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Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts

Sunday, July 23, 2023

First Contacts with 15-10 Rig -- Two Atlantic Crossings

 

I was just testing it, working (as usual at this stage) on final amplifier stability.   Then I heard ON5WO calling CQ.   I could not resist.  I worked him, but had to use a test lead to manually key the .1 kW amplifier.  Minutes later I worked OH6RM.  He very diplomatically said that I had "highly unusual audio."  This was probably due to earlier efforts to shift the carrier oscillator to improve carrier suppression. (I will fix this.)  

I will continue to work on the rig; It should look a bit better when I am done.  But hey, it works!  It has already crossed the Atlantic. Twice!  

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

ON6UU's DB4020 EA3GCY Rig


Hi,

Recently I got the EA3GCY newsletter,  it announced a new kit DB4020,  a 2 band transceiver kit covering 40 and 20 mtrs.  I know Javier EA3GCY’s kit are good so I ordered one.  A week later it arrived in a brown enveloppe in which I found all components and printboard wrapped in bubblewrap,  it was all well packed and after checking all components all was accounted for,  all components were indeed there.

8 toroids have to be wound,  following the instructions it was piece of cake,  no problem,  

After several hours of work - relax max style - I got everything in place to test,  hurray,  no smoke !!!!  So now the SSB part was ready,  I have 7W on 40 and 3.5W on 20mtr.  Good power for qrp sota,  wff or just garden activity.  A fortnight later I got notice that the CW part of the kit was ready and another week later it arrived here,  I soldered the 2 boards as soon as possible to get a multimode 2 band transceiver.   The 2 boards are the CW interface which also holds the KB-2 keyer,  the second board is the 500-600HZ CW filter.   The KB-2 give the user 4 memories,  beacon function and some more functions.  Good thinking to include the keyer,  it makes life easy when you’re on an activation. 😊   I opted to make the filter switchable,  I like to be able to listen broadband too,  very simple,  cut one leg of the 13 pin connector on the bottom of the CW interface and put a switch on both ends.


After some figgling around I also got the box ready,  a military grade plastic box with wall thickness of 5 mm,  this box should be able to withstand a lot of shocks and a drop to the ground.  I also made a docking station for a laptop battery which holds some 5Ah and which should be able to give me a lot of hours of listening and some 2 to 3 hours of operation.  I had an old laptop which the screen was broken and had some other malfunctions,  I have taken the battery connector out of it,  luckily I still have another laptop which still works and this is the charging station for the batteries …. ..  😊   The docking is only to test,  I will box it up in maybe a some box where I can then maybe also fit a end fed solution or tuner for coax fed antennas.


A new radio also needs a new CW key so I made one out of an old relay,  painted the base green to fit somewhat the box et voila,  here is the result of the complete portable station.



The key can be fitted to the box by means of a bolt and a wingnut.  A short cable goes to the CW connector of the transceiver.

I had a lot of fun constructing this kit,  the box,  the docking and the key.   For 180€ you get a arduino nano controlled CW/SSB transceiver with 2 bands on which most of the activity is and you also get a keyer with memories.   Good deal I think.   More info is available on EA3GCY’s website.  Javier is also very quick in responding to questions,  he ask for opinions and offers almost an Elecraft style of service.

I made some video’s which are on youtube :

The kitters website :

Best 73
Frank
ON6UU




Sunday, May 5, 2019

SSB on the QCX? Sounds pretty good here (Video)



In SolderSmoke #211 we reported on recent efforts to generate SSB from the QCX CW phasing rig -- we said that we'd heard that the effort wasn't very successful.  But today we got an e-mail from Jim W4JED pointing us to YouTube video from Guido PE1NNZ.  

I must say the signal sounds pretty good to me, and it looks good in the waterfall.  Listen for yourselves via the video above.  His is the signal on the left. 

Guido has a great write up, along with software here: 

https://github.com/threeme3/QCX-SSB 

I hope this all works out -- it would be great to get on phone with Hans Summers' amazing phasing rig. Here is a picture that hints at the potential: 


Go Guido! 



Monday, October 30, 2017

Modular BITX Boards

Friday, February 24, 2017

More DSB, from Belgium and Spain

Frank ON6UU writes:

Hello Soldermelters,
 
Maybe some interesting news for you as there are some new kits at hand from EA3GCY (http://www.ea3gcy.com)
 
I’ve made the MFT-40 DSB without any problem,  all parts were provided with the kit,  only things to buy were a microphone connector,  a speaker and an antenna plug.   The box was taken from my attic and was a VGA-selector in his previous life.
Kit came together in a few evenings,  I followed the very well written manual,  all was well pointed out,  which resulted in a working kit.  After aligning the kit I could start making qso’s.   The microphone was made from a piece of tube,  a simple switch and a electret microphone,  it doesn’t look pretty but the microphone works.
 
Rx-Tx 7.066 – 7.133  (With DDS the complete 7MHz band)
Pwr :  some 3W peak.
Double Side Band
 
Made some You-tube films about it.  
 
Easy to make,  no SMD,  easy alignment without necessity of expensive material.   Fine for someone who never made a transceiver,  hence the name...My First Transceiver,  MFT.   As soon as the weather permits I will take the TRX out in the field and activate a SOTA with it.
 
Now working on the MFT-20 DSB.   I’m hoping for an 80mtr version to come available too.  :-)
 
All info is on Javier’s site. (http://www.ea3gcy.com)
 
72, 73
Keep the solder melting !!
 
ON6UU





Thursday, October 6, 2011

ON6WJ's Sputnik Rig

I think Jos's rig is magnificent. He is getting the high voltage for the tubes from a cheap (3 Euros!) 12 Volt to 120 Volt DC/DC inverter that he picked up via e-bay. (I think you can see the inverter board to the left of the headphone jack.) He runs it from a 12 volt gel cell. The little battery is for the filaments. He gets about 700 mw out, and had a very solid 15 minute QSO with Jim, W1PID yesterday. FB Jos!

More Sputnik news (with some audio from the original) tomorrow.

DSW to all!


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Sunday, March 13, 2011

Regen Madness



How many times have I said "never again, no more regens"? I guess I need a twelve step program or something like that. This latest bout of regen fever started with the King's Speech movie. So I blame the Brits. All of them. Then this Belgian guy with the video comes along (see above). Now I find myself drawing out a schematic for the old regen that I picked up years ago at the Kemption Park rally in London. Someone please, STOP ME!

Friday, October 31, 2008

See if you can see my signal 10140055 Hz

If Italy is in daylight, you should be able to see my 50 milliwatt FSK signal on one of the European on-line grabbers.

IK0VVE has a nice grabber aggregator site that includes a sun clock. Here it is:
http://www.ik0vve.net/mept6.aspx

Just see if the sun is shining here, then scroll down and take a look at either PA1SBD's site or ON5EX's. Sometimes I can also be seen on I2NDT's.

You should see my signal around 10140055 Hz. It looks kind of like a square wave. Read the Morse along the bottom (my FSK is upside down).

For extra credit, see if you can see Paolo's solar beacon. It too looks like a square wave, but with no Morse. He's running 2.5 milliwatts.

Please let me know if you succeed in seeing our sigs.
Designer: Douglas Bowman | Dimodifikasi oleh Abdul Munir Original Posting Rounders 3 Column