ham_bitious

joined 1 year ago
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The ARRL elections this year are a sham in c/amateur_radio@lemmy.radio
[–] ham_bitious@lemmy.radio 8 points 1 month ago

I let my membership expire after they unilaterally cancelled my paper QST. I'm still mad about that, and the steady trickle of other news doesn't make me want to go back.

1
Capacity Hats (lemmy.radio)
 

I made and tested a couple of capacity hats for my loaded whip antenna to see how they'd do in the real world. Could you use one instead of paying Elecraft for their 40m coil? Maybe. Could you get on 30m and 40m with your KH1 whip? Might be a stretch... https://youtu.be/uYH9yit8jEo

1
Kits and Parts back in business (lemmy.radio)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by ham_bitious@lemmy.radio to c/homebrew@lemmy.radio
0 comments fedilink
 

Diz W8DIZ has retired from running kitsandparts.com, and KU4QO had taken over.

Good news if you need toroids and other small parts. And the 5watter is a great radio if you need a kit.

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RF Power Meter (lemmy.radio)
 

I was inspired to copy W1GHZ's power meter from April QST (pg 52). Seemed like it would be nice to know if my 10GHz rig (or any of them!) was putting out power. Got some bargraph boards from him, the rest of the parts from the internet, and finally built it today.

I had a bit of trouble cutting a square hole with only a hand drill, but I can see the bars. (If anyone likes designing and printing cases, let me know!)

Turns out I don't have any 9v batteries, so testing will have to wait until I go to the store. I don't expect to have any problems though, since the bargraph circuit is pretty simple, and the AD8317 board had everyone on it already.

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Learning Morse (lemmy.radio)
 

How are you learning CW?

Self study? CW Ops class?

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Your Projects (lemmy.radio)
 

Anyone working on anything fun or interesting?

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The Pixie2 (lemmy.radio)
 

For some reason (probably price!) the pixie is considered a good beginners kit. I would disagree. It is small and simple to the point of being practically useless. Get a Forty 9er instead. For a few bucks more you will have a decent radio when you're done.

But since it is popular, I made a few videos trying to explain how it works: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxpKweJs4V-1uTGK2TqhsQXCAd6eJtPhp

I think the way the designer was able to use a single transistor as both a mixer and power amplifier is pretty clever. Maybe some day I'll think of something that neat :D