Chinese Manual Kit ATU Off eBay

I saw this advertised when browsing on eBay and thought for £8.79p you can't go wrong at that price! Or so I thought, an ATU kit complete with box, stickers all the bits, it was a reasonable deal and if you messed up it was only a few pounds. 

It didn't take too long to arrive about 3 weeks from China, well packed and it was all there, the only problem of many to come, was there was no instructions!

Browsing across the internet I guessed there must be something and sure enough when looking at Tinker John's YouTube video W5CYF (who does very good instructions btw) . He had a link to some half Chinese/English  e manual which I duly printed off. Obviously Tinker John had had a go at building the Chinese kit as well and he got it working, but didn't seem too impressed by the instructions, I got the impression he more or less just built the kit via the pictures!

Well, together with the Tinker John video's and the instructional pictures, I tried to follow it all and eventually got there. But to be honest the circuit board was misaligned, the instructions for drilling in to the container were totally off and Winding the large torroid and twisting in the tapping points was an absolute pain (and normally I don't mind winding torroids). Finally, you needed and engineering degree to work out how the variable capacitor knobs were fitted on to their respective capacitors and I'll admit there was a lot of it was re jigging and re drilling!

In the end and to fair I just followed Tinker John's advice and looked at the pictures and the one schematic diagram and somehow got there . 

What surprised me was linking and connecting it all up to my W3DZZ and my antenna analyser and finding it actually worked!!

What surprised me even more, was that it worked reasonably well, enough to for me actually use my K2 and the Rockmites. So for £8.79 and if you're prepared to have a bit of fun and struggle, but if you're dedicated you will get there, I would buy the kit and have a bit of fun, after you can't go wrong for £8.79 or $11.32!

JJJElectronics QRP Transceiver 20/40M

Well, what can I say that's good about it, honestly very little. I paid nearly £85  for a ready built transceiver, calibrated and aligned, but I'm afraid it's probably the worst £85 I've spent on a radio. This probably through impatience and stupidity on my part, I should have waited , but as usual jumped in with both feet!(What I should have done is bought the kit for £35 instead).

A fairly simple face for a simple transceiver

I had to install an on/off switch and a jack for headphones. The initial set up was some female plugin wire setup for both the speaker and power which was quite frankly useless. On powering up the transceiver it drifts like mad and maybe (and I say this loosely) after 20 minutes of warm up it may steady a little. The only time you can hear any Morse on 20M is mid morning, as the rest of the time you are plagued with MW. Similarly in the evenings this happens on 40.

You can see where I added the on/off switch and the ear jack

But I suppose that's what you get when buying a QRP rig off eBay. It's not badly built and the guy knows what he's doing. But the design is appalling and when you see something as good as the QCX QRP rig that is priced at $49 it does make you wonder. The morale of the story is, steer well clear of JJJElectronics on eBay, don't make the mistake I did. 

Still, I have now got loads of spares for my next new QRP rig whatever that will be!

Rockmites and Other QRP Radio

Regulars to this blog will know I do like some QRP and during the lockdown in this country I was back working with the Rockmites. I have three at the moment 40,20 and 30 Meters with a fourth on the way.

 

 

The 20 and the 40 are in the same type of container as above and the 30 below is in a small metal tin.

 

Small Wonders Labs is no more as Dave Benson has retired and so the Rockmite works has been passed on to Rex Harper W1REX with his very successful website www.qrpme.com .

 

 I’m interested to see what has changed and if there are any improvements etc to the build process. I hanker after the build and the challenge of trying to get contacts with 0.5 watts. Sometimes you get lucky and have great QSO’s with these wonderful little radios and other times you’re sitting for hours trying to get a reply, swings and roundabouts!

 

I also have an OHR100 5 watt transceiver, a 5 watt 20/40 mts transceiver by JJJelectronics and of course the Elecraft K2.

 

The OHR 100

 

One final rig I’m waiting for which I am relishing the build is a QCX –plus by QRP Labs this is their follow up from the famous QCX transceiver that sold somewhere in the region of 10,000 kits, so was very successful.

 

The new QCX+

 

Another kit I’d like to have the challenge of a build is the K1 and I suspect in the future, I shall no doubt purchase and build one.