Ok, the long and the short of it. It actually works well. And by well, i mean it can hear me talking on the home station, it can make a tone from injected signals yadda yadda yadda.
So what was the problem, well ended up being a dry solder joint, the most basic of all problems. I had pulled it apart, cut traces, did eleventeen other things to it trying to work out why it was ringing its head off and making no sounds, and it turns out the LO input pin was dry and not making contact.
So what next? Well i start to integrate things onto one board now and start actually assembling something I can use to make a QSO with. Wish me luck.
