Being Italian, it does not take too much to get up my ire! Yesterday on my phone showed up a link to a hackaday posting. It was a wonderful sharing about a spy type transceiver built into a matchbox. Not an Altoids tin but a real live match box! Then, I got pissed off!
Above is a photo of the project and the battery pack. The rig, a CW transceiver, is on 80M and even included a clandestine NVIS antenna. [NVIS, read a droopy dipole you can't get off the ground.]
I thought the project was superb and a real challenge and accomplishment! My irritation was how it was received by the hackaday lurkers! The designer is a well-known homebrewer and has built many spy type radios but this I believe is a first in a matchbox for him.
Comments came like "well another boring CW transceiver". Or "it is only a 1 transistor transmitter". How about "why didn't he use AM"?
Given some of the wording it appears these comments came from outside the US and besides not many US hams can or do homebrew rigs that fit in a match box.
I have a personal connection with this project as I can speak from experience that building a rig in a small form factor is more than 2 hours work. I do know what he had to do to come up with a working rig that fits in a really confined space. I thought my 16 cubic inch SSB transceiver was small but not even close!
My P3ST rig when it appeared in hackaday got a similar reception like -- "there are no circuit boards". "N6QW didn't post the code on a GitHub." Or there are transistors in the LM386 and the Arduino and Si5351 --so he is lying when he says it is a 7 transistor SSB transceiver.
[My view of GitHub is on par with my view of Nano VNA's. I am happy to share code and having an email request lets me track the response and from where there is interest in the project.]
Instead of celebrating that a homebrewer took on a challenge and was successful, we get the crap comments. With 100% certainty those who made the comments never built nor ever will build a project like this. I sense the real reason for the negative comments is a deep sense of envy that these wannabe commenters are incapable of pulling off such a project.
Recently I have taken to dusting off some of the rigs I have built and made a few contacts. I have been surprised at the number of contacts being made at QRP power levels. [Must be the sunspots.]
Just yesterday with this radio (SMD version of the LBS) during the radio blackout I got a 5X5 from a POTA station in northern Utah. I checked the Pout, and it was slightly better than 1 watt!
Above is an SMD version of the Plessey amp and the cores are FT-23-43. The filter is an INRAD 4 pole filter kit. Note the grounding of the Crystal Cans. The matching caps (SSB) are SMD supplied with the kit.
The above photo shows the Mic Amp (left) and Audio Amp (right) where most of the stage is SMD. There was a great deal of time spent on circuit layout so that SMD parts could be used.
Oh, now the comments -- there is a circuit board but not on GitHub!
We must call out the lurkers for what they are and that is they are not true hams nor have the ham spirit. Our matchbox rig made a successful QSO on 80M at over 200KM. All of us should celebrate this accomplishment and recognize the few hams who have the knack and homebrew skills.
73's
Pete N6QW