This says it all. I am reminded of the movie Independence Day where the only way to communicate around the aliens was Morse code.
So, what do you do when there are major Corona Mass Ejections, and the bands are stinko. You dig out some of your homebrew radios and do a bit of tinkering
This poor radio has endured countless filter changes and has become a test bed for various circuits and filter frequencies. The latest filter is a 6 pole 5Mhz homebrew filter. In keeping with our Independence Day movie theme, it is copying that all important message on how to stop the aliens. (It sounds like an alien sending the message!)
But seriously this post has to do with being prepared. Suppose some critical event occurs like a tornado or earthquake, would you have a radio available that could work off of batteries and run reliably for days without breaking down? Your ability to communicate could be saving your life and those of your loved ones.
I have called this rig a Junk Box Radio as it came straight from the junk box and has a few of my older type modules but also was a test of some new stuff. The mic amp actually uses a PNP transistor and a bi-directional board that has one half as the Rx RF AMP and the other half the Tx Pre-Driver stage. Each half has an independently adjustable stage gain. The output stage is an IRF510 that develops 40V PTP across a 50 Ohm Dummy load. [40Volts Peak To Peak = 4 Watts. ]
The Arduino sketch has two bands (40/20M) but the 20M BPF and LPF are not installed. There is a panel mounted switch already installed that can switch the LO and the Filters. A simple mod could easily add the 2nd set of BPF/LPF filters. The radio also has USB/LSB capabilities. Although the LSB sounds dead nuts on, the USB sounds a bit pinched so a tweak of the USB BFO frequency would also be needed should I operate USB.
Always ahead of the curve!
73's
Pete N6QW