Category: Amateur Radio

Goodbye QCX, Hello QCX+!

Today in the QRP Labs Groups.io group, Hans Summers announced an updated replacement for the QCX, which he’s calling the QCX+. It’ll be $6 more than the old QCX, but there’s some wonderful improvements. It’s designed specifically to fit a case a lot more easily, and the PCB itself is 2.2x bigger than before, which …

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Salvaging old CB’s for QRP Parts: Part 4

In the previous three installments, we tore down two old CB’s and an even older tube based CB linear amplifier. Those teardowns were a lot of fun and a great way to look at the way things used to be done before frequency synthesis took over. In this final CB teardown, we’re going to look …

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Easy Bitx: More details, Tentative Pricing and Release Date

Update 5/11/2020: Article updated to reflect correct information regarding band availability Ever since HF Signals discontinued the BITX40, there’s been a gap in the available SSB QRP kits out there. Sure, there’s the uBITX, but that’s more complicated multi-band radio. For a beginner, a single band radio is easier to build and understand. Thankfully, the …

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Salvaging old CB’s for QRP Parts: Part 3

In this third installment of Salvaging old CB’s for QRP Parts, we’re taking a slightly different turn. I still have another CB to tear into for the next post, but for this one, we’re changing it up a bit. Pictured below is a Mystery Box Thing that I purchased at a garage sale. It was …

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Salvaging old CB’s for QRP Parts: Part 2

Welcome to the second installment of “Salvaging old CB’s for QRP Parts”! In part 1 of this series, we described how we found a bin of CB radios and accessories at an estate sale some time back. The first radio we salvaged for parts was a Pace CB 145. The radio was disassembled to see …

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Finishing a QRP Guys Para40Set

A few weeks ago, David KA4ZUC posted on the QRP Amateur Radio Facebook group: He was unable to finish his Para40Set radio kit because of some physical limitations, and asked if he could pay somebody to wind the T1 toroid for him. Apparently, another ham had done so for a fee, but did it wrong. …

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Salvaging old CB’s for QRP Parts: Part 1

About three years ago, I stopped at a garage sale on the way to a friends home. It turned out to be an estate sale full of goodies for a guy like me, always looking for things that can be used or repurposed. I spotted a red bin with a bunch of cables and wires …

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QCX Giveaway: We Have a Winner!

First, I want to sincerely thank everyone who entered. There are certainly many reasons that you all mentione’d you’d love a QCX! Seven entries mentioned POTA, 22 mentioned SOTA, 2 mentioned quick lunch QSO’s, and one person even mentioned buying one as an Anniversary present for their wife! I would encourage all of you to …

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QCX Kit Giveaway!

Giveaway Closed Entries have been closed as promised at 5PM PDT on April 17th- Thanks for coming in, and check the comments below for some great reasons to get a QCX 🙂 Please see https://miscdotgeek.com/qcx-giveaway-we-have-a-winner/ to see who won! Original Post I try to avoid headlines with exclamation marks, but this one deserves it! MiscDotGeek …

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Project Brownie is Complete!

It’s complete, and it’s for sale! Details in the video below Last year I introduced Project Brownie: The quest to imagine what a spy radio, made with technology that wouldn’t emerge for another half century, would have looked like in the 1960’s. To do this, I”d need some parts, some creativity, and some tools. A …

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