30 octombrie 2021

QCX CW

 YO3HEX, Dexter gave me a nice present! 

A QCX CW pocket transceiver. 

It is able to put around 4-5W into one band and it is working only CW.

It was an awesome project for an afternoon and, after some 4-5 hours, the radio was ready, tested, the fine tuning made and on the second day I already made two CW contacts!


Here are some pictures from my work:



An eagel eye will notice the OpAmp misplaced (the right-side one).







One ferrite toroid snaps. Broke in three parts. Fortunately, I got a lot o this Type 2 toroids. Unfortunately, they are at my second lab, too far away for a lazy ham like me...



This is why I used ol' SuperGlue..



The project is completed. The OpAmp, still upside down.
 





Powered the TRX, current surged to around 1.5 Amps. Fortunately, I start all my experiments on my special design lab power source so no irreversible damage occured.

I found the fault pretty easy, the area was warm. I took out the OpAmp, put instead a 2x4 socket to check if the original circuit survived. 

I took the time to change the LCD with a Yellow-Green one and the original contrast trimpot with a 10KOhm one for a better range of contrast.

After I put the circuit on the right position, there was no damage so I took out the socket and placed the OpAmp directly on the PCB.




The broken toroid is doing well after SuperGlue surgery! 4W at 12V, this is nice.




Thanks to Mihai, YO3ISL, the radio got a nice case!





18 octombrie 2021

ICOM FL-53A CW Filter

 I was reading a post in a FB group. Someone was asking for a CW IF filter for his ICOM IC-703 radio. Specifically for a F-52A, CW 500 Hz 455kHz filter.

Well, I remembered I had some filters and I searched for them. Surely was there, a FL52 and a FL53A (250 Hz). 

As I already have a FL-52A into my IC703, this one stood a looooong time in the shelf.

While I took a picture of the FL53, I noticed there is a serial number on the filter. The serial number was 501 and i thought, "Damn, just five hundred of these untill i got mine"?



Then, I was courious and opened the other filter, the FL-52A. And, surprise, this one was "001"!

So, I got the first FL53A filter from ICOM!!! Dude, brand new, in the original box, mint condition! 

Should I start a collection?



I wrote a request for informations to ICOM, I hope they will answer!

05 octombrie 2021

Elmering and stuff

 


Well, don't know how I became an "elmer"... 

In hamradio, "elmer" is usually an old ham who's wisdom is passed to a new ham in an old fashioned way.

The "elmer" is a sage ham who transmits his knowledge to a scholar.

It seems after years of sanding the wires, the information I have accumulated  is useful to someone...

I feel both satisfied and honored that a new radio amateur considered that he had something to learn from me and that he appreciated that I deserved to be on 1000th place in his log!

Thank you YO3HEX.

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