The GM3OXX “Oxo” Transmitter
AA7EE
by AA7EE
6d ago
As well as the small stash of finished projects that grace my living space, I also have two small boxes containing various boards. Some of them are boards from part-finished projects that didn’t work. For whatever reason, I ran out of steam and, instead of troubleshooting them, put them carefully into a small box along with their cellmates, and conveniently put them out of my mind. A few of the boards actually worked, but I decided not to case them up. One of these is the two-transistor transmitter I built a few years ago, that was basically the TX side of the Pixie 2 design. I like to pull bo ..read more
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Ugly Construction!
AA7EE
by AA7EE
3w ago
Here’s a little project I put together on a whim about 18 months ago. It was my tribute to the unlicensed (i.e. pirate) beacon cluster around 4096 KHz. There were several of them operating in full force, with powers ranging from around 100mW to a watt or so a few years ago. Their heyday was about 20 years ago. They were located somewhere in the southwestern deserts of the US, and were powered by batteries and solar panels. The feller who placed and maintained them has stopped their upkeep and, as a result, most, if not all of them, are no longer operational. (There was a small group who also p ..read more
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The NM0S QRPoMeter
AA7EE
by AA7EE
3M ago
Some years ago, I purchased and assembled an Oak Hills Research WM-2 QRP Wattmeter from Milestone Technologies. As far as QRP wattmeter kits go, it was something of a classic at the time, and as such, I wanted one. I’m glad I made this purchase, as they are no longer available – at least, in this form. I believe there is another company who is offering a very similar kit, but without the decals on the case. Unfortunately, try as I may, I cannot find them now. The WM-2 is a great little wattmeter, with 3 ranges representing 100mW, 1W, and 10W full-scale – an ideal selection of ranges for the QR ..read more
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Testing Out Different Headsets with a Crystal Set and Assembling a Sound-Powered Headset
AA7EE
by AA7EE
7M ago
Before building Jim W4LF’s Hobbydyne crystal set, I put together an impedance matchbox, for matching the detector diode to a variety of different headsets and earphones, so that I could determine the best ones to use. The world of serious crystal set listening was new to me, so I did some reading up. To give you an idea of how serious this gets, many committed crystal set listeners have heard over 100 different stations on their sets, on the AM broadcast band (thanks to nighttime skywave propagation)! It appeared that there are a few different kinds of headset that crop up often as being the f ..read more
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Another HiFER Beacon
AA7EE
by AA7EE
1y ago
I haven’t been building much at all, for quite a long time now. However, the urge occasionally returns. When it does, it’s wonderful to have a small stash of parts on hand, so I can pull the soldering iron out and start building before the desire dissipates. I’ve been interested in beacons for a while, and this interest has followed a logical progression. I first noticed that my interest in talking with other hams over the air using phone (i.e. SSB) was waning. During this time, I would still check in daily with the Noontime Net on 40M (now on 7284 KHz). A quick check-in to a net was fine, and ..read more
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A Passive Tunable HF Preselector
AA7EE
by AA7EE
3y ago
When I built the VE7BPO DC Receiver Mainframe recently, it wasn’t intended to end up as a final finished project. The intention was more to have it as part of an experimental platform. The little box that contains the DBM, diplexer, and AF amplifier that make up the mainframe will most likely stay largely the same, now that they are built and boxed up. However, the outboard functions of local oscillator and antenna filtering can swapped around and changed at will. The mainframe includes a spot for an onboard plug-in bandpass filter. It was constructed so that the bandpass filters from QRP Labs ..read more
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The VE7BPO Direct Conversion Receiver Mainframe
AA7EE
by AA7EE
3y ago
This is one of those projects that has been residing in my head for a long time, as something I wanted to build. I’ve always liked direct conversion receivers. With them, as with regens, I felt that they have been underestimated by many builders and hams as being novelty items. Their apparent simplicity can also be their greatest downfall. Because, in their basic form, they often have few components, they can be “thrown together quickly”, in an evening, by a novice builder. That, of course, is where the problems start. The high degree of audio amplification necessary in a DC receiver lends its ..read more
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Rod KQ6F Has A New SW200 AM Processor For Sale
AA7EE
by AA7EE
4y ago
Please note that the above photo is of my SW200, though Rod’s no doubt looks exactly the same.   A few months back, I received this note from Rod KQ6F – Hi Dave – I very much enjoyed your review on this product.  It was largely the reason I bought one.  My application is AM ham radio and as such found some of its features to be unnecessary.  I defeated the AGC and the pre-emphasis and found the triband limiting overkill since all my audio is voice and therefore all mid-band.  So bottom-line, I have no further use. My unit is S/N 024, is only a few weeks old, and is still in factory-fresh ..read more
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Putting The HiFER “BRS” Boris Beacon On The Air – Finally!
AA7EE
by AA7EE
4y ago
In this post from May of last year, I detailed the construction of a 1mW solar-powered HiFER beacon. I named it the Boris Beacon, in tribute to my neighbor’s cat. The beacon was never mounted permanently outside. I kept it indoors, powered from a small solar panel in the window, and feeding an “antenna” of sorts, consisting of the original dipole wires folded up into two small bundles. Obviously, I had no serious intention of it being heard by anyone; I just liked having it come on every day when the sun came up, and transmitting until later in the day, when the light was too low to sustain op ..read more
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The C Crane Skywave SSB Portable Radio
AA7EE
by AA7EE
4y ago
This will be a very brief post, and in no way constitutes a review. It’s barely even an “initial impressions” type of post. It’s just that I’ve been wanting a C Crane Skywave SSB for a while now, recently purchased one, and wanted to tell you! I’m sure many readers will identify with the search to find the perfect tool/gadget/product. We are, of course, not looking for genuine perfection, but for a tool that comes as close to fitting our personal needs as we think we are going to get. I went through this process a few years ago with cameras, after becoming a bit tired of lugging my DSLR and as ..read more
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