A 21st Century Novice Station - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: vk4ffab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2020, 10:15:38 pm
content: From:https://robs-blog.net/2020/02/04/i-have-finally-built-something-i-am-proud-of/So this is the first thing that I have designed from the ground up and built myself that has worked as designed. Its a modern take on the novice station. A simple homebrew transmitter with a commercial receiver, as the novices did back in the day. The transmitter will do 5 to 10 watts and its coupled with an SDRplay receiver, which is quite reasonable on receive and not as deaf as others. The black box is an iambic keyer for my paddle. TX RX switching is direct switching the relays.A close up of the transmitter, nothing revolutionary, just a few BJT gain stages to get the signal to 1/2 a watt then into a fet to do the rest of the work, all class A because i want to reuse these in ssb designs later. Keying is just a PNP switching power to the first 2 gain stages.It took a while, but i finally made a qso with it. Not from lack of trying, i could hear myself all over Australia and New Zealand on the Kiwi SDRs, but no one was ever around to reply to me. In the end I poked my friend Steve VK3KTT from Melbourne and he answered my CQ call. A distance of about 1400km. We both video'd the qso and the attached vid contains both sides of the story.

author: I wanted a rude username
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2020, 11:15:15 pm
content: Give yourself more credit. This is at least 15st Century.

author: Electro Fan
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2020, 02:39:29 am
content: Quote from: I wanted a rude username on February 20, 2020, 11:15:15 pmLOLSeriously, nice work vk4ffab!

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2020, 07:14:01 pm
content: Very cool. I like the flip-bodge on the power connector. There's always one.

author: deepskyridge
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2020, 09:25:44 pm
content: I was a novice in the 20th century and there had to be a crystal in the transmitter.Gary

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2020, 09:48:37 pm
content: Neat, glad to hear that this works so well! Just fix that connector before you rip it off the board (yep, that was me on Reddit!).Quote from: deepskyridge on February 21, 2020, 09:25:44 pmWhat do you mean? There are two on that board, her is using an AD9850 DDS for VFO, which is, obviously, crystal driven. The other is for the MCU.

author: vk4ffab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2020, 01:04:31 am
content: Quote from: I wanted a rude username on February 20, 2020, 11:15:15 pmArhhh crap, dyslexia, that was meant to be 21st century HAHAHA.Quote from: deepskyridge on February 21, 2020, 09:25:44 pmYeah the title was meant to be 21st century, which was meant to mean a modern interpretation of the novice station.Quote from: janoc on February 21, 2020, 09:48:37 pmHAHA, yeah i fixed the footprint for next time and even worked on my soldering so much less craggiesHave been lacking motivation or I would have had the DSB HT done and being tested already.