Amateur Radio Kit Roundup - OLD

QRPme.com Lil' Squall Transceiver

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Kit building appears to be on the rise again.  With so many people talking about it on the club's repeater lately I decided to put together a good list of sources for kits that are currently available.  Many of these are for QRP operation, but a few are full-featured professional transceivers (Elecraft, DZ).  On the beginners side there are a few sources that stand out:  Hendricks has a great assortment of kits, including some SSB QRP equipment.  QRPme offers the inexpensive, easy-to-build tuna-can products, and I would like to make special mention of the Four State QRP Group NS-40 which has the coils etched right into the PC board!  What a great idea!  I've covered trasmitters, transceivers, and some receivers here.  Some accessories are mentioned in the source descriptions.

Revised 7/19/2012  Changes in Hendricks QRP Kits, YouKits, Genesis Radio, Tony Parks, and removed the coming soon designation on Heathkit.  I didn't check ALL of the prices, so don't hold me to total accuracy in that department.

Revised 10/22/2012  Changes in Hendricks, YouKits, Tony Parks, Small Wonder Labs, Wilderness Radio, and Four State QRP Group.  Removed Heathkit, Added HSC.

Enjoy, and feel free to email me any corrections, or additions.--Neil W2NDG 

-Hendricks QRP Kits http://www.qrpkits.com/

• BitX20A/17A SSB Transceiver.  The BitX20A and BitX17A are complete SSB kits with board, all parts, digital display and custom powder coated and punched case that is based on the BitX20 that was designed by Ashlan Farhan.  Output is about 10 Watts.  $180.00 + S&H

Links for LIMARC meeting

Here are the links for the LIMARC presentation SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO ON A SHOESTRING

Software Defined Radio on a Shoestring.

September 12^th 2012

LIMARC

Supplemental info:

Link to presentation PPTX
Link to presentation PDF

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Soft66 products are available at:  http://zao.jp/radio/order/

Use with HD-SDR, or WinRAD

_____________________________________________________________________

RTL SDR info:

                Search eBay for RTL SDR and make sure that the dongle has these two chips:     

                                RTL2832U + E4000

Install Instructions are at:  http://rtlsdr.org/softwarewindows

SDR# download at:  http://sdrsharp.com/index.php/downloads

New custom version of SDR# at: http://www.k5dev.com/blog/2012/7/28/release-of-k5dev-sdrsharp-fork.html

HF Converter:  eBay search:  RTL2832U converter
PAL Converter: Radio Shack 278-261

______________________________________________________________________

Remote SDR:  http://www.sdr-radio.com/

______________________________________________________________________

W2NDG-AT-LIMARC-DOT-ORG

Please stand by...

Have you ever had one of those days?  Something that I refer to as The Shidas Touch.  Wherein everything you touch turns to feces.  I successfully managed to break my iPhone, Dell laptop, and a Garmin Nuvi 250 all in the course of about 12 hours.  None of my radio equipment seems to have been affected by the condition, with my Icom dual-bander actually seeming to repair itself recently.  The iPhone was an easy fix.  Just a tethered reboot did the trick.  I seem to always go one step too far when playing with things on my jailbroken Sprint iPhone 4.  The Garmin was actually already broken, but I did manage to break it further.  The person who borrowed this from my YL must have been trying to delete his history from the thing before he returned it, and managed to delete all of the maps in the process.  Some research, and a few trial-and-errors brought the device back, and now is actually working better than before, but in the process I was pretty sure I had bricked the thing, and shoved it aside in favor of salvaging part of a good night's sleep.  The Dell, however, is a sad story.

I bring this up, because it is this same Dell laptop that was the processing muscle behind my testing of the

Is the Baofeng UV-3R Mark II really modifiable to 220 Mhz?

Baofeng UV-3R Mark II

The answer is yes, and no.  Using the software utility available here you can stretch the coverage of your UV-3R Mark II.  This only works on the Mark II (dual watch display) and the new Plus model.  There are two options for changing the coverage.  You can stretch up from VHF or down from UHF.  Only the UHF option seems to work.  Now, before you run off and do this, let me pass

Soft66LC4 SDR - initial impressions

I received a Soft66LC4 SDR receiver for evaluation. The review of this radio will be in 3 parts, initial impressions, usage test, and full technical test. Here are my initial impressions.

Soft66LC4

The Soft66LC4 is the newest SDR receiver from Kazunori Miura JA7TDO. There have been several revisions of this inexpensive SDR over the last couple of years. The evaluation unit came in about a week from Japan in a plain envelope with no documentation or software. You are expected to refer back to JA7DTO's website for help. Although the setup is a bit complicated, it wasn't too bad for me since I deal with a lot of control software that

His and Hers

I haven't posted so much lately. Sinus issues have kept me from really spending the time on anything other than work and the necessities of life. There are some great goings-on here on Long Island though. My lovely and amazing fiance had been studying for her Technician license for the last month or so. Armed with a notebook, access to the QRZ.com practice tests, and Gordon West's book, she finally took and passed the exam this past Saturday. Now we just need the callsign.  A friend of ours once told us that there are two types of Ham Radio spouses.  Ones that embrace the hobby, maybe not to the fullest, but will attend picnics and events, and there are the ones that run screaming from it.  I have been blessed with a fiance who fell in love with the Ham Radio community, and the people we have met through it.  I'm not sure that I'll ever come home to find her staring at Smith Charts, but I think she and I might get to fight over the soldering iron a bit.

Well, anyway, on to the Baofengs you see here.  She sort-of owed me a birthday gift for awhile, and I thought she needed a congratulatory gift for passing the exam, so we ordered his-n-hers Baofeng UV-3R Mark IIs.  I know quite a few hams that have purchased these little gems and most are quite pleased.  Now, I understand that I cannot expect the performance of a $300 Kenwood, or other similar HTs, but the value is quite amazing.  Here in the NY Metro area, a small 2 watt HT is not a bad thing to have.


As I do with practically everything I own, I have started the process of learning all I can about getting the most out of these little radios.  I will post the results as I experiment.  So far so good though.  Stay tuned, more to follow.


--Neil W2NDG

Is Radio Shack returning to its roots?

I am now posting over at AmateurRadio.com.  Here is my latest post:
http://www.amateurradio.com/is-radio-shack-returning-to-its-roots/

Ramps!

While letting Alec have a bit more driving practice last weekend, we explored some of the North Shore here in the Oyster Bay area. We found a few nice places worth going back to, but one of the most interesting was the Shu Swamp Preserve. Alec and I hiked the northern part of the preserve which had a large observation deck for watching waterfowl and a nice boardwalk section through the swamp. The skunk cabbage was in full glory, very healthy from the mild winter. I found dogtooth violet, solomon's seal, wild oats, and what at first I thought were the leaves of pink lady's slipper. On closer examination I recognized the leaves as ramps, or wild leeks. Pulling one out of the shallow topsoil and leaf litter confirmed my suspicions as the distinctive earthy onion-garlic smell captured our attention. Now, a good rule of foraging is to never obliterate an area of a particular plant. After walking a little farther it became apparent that there were thousands of these gems. We pulled about a dozen in all and headed back to the car.I washed them later that night and stored them in the fridge. The next evening I carefully chopped the heads and sautéed in a bit of olive oil, the I added some broccoli and about half a pound of chicken, cut thin. I let this toss around for about 10 minutes, and then added some fresh pepper, and the tops of the ramps, finely chopped. They have a great garlic flavor, but more delicate. I need more now. The season is short, so grab while you can.

Skype Warning

I received two disturbing emails early Friday morning.

The first one from Skype:

And the next one from PayPal:

Since I am not a premium Skype user, there is no live support.  I started the process

2012 World Radio TV Handbook Available

WRTH 2012

With the demise of Passport to Worldband Radio a couple of years ago, There are two definitive books for the shortwave hobby remaining.  The one most recognized is the World Radio TV Handbook (WRTH).  The 2012 edition is available over at Amazon.com for $22.63.  Also, although I've never owned one, many people also swear by the Klingenfuss guides.  The 2012 edition of the Shortwave Guide is also available now over at Universal Radio.  If anyone is familiar with the Klingenfuss guides, please leave me a comment.  Thanks!