Reviews

Saguaro Customer Comments:

Watch CQ magazine's kit-building column editor, Joe Eisenberg, discuss his Saguaro build on Ham Nation - starts at 55:50

Watch the second half of Joe's review on Ham Nation - starts at 1:19:19

From the webcast: "The RSP1A is a good foundation for this kit. [DZKit] is retaining all the functions of the SDRPlay, and yet making it look like a Heathkit. I think it's great." -- K0NEB

Fun fact: Joe mentions that you'll be doing a lot of soldering, so we compared the SR-74 build with that of the venerable Heathkit GR-54 (6-tube) and GR-64 (4-tube) shortwave receivers. The GR-64 had 290 solder connections, versus 388 on the SR-74. The GR-54 and GR-64 had you stringing two dial cords (main and bandspread tuning), a fairly complicated process, whereas the SR-74 has you mounting a display to the chassis. The total time of construction on a GR-54 (which had a Morse code practice feature, as does the SR-74) was estimated by Heathkit to be 10-15 hours, and 8-10 hours for the simpler GR-64. Customers have reported the build time for an SR-74 to be 12 hours. So it is roughly comparable to the build time of a GR-54. Many Heathkit owners built the GR-54/64 as their first real kit. So we believe the SR-74 can be built by a novice kit builder, although it may be not be the best project for a first-time kit builder. If the SR-74 is your first kit, please let us know!

"Very very well made. Every hole lined up on the build, the [silkscreen] for the components is perfect, the parts are top notch. My son was jumping in helping stuff the Control Board [and] actually found it relaxing and FUN to do this. He is now reading up on raspberry pi variations, and so forth. Now he is 'PUMPED UP' as he says so thank you for a great kit, a Quality kit and a kit that actually makes sense when you build it. Again I want to say GOOD JOB!!!!! on the Saguaro. I also want you to know that with the sdrplay inside the unit and a rtl-sdr dongle plugged into the Pi, I am also able to run sdrtrunk which has all the audio cabling software and been using it to listen to Trunked police frequencies. So not only is this radio a cool neat SWL receiver, but its a P25 trunked capable police scanner too. And we all know that Police scanners with that capability runs about 500 to 600 dollars. I [can] quit sdrtrunk and go back to [the DZKit] main swl program you have and listen to the hf or 6 meters or what ever." -- AC9XH

"Seriously. This is too much fun. I’ve played with it all day. Hours passed until I remembered that to change bands all I have to do is touch the screen! Cubic is fun to look at but not as good or easy as the SR-74 for navigation across the bands or just for relaxed listening. This is going to be a permanent resident on my desk. Listening to a local FM station now. It sounds sensational! I hear great signals on all bands, including clearly legible time signals from WWV on 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz. Also several ham conversions on 20M. Saguaro really turns that SDR brick into a usable and friendly radio. Well done! The method of easily upgrading the software deserves praise as well." -- NZ9S

“The keyer and sidetone are working perfectly. Very nice, by the way." -- WB8---

"I’ll be glad to participate [in a Saguaro User's Group], and my Saguaro works well." -- AB4--

"I can listen to a local AM music station and no problems hearing many AM stations around the region. Same goes for local FM stations. Listening to 20m got plenty of signals, now that the geomagnetic storms have abated a bit. I am using my 40m wire antenna and my triband beam for antennas for HF listening, even on broadcast FM. It has nice loud and clear sound and I have been leaving it on monitoring local and SW broadcast, like WRMI in the evenings on 5050 and 9455. It reminds me of hours spent listening to my Hallicrafters S120 as a kid." -- K0---

"I enjoyed putting the Saguaro together. The radio works great!" -- KD6---

See review in the May and June, 2023 issues of CQ magazine! QST review coming soon!