On 12/3/2020, Hans Summers of QRP Labs released the QCX Mini- a truly miniature 5W CW transceiver. By the December 7, all 997 units were sold! It was definitely exciting to see the response to this new product, and after having built most of my own QCX Mini, I can confirm- it’s an incredible little …
Category: DIY
Dec 13
QCX Mini: Winding and Installing T1
A lot of hams have expressed trepidation about winding and installing T1 on a QCX Mini, QCX+ or even the original QCX, since they’re all the same. T1 looks hard because there are four windings on one toroid. In this video, I wound T1 and installed it on the QCX Mini. All that’s left to …
Nov 21
Receiver Build Gone Wrong Part II: The Fix
The QRP Labs Receiver build was not destroyed! It is on the air now, and listening patiently for JS8 signals to filter in. It works great, and I’m a very happy ham because of it. What happened? Check the video below: Have you had experiences like this? Please, tell us about it in the comments …
Nov 13
Cheap Soldering Iron: Which one?
This article was originally published in January 2017. It has been updated. In this entry we’ll talk about my search for a cheap soldering iron. I’ve been burning myself with cheap soldering irons since I was about 10 years old and I taught myself various bad ways to solder. I’ve dabbled in electronics here and …
Nov 08
Windy Weather Antenna Damage: Fix + JS8Call fun (Video)
In this video we look at what happened to my antenna in a winter storm and build an antenna mast for with less than $10 worth of material. Then we head over to the computer and try it out with JS8Call. Come watch, it’ll be fun! Links mentioned in video: L-Match How To: https://miscdotgeek.com/qrp-l-match-tuner-build/ Jackite …
Sep 01
August 2020 Update: Camping, Knives, Trike, Truck. And JS8Call.
I know, I know- quite a headline! In this update I’m going to update you on a few things I’ve been working on or doing in August. It was an action packed month. There’s plenty of difficulty to go around too, but I’ll leave that stuff out and stick to the stuff that’s hopefully at …
Aug 24
Experimental Methods in RF Design is on Clearance
Hey everyone, just a short post to let you know that Experimental Methods in RF Design (EMFRD) is now on clearance at the ARRL’s store for just $20. This is an incredible deal for anybody who’s the least bit interested in Amateur Radio home brewing. Where to get EMFRD You can get it right now …
Jun 15
Cheap Drone becomes Roadkill
Last month, I posted about the cheap drone I have and showed off some of the photos I’ve taken with it- clearly, I shouldn’t be able to get such good photos with such a cheap drone, but I have! I’ve also crashed the thing more times than I can count, and it’s come away mostly …
May 27
SSB and Digital with… a QCX?
In January 2019, a ham named Guido, PE1NNZ posted to the QRP Labs groups.io group. The title of the post was “QCX-SSB: SSB with your QCX transceiver“.If you’re familiar with the QCX, then you’ll realize that this is a profound statement! The QCX is a high performance 5w CW transceiver. So how on earth did …
May 13
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 …