Make It Tea

Links - [Peer Tube]

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 17:13:16 +0000

Links

Web Searches are becoming more and more useless. It's getting difficult to search for information on a specialized topic and to be shown actual, real, human curated websites dealing with the topic of the search. It's more and more difficult to find personal websites and blogs in the sea of dross provided by search engines. I refuse to use AI to either answer my question, or to find me websites that might answer it.

Like everyone else I've got a list of bookmarks in my browser for sites I visit regularly. But I rarely save a site that I might only visit once or twice - sites that I stumble on by serendipity. And I regret this, as it means I'm less and less likely to be able to find them again.

So…. here's my attempt to keep a central repository of sites I find useful, separately from my browser “bookmarks”.

General "Large" Web Sites

QRZ https://www.qrz.com/
RBN https://www.reversebeacon.net/main.php
Club RBN https://rbn.telegraphy.de/
QRSS Plus https://swharden.com/qrss/plus/
Chilton Ionogram https://www.ukssdc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/digisondes/latest_view2gif.pl?Station=chilton
WSPRNet https://www.wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet
World Radio History https://www.worldradiohistory.com/index.htm
- Short Wave Magazine https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Short_Wave_UK.htm

Personal Websites & Blogs

Charlie Morris ZL2CTM https://zl2ctm.blogspot.com/
SV0RA http://qrp.gr/
PA3OHH https://www.qsl.net/pa2ohh/
YO3DAC https://www.qsl.net/va3iul/

You Tube

N9KR Home Brew CW Ham Shack Overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkWkpq5XCUg

Peer Tube

Commercial

QRPLabs https://qrp-labs.com/
Bowood Electronics https://www.bowood-electronics.co.uk/shop/

Further Information

Page created : 26/07/26 10:24 BST

Page updated : 02/08/26 18:13 BST

radio, links

30m CW TX - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 06:32:54 +0000

←Homebrew Projects

30m CW TX

My New 30m CW QRP TX is finished

This new TX is re-using PA strip I tried in the QRSS MEPT I've changed the Arduino code and added a rotary encoder and LCD.

Basic Architecture

I've also built a “QSK” board that handles the antenna changeover relay, TX VFO enable/disable and keying the driver stage of the PA strip.

It's still a work in progress….

The boards on the bench :

RBN Spots of me calling CQ with 1W - using the antenna c/o QSK board etc.

Final Build

I repurposed an enclosure from a previous project and started cramming everything in.

And here it is, finished and incorporated into the shack

The final feature set:

Arduino (Seeeduino nano) controlling an SI5351 clock board
LCD Display
- Frequency
- RX / TX status
- Approximate TX Power setting (calculated from PA supply Voltage measured by the Arduino ADC)
Semi-QSK
- Internal Antenna C/O relay
- RX Mute line (ground to mute)
Variable TX Output power via voltage regulator on DC supply to final class-C IRF510 MOSFET
- Output adjustable 0.1W → 5W

Separate TX and RX

I considered making a transceiver by putting the phasing RX 30m Phasing Rx and this TX together in one box, with a single Arduino / SI5351 but I decided to keep them totally separate. This harks back to an earlier time when this was a common way of operating. There is much more versatility from this approach.

Further Information

Page created : 29/07/26 07:31 BST

Page updated : 29/07/26 07:32 BST

radio, cw, homebrew

Make It Tea - [Over on my new Blog platform]

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:07:51 +0000

Make It Tea

The Notebook...

Pages with information and notes to help me remember things. Some of it might be useful to other people. Or not.

Use the sidebar navigation to find the area of interest….

The Full Site Index Category Index

Newest Notebook Pages

Page	Date	Tags
30m CW TX	29/07/26 07:32 BST	radio, cw, homebrew
Links	26/07/26 10:24 BST	radio, links
30m Phasing Rx	16/07/26 23:06 BST	radio, cw, homebrew, arduino
QRSS MEPT	12/07/26 07:54 BST	radio, qrss, arduino, mept
60m Transceiver	11/07/26 10:09 BST	radio, arduino
Homebrew Projects	11/07/26 09:54 BST	radio, arduino
QRSS	08/07/26 12:06 BST	radio, qrss, 30m, qmx, grabber

The Blog...

My random thoughts on topics and projects that I'm currently thinking about, or doing, or thinking about doing…

Over on my new Blog platform

The new Blog

The older posts here in dokuwiki's blog

Dokuwiki blog...

The QRSS Grabber...

https://gm4slv.org.uk

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:03:56 +0000

Home

Notebook

Blog

My Blog

Old Magazines Galore - [Old Magazines Galore]

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:24:07 +0000

Old Magazines Galore

While surfing the interwebs looking for interesting radio content I came across a brilliant website that has scans of THOUSANDS of old radio-related material.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com

There are trade journals, catalogues, magazines from all parts of the world. It must be a massive undertaking to create and maintain, and to source the material and scan it.

I found almost the complete set of Short Wave Magazine issues going back to the pre-war period! There are also lots and lots of other great magazines.

Short Wave Magazine is of particular importance to me. When I was first getting interested in Short Wave Listening and Amateur Radio as a teenager in the early 1980s I read Short Wave Mag (SMW) and Practical Wireless.

But the thing that cemented my whole outlook on what Amateur Radio is (or should be) was a big pile of SWMs from the 60s and 70s that I was given.

My dad had a friend who turned out to be a long-time SWL and when I expressed an interest in radio my Dad took me on a visit. That was the first time I heard a decent HF receiver (from memory a Trio of some sort, 70s vintage?). I had a nasty Realistic DX100L at the time which was a nightmare to tune in SSB/CW (but still gave me great enjoyment).

More important than hearing his radio (I remember it had a Partridge Joystick antenna attached, propped up in his bedroom, where the radio sat in pride of place on a small table) was the pile of old (they were old and outdated even then) SWMs to read and learn from.

I saw black and white pictures of simple radio shacks, lots of homemade equipment. Sheds and attics full of “proper” radios. Articles about making and modifying transmitters and receivers. Valves and some transistor stuff.

I got the understanding that Amateur Radio was a technical hobby that required you to build stuff. To understand how it works. To “get your hands dirty” and know which end of a soldering iron to hold.

I treasured the small bundle (SWM was a small-form-factor magazine until the 1990s(?) when it went to a “normal” magazine format) of gems from the hey-day of amateur radio. That period when valves were still king, but new technology was coming. Transistors were common, some small IC projects were appearing in the later years of my little collection.

I moved house several times after that. And on one move I lost my collection of old magazines. Not just this pile of really old SMWs, but also my own collection of SWM from the 1980s onwards, and my collection of SPRAT. I'm sad when I remember them, and miss the opportunity to flick through an old 1960s “wireless” magazine…

Finding https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Short_Wave_UK.htm has been a joy!

I can look back and find articles that I remember reading. I plan to slowly look through them, from time to time and remember both my own nascent period in Amateur Radio, but also a time, earlier than that, which taught me so much about what I hold to be the central core of the Radio Hobby - tinkering with the innards of radios. Modern Black Boxes are not a new thing. There are comments in the old SWMs about how the hobby is changing, from one centered around building & technical matters to one based on appliance operation.

While on the subject of articles, we would like to see more projects on complete transmitters or receivers, aerials and so on. It is our view that, despite a wide-spread belief to the contrary, anyone with an R.A.E. pass should be able to build and get working an SSB transmitter, given that the construction methods and testing are set out in clear detail so that the beginner-constructor can fault-find and test out each part as he completes it, thus making the final setting-up something other than “getting the brute to play.” Editorial Comment, Short Wave Magazine, January 1979

Modern Black Boxes are miracles of design and construction. But poking around inside them with a soldering iron isn't an option for most of us.

I'm embracing some of the spirit of the 1960/70/80 SWM articles, and also keeping up to date with some modern-day developments (e.g Arduinos and SI5351 VFOs) but blending them with older technologies - simple superhet and Direct Conversion receivers and CW transmitters that don't need to be terribly complicated.

The key is not to dismiss everything new, but also not to dismiss the huge back-history of designs and techniques.

And for me it's now to migrate myself back to where I first wanted to be in the hobby. What I first thought the hobby was about. Based on my early brainwashing from those SWMs.

The more I re-read them and the more I ponder what I want to get from my time in the shack, the more I want to melt solder, build little circuits and play radio. With the emphasis on PLAY….

radio, swm, magazines

30m Phasing Rx - [Mute clicks & thumps]

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:23:25 +0000

←Homebrew Projects

30m Phasing Rx

I recently found an old project that had been left in the junk box unfinished. It's a direct-conversion phasing receiver for 30m.

Inspired by my current binge-listen to the Soldersmoke Podcast https://www.soldersmoke.com/ archives (I'm starting at the beginning and listening to them all.. currently I'm at around Episode 30) I thought I'd restart the project and build it into the planned-for 30m CW transceiver. There's a 5W PA strip that's recently been used in my QRSS MEPT but I'll build a new PA for the MEPT and use the original one for it's original purpose.My New 30m CW QRP TX is finished

I repaired a few broken wires and dry joints and the RX is working. I've checked that the phasing opposite-sideband rejection is working and given it a tweak to check that the adjustments are doing the right things. All looks good.

I'll document the circuit later

Here are some photos

There's a Makertube video of it receiving its first signals…

https://makertube.net/w/4xeject7Vtk6E9zxuJqxsd

The design

Coming soon….

Design notes

The basic format is

Band pass filter for 30m
RF amplifier
Signal splitter to feed the RF ports of a pair of home-made passive 4-diode balance mixers
- the 2 mixers are also fed with 90° I & Q local oscillator signals from an arduino/Si5351 IQ VFO
The outputs of the 2 mixers is a pair of baseband audio signals in quadrature which then pass through the phase-delay circuits
The 2 paths combine such that the audio from the unwanted sideband is cancelled and audio from the wanted sideband is presented to to an op-amp audio BPF centred on 700Hz.
Then there's a audio amplifier that can drive a speaker.

Updates

After using it alongside my separate 30m TX while testing the TX I found it very necessary to turn the volume down FULLY before transmitting, otherwise, un-muted, the receive audio is dangerously LOUD… that's fine as long as I remember to turn the volume down…. but after forgetting once, while wearing headphones, I don't dare risk it again!

I added a simple audio switch in series with the audio path, between between the post-BPF amplifier stage and the “top” of the volume pot.

I found the basic circuit at https://g4tgj.github.io/Audio-Switch/.

For the muting I hold the mute line high with 10k in the receiver and then the mute input is a “ground to mute” connection which is easily arranged from the TX QSK board.

It works well enough to both save my hearing and to provide a useful sidetone from the receiver during transmit, which means I don't need to add a sidetone circuit.

Mute clicks & thumps

I found this arrangement of using diodes to “share” the pull-down transistor switch with the c/o relay in the 30m TX Blog post about TX to perform poorly after I'd used it for a while and realized it needed a bit of a tweak to make it “right” rather than “okay”.

I noticed a loud click/thump as the first CW character was sent and the mute operated. Initially I assumed that the MUTE wasn't operating soon enough, or that the QSK wasn't delaying the SI5351 VFO enable line sufficiently long enough to allow the MUTE (and C/O relay) switching. Much probing with the 2-channel scope shows that the relative timing is okay. The loud initial click occurs whenever the first loud audio feeds into the mute circuit, regardless of how long the mute has been active, and how long the RF is delayed. I played with the Arduino code to delay the RF enable so that the RF didn't come on until 100mS after the MUTE and Relay c/o - enough to miss several morse characters - and yet still there was a loud click when the first loud audio arrived.

I tried pulling the MUTE line down to ground with a croc-clip-lead - and this cured the problem.

Looking at the MUTE line on a scope shows that it normally only goes down to about 1V when the transistor switches, not 0V and this leads to an initial loud click when the first loud audio arrives on first key-down. Once the click is gone the mute behaves correctly, but it appears that unless the MUTE line is hard-down it doesn't fully mute until a few mS after the first audio comes on the input to the SD7000.

Sharing the MUTE line via a single transistor switch and steering diodes was the problem.

The cure was to use a separate 2N3904 transistor to pull the MUTE line down hard without a diode inline.

Now the MUTE operates correctly, and smoothly and the faint leak-through is enough to act as a simple sidetone. And no loud CLICK on key down.

RX Bandpass Filter

Initially I installed a simple 2-stage Op Amp BPF. It was designed several years ago and I don't know what my though process was at the time - what Q and Gain I was aiming for. It's not bad but it's not as good as I would like it to be.

I had a look at the component values and reverse engineered the design.

With R1 = 47k, R2 = 6k8, R3 = 68k and the capacitors 10n it seems that the design Q was only 1.7 and the gain 0.7 and center frequency 800Hz . With two identical stages this would mean a designed overall gain of about 0.5.

I'm sure it could/should be better.

I redesigned for Q = 4 & Gain = 1.1 and Frequency = 700Hz, keeping the 10n capacitors

R1 = 82k
R2 = 2k7
R3 = 180k

I breadboarded this to test and it gives a Q and gain just less that 1 with much better shape and attenuation of HF signals.

I then re-designed again for Q = 5 and got from memory

R1 = 100k
R2 = 2k
R3 = 220k

This was slightly tighter and works nicely on the bench fed from a signal generator, measuring output on a 'scope. Next I need to build it on veroboard and install it in the RX and compare the performance.

Further Information

Page created : 16/07/26 22:57 BST

Page updated : 28/07/26 14:23 BST

radio, cw, homebrew, arduino

Experiments - external edit

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:13:32 +0000

←Playground Area

Experiments

Radio Discussions

Blog Discussions

All Comments

Old Magazines Galore	28/07/26 15:12 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, swm, magazines
First QSOs With New TX/RX Project	21/07/26 14:54 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, qrp, homebrew
Going All In With QRP?	19/07/26 11:09 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, qrp, homebrew
30m Phasing Rx	17/07/26 13:36 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, cw, homebrew, arduino
Domain Change	16/07/26 09:47 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	vps, domain
QRSS MEPT	12/07/26 08:26 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, qrss, arduino, mept
Arduino Project	10/07/26 23:15 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, arduino, qrss, homebrew
Soldersmoke	10/07/26 22:40 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, soldersmoke, podcast
Shack To Makerspace	09/07/26 22:40 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, shack
Experiments	09/07/26 14:04 BST		4 Comments
Some QRSS Grabs	09/07/26 13:08 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, qrss, qmx, grabber
QRSS	08/07/26 12:24 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, qrss, 30m, qmx, grabber
QRSS	08/07/26 11:33 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, qrss, qrp, qmx, knightsqrss
Diaries	07/07/26 09:56 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	diary
The Fediverse	07/07/26 09:55 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	mastodon, peertube, fediverse
Radio Update - QRP etc	07/07/26 09:55 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, cw, qrp, qmx
Antenna Changes	07/07/26 09:54 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, antenna, qrp
Radio Clubs	07/07/26 09:54 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, radio club, q-qrp-c, fists, cw
QMX Two Way QSO	07/07/26 09:54 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	radio, qmx, qrp, cw
Becoming Teetotal	07/07/26 09:52 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	makeittea
Finding Things In A Diary	19/04/26 09:48 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	diary
Privacy ?	19/04/26 09:45 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments
Music - A Return To An Old Hobby	19/04/26 09:45 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	music
Blogging Platforms	19/04/26 09:44 BST	John Pumford-Green	0 Comments	pure, blog

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27 Mar 2025 Yaesu FT-891

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15 Feb 2025 DM41L Progs

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22 Aug 2024 DM41L Info

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31 Jul 2024 DM41X Curve Fitting

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02 May 2024 Yaesu FT-2980

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19 Mar 2024 Bookmarks

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Top ↑

My New 30m CW QRP TX is finished - [Final Build]

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:41:35 +0000

My New 30m CW QRP TX is finished

This new TX is re-using PA strip I tried in the QRSS MEPT I've changed the Arduino code and added a rotary encoder and LCD.

Basic Architecture

I've also built a “QSK” board that handles the antenna changeover relay, TX VFO enable/disable and keying the driver stage of the PA strip.

It's still a work in progress….

The boards on the bench :

RBN Spots of me calling CQ with 1W - using the antenna c/o QSK board etc.

Final Build

I repurposed an enclosure from a previous project and started cramming everything in.

And here it is, finished and incorporated into the shack

The final feature set:

Arduino (Seeeduino nano) controlling an SI5351 clock board
LCD Display
- Frequency
- RX / TX status
- Approximate TX Power setting (calculated from PA supply Voltage measured by the Arduino ADC)
Semi-QSK
- Internal Antenna C/O relay
- RX Mute line (ground to mute)
Variable TX Output power via voltage regulator on DC supply to final class-C IRF510 MOSFET
- Output adjustable 0.1W → 5W

Separate TX and RX

Further Information

Page created : 19/07/26 12:20 BST

Page updated : 25/07/26 15:41 BST

radio, cw, homebrew

img_20260725_100129.jpg - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:41:27 +0000

img_20260725_135239.jpg - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:24:10 +0000

First QSOs With New TX/RX Project

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 05:50:59 +0000

First QSOs With New TX/RX Project

I'm building the companion TX 30m CW TX for my recently completed 30m phasing RX 30m Phasing Rx

It uses a 4-stage PA strip consisting of

Class-A amp : 2N3904
Tuned Class-A amp : 2N2222
Tuned Class-C amp : BFY51
Class-C MOSFET PA : IRF510

Driven from a SI5351 VFO it produces around 5.5W with 13.8V on the drain of the final MOSFET amp.

I added a “QSK” board to handle

antenna Changeover relay
TX VFO Enable (delayed by ~20mS to allow the relay to pull-in first)
CW Keying of the first two amplifier stages

I had some problems with a 7-pole Butterworth LPF I'd added in place of the simple 5-element “Half-Wave” LPF of the initial build. On keydown there would be a strange variation of output power, up to 6W and down to 4W, then wandering around over time. Initially I thought it was the MOSFET changing its behaviour as it warmed up. But swapping back to the original half-wave filter cured it completely. I assume one or more of the small ceramic capacitor was unable to handle the voltage. No such problem with the components used in the simpler LPF.

Yesterday afternoon I called CQ a few times and was answered by a weak, but readable signal of ON4XMJ who added QRPp to the end of his call to show he was running 1W or less. Made my 5W seem overkill!

We exchanged details - My RST to Xav was 449 and he gave my 5W signal a report of 569

Xav was running 500mW only, so 10dB down on my signal. I'm really happy that my simple homebrew receiver could copy him, Xav was also using a home-brew rig.

https://www.on4xmj.net/

Here's my TX, spread over the bench, at the time

A while later I had my 2nd QSO, this time with Wang DK4AN - also QRP at 5W.

Later in the evening I did some more modifications to the TX - adding a variable PA voltage, via a LM317T voltage regulator, so that I can easily vary the output power between 0 and 5W.

I need to think about boxing it up.

And adding a Mute circuit in the RX, fed with a mute signal from the QSK board, so that I don't have to manually turn down the RX volume during transmit. A pair of 2N7000 should do the trick?

All good fun.

radio, qrp, homebrew

img_20260724_220944.jpg - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 22:04:04 +0000

img_20260724_220923.jpg - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 22:04:03 +0000

Watches - [Watches]

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:22:52 +0000

←Miscellany

Watches

Mechanical watches, mainly. I can't afford to get involved in the Watch Hobby by collecting them, but I do enjoy learning about them.

I wear a Damasko DA36 as my main watch but also have a Seiko SKX007 and a couple of recent G-Shocks as well as a Casio F91W, a Suunto Vector, a couple of older G-shocks and a CWC G10 Military…. and a couple more….

My Watch Notes

External Links

Page Updated : 22/07/26 13:22 BST

watch

img_20260722_114412.jpg - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:44:44 +0000

img_20260722_114125.jpg - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:41:55 +0000

img_20260722_113815.jpg - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:38:55 +0000

img_20260722_113212.jpg - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:34:28 +0000

mute.png - created

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:36:28 +0000

Going All In With QRP? - [Future]

john@undisclosed.example.com (john) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:29:09 +0000

Going All In With QRP?

I've been mulling over my real interests in amateur radio (again) and it's still firmly in the realm of HF and CW. And I've always had more fun playing with simple stuff and QRP.

Pros of QRP

With QRP

you don't need to worry about huge DC supply currents and suitable wiring sizes, and high current PSUs.
you don't need to worry about the ratings of components as much - lower voltage capacitors, smaller toroidal cores. Everything is much easier (and cheaper).
you don't need to worry about high RF levels in the shack - or adjacent to the antenna (thinking EMF safety etc.)
it's much easier to build equipment.

Homebrewing

I've always tinkered, built things - kits and fully home-brew - and have a nostalgic longing to be “homebrew only” when I'm on the air. Amateur radio has always been a technical hobby to me. I've operated black-boxes - indeed most of my activity has been with “black-boxes” - but I like to think I've always been in the midst of some sort of study or experiment - even if it's as simple as “trying to receive and send CW better.

I still read about those people who build all their radio equipment. If they what to explore a new band, or mode, they build something for it. Just buying a new black box is easier and quicker - but is it as satisfying? Does it teach anything?

Resulutions

So, my new resolutions for HF:

Transmit only on home made equipment (this includes kits as well as fully homebrew-scratch-built radios)
1. Use commercial receivers only as test equipment or for general SWL activities, separate to operating “ham radio”
Operate only QRP

I've now put away all commercial HF transceivers (IC7200, Xeigu G90, FT-891, IC_706).

I've got two general coverage receivers on the workbench: AR7030 and IC-R75 - my thinking is that “in the old days it was common to have a commercial RX to use alongside homebrew transmitters, and to use as bench test equipment”.

Workbench Test Gear

The rest of the equipment on the bench is:

RF Signal Generator (Marconi 2022D)
AF/RF function generator (Siglent SDG1032x)
Lab PSU (0-30V, 0-2A current limiting)
7A linear 13.8V PSU
100MHz 2-channel digital oscilloscope (Rigol DS2102)
1.5GHz spectrum analyzer with tracking generator (Rigol DSA815)
HF Power/SWR meter
NanoVNA
Weller TCP soldering iron
Hakko FX-888D soldering iron
Peak DCA55 : semiconductor analyzer
Peak LCR45 : R, L, C impedance meter

Shack Radios

QCX-Mini for 40m
QMX for 80/60/40/30/20
Home-Brew 60m SSB/CW/CW Digimode transceiver
Home-brew 30m CW phasing RX & arduino/Si5351 IQ VFO
- Plus a work in progress - 30m CW TX & arduino/Si5351 VFO & QSK antenna c/o module

Future

I'm going to build stuff and I'm going to have QSOs on HF using stuff I've built. I'm going to try and emulate those people I admire and look up to in amateur radio, the tinkerers and homebrewers.

My original Home Office Licence G4SLV dated 14 March 1983 says:

Para 1 (1) (b)

to use the Station for the purpose of sending to, and receving from, other licensed amateur stations as part the self-training of the Licensee in communication by wireless telgraphy.

I know the UK licence conditions have changed recently, formally allowing the use of the Station for other purposes than self-training, but I still hold the original intent of the hobby as important. Self-training can take many forms, of course, not just learning to build radios down to component level, and yes - many users of commercial radios could still be participating in some form of “self-training”.

But I have to apply my own definition of what I personally want to get from the self-training - and that's to learn about the ins and outs of designing and building radios. And training myself to operate them in Morse Code (which in itself is an endless, lifetime of incremental improvement - training).

radio, qrp, homebrew