Oh man, this doesn't happen every day. Using my homebrew BITX 40 DIGI-TIA, I had just finished a great QSO on 40 meters with Greg W8GP, talking about Heathkits and homebrew radio. Then I got a call from Taylor N4TD. He told me he is a SolderSmoke listener. Then he just casually mentioned the really big news: HE TOO WAS ON A HOMEBREW RIG!
I told Taylor that this a rare occurrence. He agreed.
Taylor told me his rig is for 20 and 40. It is a single conversion design with a 9 MHz IF and a crystal filter. Using a Ukraine-made PA board, it puts out 50 watts.
Taylor sent me some pictures and wrote:
Hi Bill,
It was great to work you homebrew to homebrew. As you said, that doesn’t happen very often. I used a modular architecture for this radio. The module size is the ExpressPCB miniboard size, so they are less expensive and all the same size so they can be moved around. All the boards are homebrew except for the final amplifier module. The PA module I got from 60dbm in Ukraine through eBay. I had tested this module before and found it to be solid, and it was more economical than building the PA from scratch. It delivers 50W+ and has been reliable through all my sometimes abusive testing.
73 Taylor N4TD
Taylors rig -- Top view
Taylor's rig -- Bottom view
Rare by today's standard for sure. Back in the day EVERYTHING was HB !
ReplyDeleteBill, maybe someone with a media presence needs to sponsor a (SolderSmoke) homebrew net :)
ReplyDelete