Small Portable Power Supply

Here is a  small power supply for testing and powering up items for a quick check when your on the go.

This circuit is as easy as it gets with common parts.
I am a big fan of simple circuits!

Battery Powered Contest

This looks like a fun contest for your battery powered projects.

http://www.instructables.com/contest/battery2013/?show=ENTRIES

It anyone decides to enter let me know and we can promote it for hopefully a few extra votes and get you in the winners circle. The contest is co-sponsored by Instructables and Radio Shack. I would not mind having a few of the prizes.

QRP Book Video Review

Check this wonderful video review of 15 QRP books by Peter Parker, VK3YE.

I own a few of the titles mentioned and always on the lookout for others if the price is right. A few of the asking prices are way out of my reach, see below.

For instance:

Solid State Design for the Radio Amateur by Wes Hayward and Doug DeMaw is priced between $91.00 used or $300.00 new on Amazon. But you can pick up a new copy of Experimental Methods in RF Design for $30 and change, also at Amazon. The ARRL store price is $49.95.

Pays to shop around and save a few buck$.

Cold Sunday Mornings

A few items on the to do list for a cloudy chilly 40 F degrees in New Jersey starting with taking a good inspection of my stealth antenna.

Before I even think of applying power to my transceiver using this antenna I always check the SWR with the MFJ-259B analyzer. Well the SWR reading was screaming at a very high reading telling me something is way off when a check was made last night. Almost sounds like a connection is broke, remember this is magnet wire with a air life of a few months at best with the storms, wind, and snow over the past few weeks. A good education guess is I do not have much faith in this antenna just yet.

If my day goes as planned, (which it never does) I have also been tinkering with a small QRP circuit on a wireless bread board. So far the circuit has passed the smoke test but not getting any RF readings at base or collector of the transistor. A few small adjustments might have to be made to get this circuit to oscillate correctly. It would help if I used the exact components listed on schematic, but that is part of the fun in experimenting.

One Transistor QRP Circuit





The sun just popped out for a minute or two, looks nice. Would love to get in the car and head to a scenic location and play radio, have not done yet this year. Just scrap my indoor activities and take off, decisions, decisions.

Yes experiencing cabin fever in February, how long until spring?

Mighty Mite

In the process of getting the parts for my next project, the Mighty Mite build.

This circuit is from the pages of W1FB's QRP Notebook, page 111. The Mighty Mite consists of one transistor and a handful of parts, output power is a whopping 30mW, QRPp. Taking a look over the parts list, most are common items I should have except for the miniature RF Choke, Mouser/Xicon# 43LR225 which is obsolete. There should be a drop in replacement available from Xicon.

The plan is to try and keep all parts as close to original parts list, just for history of Doug DeMaw's Mighty Mite. I did an online search and found a few different varieties of this circuit. Also need to pick up a few crystals if anyone has a favorite source please let me know.

Updates on this build will be posted in a week or so depending on time with the busy holiday season fast approaching.

Circuit Construction

Over the past week or so I have been reading up on the Circuit Construction chapter from the 2005 ARRL Handbook.

Its amazing how many small helpful tips you can pick up from an article. I am leaning toward a simple QRP circuit using ground-plane construction. Just looks cool and to try and make it look neat and clean should be interesting.

Scanning the net and a few magazines for a few designs.

Will keep you posted.