The OZARK PATROL

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A demo of the radio. Sloppily tuned. I was trying to tune everything and nothing just to show what it is capable of. The antenna is 100' of hook-up wire going up to the attic. An outside antenna would work better.

In conclusion, the Ozark Patrol is a great little regen kit that performs well with headphones or an added amplifier for speaker operation.

A few tips

Tip 1: The instructions say to connect an antenna to the radio. What kind of antenna? It's just a piece of wire! How long should it be? 65 feet is a good length for reasons we won't go into here. If this isn't practical, just try to get as much wire in the air as possible, preferably outside.

Tip 2: This radio needs an earth ground to work properly. Without the earth ground the signals are weak. If you can't easily connect to a ground you can pick one up using an old computer or printer cord. Cut the blades off with a hacksaw, leaving the ground prong. Make sure you have the correct color wire, and cut off the other two wires. Now just plug it in, and you have a ground wire.

Tip 3: You've just finished the radio, you've turned it on and you hear... nothing. Or, you hear one station, and that's it. Look out the window. Is the sun up? Some of the shortwave bands are basically stone dead at certain times of the day. Try again as the sun is setting. There is nothing to be heard on the lower band (3.5 to 5 MHz) during the day, but you can pick up some hams around sunset. The upper band will come to life around the same time, but you should be able to get something on it all day.

Tip 4: The radio is acting strange. You hear signals but can't seem to tune them in well. The regen control in the Ozark Patrol has a reverse action. Turn it fully clockwise (no regeneration), then slowly turn it counter-clockwise. Stop when you hear the hiss, and back it off a tiny bit. The radio is most sensitive right before it breaks into oscillation.

Tip 5: You tune in a station, move your hands off the knobs and, "Vweerp!" the station vanishes. You put your hands near the radio and "Vwoop!", it comes back. This is caused by "hand capacitance." Basically, the radio is emanating an electrical field and your hands are disturbing it. I was able to cure this by putting a small value capacitor between the antenna and ground lugs. I don't know why this works, but it does. The value I used was 100 pF.

Tip 6: Consider putting some feet on your Ozark patrol so that air can circulate under it. This may sound like a crazy reason for adding feet but you'll be glad you did years from now, when you find it stashed on a shelf and the base hasn't warped.

This radio just happens to have a pine base that is the exact same size as the one on the Ozark Patrol. The top side absorbed moisture from the humidity in the air, while the underside had no air circulating under it.

Give the base a coat of polyurethane, lacquer, or paint before assembling the radio. I ended up painting the base, but I had to take it apart first. I considered replacing the base with Masonite, but it would be front heavy and tend to topple over if the batteries were removed.

Tip 7: You might see that one of the knobs arrived with a big scratch on the front. The silver inserts on the knobs have a clear piece of  plastic protecting them. The scratch is in the plastic. Just peel it off.

Tip 8: Never use DURACELL AA alkaline batteries. They leak. The company knows they leak, and has known for years but won't fix them. Sometimes you'll find them leaking in the pack while still in the store. The Duracell batteries in the photo above ruined a remote control toy tank. The corrosion travelled from the battery contacts to the circuit board and dissolved the traces on the board. The second battery from the left looks OK. You would think that somebody at Duracell would say, "Look, one didn't leak! Let's open it and see why, and then make them all that way." But no. That would cost them money, instead of costing YOU money.

Tip 8a: I used these red RAYOVAC batteries because they look really cool, but all you need for this radio are carbon batteries from the dollar store, and you get eight in a pack.

Dollar store carbon batteries. There is nothing heavy duty about them, let alone SUPER heavy duty. The label is meaningless. However, the radio only draws about 30 milliamps, even with the added amplifier. I don't know how long these will last, but at eight for $1.25 they are only 15¢ each. You can buy six 8 packs for about the same price as one 8 pack of alkalines.

Tip 9: There are several types of LM386 amplifier kits on ebay, as well as some that are already assembled. If you get the type above, the jack is the INPUT, not a headphone jack. You don't need the jack, you can hardwire it.

Tip 10: The upper dial scale is somewhat accurate, but if you have another shortwave receiver you can use it to set the tuning knob. Tune the second radio to the frequency you're interested in, then advance the regen control on the Ozark Patrol till it over-oscillates. Tune the Ozark Patrol till you hear a pop in the second receiver. Carefully adjust the tuning till you hear a steady hiss in the second radio, then set the knob on the Ozark Patrol. I've found that it drifts slightly throughout the day. NOTE:  The lower scale tunes from 3.5 to 4.28 MHz, even though the dial is marked 3.5 to 5 MHz. (This appears to be a compromise. There is no room on the dial to label it "4.28" ) Where the dial is marked "4" is actually 4 Mhz.

Tip 11: Having trouble taking a picture of your radio? Hahaha, good luck! The front panel is as reflective as a mirror. Your face or your camera will appear in the photo. Place something dark around the radio. I used a piece of black poster board.

CABINETS

James Surprenant (AB1DQ) built his into a cigar box! See it  here.

George Conant built a beautiful cabinet for his Ozark Patrol.

Ozark Patrol with external amplifier. The amplifier has an LM386 module inside the cabinet.

This cabinet was built by yours truly in 2025.

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