Haunted by a fear of rapid expulsion from the QRP Hall of Fame, I decided that I should immediately do something to establish some form of QRP street cred. Looking around the shack, I realized that all of the ingredients were there: My Herring Aid Five Direct Conversion receiver (completed after only 38 years), my Tuna Tin Two transmitter, the VU2XVR key that Farhan gave me, one 7050 kc FT243 crystal. I put it all on a piece of scrap plywood. A couple of nice connectors from W8NSA supported the DPDT T/R switch and the coax connector. I keep the receiver LO running all the time.
Now, let's be clear: running 250 milliwatts, rock bound with a Direct Conversion receiver that tunes both sides of zero beat is not for the faint of heart. The log book does not fill up rapidly. But hey, I made one contact the following morning. K1PUG said I was 559 in Connecticut.
but it still worked! That's what homebrew QRP is all about. You definitely earned your place in the QRP hall of fame.
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Dean AC9JQ
....but that bench top needs to go :-)
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
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