Jan 09
Cameron Tribe, KI7MNW recently posted his homebrew QRP transceiver on the Amateur QRP Radio group on Facebook. It’s completely scratch built and borrows design elements from several sources including the BITX40. Follow all the way to the bottom for a picture gallery, schematics, and source articles. Tonight I finished my homebrew 40m QRP transceiver. I’ve …
Dec 23
We last left off with having built the Diode Ring Mixer portion of the DC40 direct conversion receiver that we started on in Part 1. As was discussed, the Diode Ring Mixer accepts input from two sources: The antenna (through a Band Pass Filter) and the VFO. Now it’s time to examine these two critical …
Dec 16
QRP Labs Band Pass Filters are these wonderful little kits that largely take all the question of building a filter. They use a proven design, the kit includes the inductors and wires, and the build instructions are top notch. One thing I love about the QRP Labs Band Pass (and Low Pass) filter kits is that …
Dec 11
For those of us anticipating the release of the QRP Labs QSX (which we talked about in A Previous Post), any news from Hans Summers, the owner of QRP Labs, is exciting. He posted an update over the weekend that will whet the appetite a bit. If you’re unfamiliar with what a spectrum analyzer does, …
Dec 11
In the first installment of this series, we discussed why we’re building a Direct Conversion receiver and talked about some basic ideas. In this installment, we explore what it takes to make the leap from a printed schematic to something physical that works. Follow along! Schematic Semantics The DC40 was originally designed by Ashhar Farhan …
Dec 04
In this series of posts I’m going to take you on a journey. We’re going to explore the Direct Conversion receiver together, and I’m going to show you every bit of the journey that I can. Let’s get started! Why build a Direct Conversion receiver? When I restarted in ham radio in December 2016, it …
Nov 25
In this post we’re going to build an L-Match tuner for your QRP wire antenna. But you might ask: Why do I need a box between a bit of wire and my transmitter? That’s a good question! Amateur radios are constructed in such a way that they have an impedance of 50 ohms. For portable use …
Nov 22
Today we’re going to talk about JS8Call. What’s JS8Call? If you’re a ham radio operator on HF, then you likely know all about FT8 and what it’s done for (or to, depending on your perspective…) amateur radio. It’s made a simple 5 watt QRP station capable of truly worldwide contacts! Here in Washington State, I …
Nov 05
Recently on HackADay.com there was an article called “FT8: SAVING HAM RADIO OR KILLING IT?” which drew fire from some and praise from others. The article title itself was a little click-bait-y but justifiable. According to the source article over at flexradio.com FT8 lovers and haters are split almost 50/50. Some say its awful because FT8 …
Oct 25
Yes, you read the title right- 9800 miles (15772km) on 200mw of power using WSPR. Read on to find out how this was done, and why it was even possible to begin with. Equipment used The equipment is simple. At the top is my QRP Labs U3S as shown in a previous post, the Bread …
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