MICS Radio VHF Receiver SM40

Technical data

This VHF Receivers was designed and made in the 80's by the French MICS RADIO company under the SM-40 designation. It is an updated version of the VR-35 model.

Production quality has been much improved with a simpler design using a single PCB.
It seems that its production continued when the company MICS Radio was taken over by the daughter of the founder (Christiane F5SM) under the name SM Electronique.
However, questioned on this subject, she could not give me the history of this series of receiver nor the type of users.

The frequency range and the bandwidth allowed the listening of radio-telephones, aviation and navy.


It covers four HF/VHF bands with AM/FM demodulation:
- 31-41MHz
- 67-88MHz
- 106-140MHz
- 140-175MHz

SM-40 uses a dedicated varactor tuned HF head / oscillator for each band with:
- a two 2N918 stage for the two low bands,
- a one BF363 stage for the medium band,
- a BF363/BF460 stage for the highest band.

The FI stage uses BF173, BF167 and BC238.
The AM/FM emodulation is done through a TAA661B.

Pictures

VR-40


Front FaceVR-35 in use in the MMFL
Image taken from the AAMMFL Secrets de la guerre froide site

Rear Face
Inside view
HF DetailsFI Details
VR35 Reference

Fist revision: 2022/02/26
Updated on: 2022/09/04