Nearly 15 years ago, I experienced a very creative period designing and building unique SSB and CW transceivers. Most of this work was published in QRP Quarterly. About 10 years ago I had a serious disagreement with QRP Quarterly leadership, and I no longer submit any work to them.
One of those very successful projects was the JABOM, which is an acronym for Just A Bunch Of Modules. This radio went through a series of modifications where initially using a 4.9152 MHz homebrew 4 pole Crystal Filter it was set up for two band operation.
To bypass the use of a band switch, I connected circuits such as the Mixers, BPF and LPF to Pin Headers. Three pin headers connected via manual pin jumpers set the two bands, 20 and 17M.
The HYCAS IF stage, AGC and S Meter circuitry was hand built and was a lift from W7ZOI. Surely our 45-minute Extra knows all about HYCAS.
I was disappointed in the performance of the homebrew filter and ripped it out and replaced it with an 8 pole 9MHz commercial filter... much better. This then made it a single band 20M radio.
The Construction of the Modules involved homebrewed copper boxes with all power leads entering through Feedthrough Capacitor and all RF connections made through RCA jacks. Lots of shielding so kB never equaled 1 (surely our 45 Minute Extra also knows about the Barkhausen Criterion).
Initially the Digital LO was an AD9850 and the BFO was a computer crystal. That has since been replaced with a Si5351 and the BFO crystal removed.
A relay on the output of the crystal filter sends the signal to the HYCAS on receive or a dedicated RF Pre-Amp stage on transmit.
Of special delight is the efficacy of the AGC circuit and the great sounding transmit signal. A front panel switch selects LO A or LO B, where LO B drops on to the FT-8 frequency and both LO's have memory. The upper left-hand digit on the LCD displays either an A or a B.
Them that know stuff can do stuff.
I must have a struck a chord with yesterday's post about a licensing reset as the number of views potentially could rival the number collected by BB on the Beach with her top off. Just maybe some of the ham community can see the forest for the trees and the failure of the ARRL.
BTW is everyone happy with the USPS. I needed to get some documents to DeSantis Land (FL) in a timely fashion, and they were mailed on Monday using Priority Mail, read $11.60 in postage. They arrived on Saturday. If you drive the Christopher Columbus Hiway (I 10) you can make the trip is 4 days, it took 6.
Copilot Says
The search results didn’t return a specific driving‑distance or driving‑time figure for Newbury Park → Miami Beach, so I can’t cite an exact value from them. I can still give you a solid, realistic estimate using general knowledge about U.S. cross‑country routes.
🚗 Estimated Driving Time: Newbury Park, CA → Miami Beach, FL
Approx. total distance: ~2,750–2,850 miles (typical Google Maps routing)
Typical speed‑limit‑based average: ~65 mph overall (accounting for interstates, slower zones, and fuel stops)
Total driving hours:
Driving 14 hours per day:
✅ Realistic Trip Duration: ~3 to 3.5 days
This assumes:
• You stick to posted speed limits
• You only drive 14 hours per day
• No major traffic delays, weather issues, or long stops.
Most people doing this run report 3–4 days as a practical minimum.
Hey DJT, instead of trying to invade Greenland how about fixing the USPS.
73's
Pete N6QW, The Patron Saint of Solder.