyway I got started;
http://i57.tinypic.com/244tef6.jpgFirst I wired up the pots, ideally the connections in this sort of stuff should be short, to prevent everything acting as an antenna. Plus it's so much easier to design a circuit when half the shit doesn't need to be on the board. Cover it in some heatshrink if you care.
I started on the board but it's terrible and I'm ashamed at it. If it doesn't work, I'll etch a board tonight. I beefed up some of the shitty protoboard tracks with some extra wire (it's now a 1mm thick ground wire lol). I'm hoping it works but I suspect it won't work first shot or at all even assuming everything is wired up right. At least with an etched board I can be sure of connections...
http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~pharden/hobby/HG-MANHAT2.pdfHere is another link with some good stuff. The dude who wrote it seems to do homebrew stuff and also works on the VLA with some "high frequency" stuff(gigahertz).
I'll probably just use this thread for whatever I find, I'm looking for some info on coil winding. From what I can gather(a small clue in that aoc link), it varies the frequency it oscillates at by increasing or decreasing the return path. I guess less turns = higher oscillation speed and more turns = lower oscillation(since electrons still take time to flow around the circuit)
Next up I placed the pots in the box;
http://i59.tinypic.com/30ayxix.jpgThe big air-variable cap dwarfs the rest, I forget the specs but I suspect it is too big for this circuit(appears to be 7-320pF which should be enough). Top right is the volume control with the diode-cap-resistor chain going between the two. Below that is the regen control, an the other one is the optional "fine tuning" control. A lot of messing around can be saved by soldering the parts directly to each other, reducing board clutter and the number of required wires. Battery negative is soldered directly to the variable capacitor, and other grounds from the pots soldered either directly or indirectly to that, to reduce the number of wires.
Next up will be the circuit board, take 4. It'll probably be up tomorrow or later on tonight, depending on how I feel. I'm not going to etch a board anymore, i'll just hope for it to work with this protoboard now that I have a solid layout and a better idea of wtf to do with it.
