I really liked Jomon's rig. The modular approach is brilliant as is his explanation of how each stage works. He emphasizes the benefits of this modular approach.
You can see that he is a true homebrewer -- you can see it in his expressions at the end. Just look for the smiles, for the obvious feeling of pride and satisfaction that comes from working a station more than 450 km away with a rig that he built himself.
I also really liked his homebrew microphone. FB Jomon!
Rogier PA1ZZ sent me a short video showing Jomon's antenna for portable operations. In that video you catch a glimplse of this rig. Both videos are great. The antenna short is here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YVgoy4rPddQ But for me the best of the two videos is the one describing the rig (above).
We posted about Jomon's homebrew projects back in December 2025: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2025/12/homebrew-radio-from-southern-india.html
Jomon is from Kerala in southern India. Kerala seems to be the center of a lot of great homebrew activity. Many of the Indian hams that I have talked to are from Kerala: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=Kerala
Here is a map showing Kerala state:
Brilliant -- absolutely brilliant. He built it modularly and laid it out beautifully. And there's a subtle aspect to this that I think is worth pointing out: Amateur Radio is a brotherhood of sorts that spans the world. I've never met this guy, but would buy him lunch and sit down for a chat without hesitation. I traveled the world in my previous career and all the hams I met were insta-friends. And the contributions to the hobby made by hams outside of the United States are staggering -- the reason for that is that they often have to design and build something with far fewer resources than we have in the US. This leads to a lot of creative, out-of-the-box thinking.
ReplyDeleteI agree Steve -- 100 percent. I remember complaining in the Dominican Republic radio club that the transformer in my Hallicrafters HT-37 had blown, and that I had accidently smashed a key wafer of the operating switch. Guys in the Dominican club told me exactly where to get a replacement wafer (from Pericles HI8P: "He has two spares of everything!") and they told me where I could get the transformer re-wound. I was back on the air with the HT-37 faster than I would have been in the U.S. 73 Bill N2CQR
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the best videos I have seen as he clearly displays the schematic for each board as he shows it, which I really liked. Certainly some incredible effort went into designing and making all those circuit boards, and very appropriate that he modified the original BITX40 design in several places to fit his wishes and truly make it his own. However, I do not think much of his audio quality, which seemingly could be improved substantially with a better quality speaker at least. I also bet that an analog VFO would lower the noise level. Notice also that although his schematic showed an IRF510 in his RF Power Amp he actually used the more robust IRF630. --Walter KA4KXX
ReplyDeleteWalter: Back in 1996 or so, when I was laying out the boards for my first superhet receiver, I used to go to work with index cards in my shirt pocket. At lunch I would plan the layout of the boards. Early the following morning I would build one of the boards. I would repeat this process until the receiver was done. 73 Bill N2CQR.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked in the Military/Industrial complex,
Deletewe always had the impression that government
employees worked on personal projects ALL DAY LONG
(hence the term "good enough for government work"),
but I guess you were the exception! --Walter KA4KXX
It's great to see that the Bitx isn't forgotten. I am making a couple right now to be used next summer /P. It's gunna be a blast !
ReplyDelete