Skip to main content

May 23, 2024. Another Homebrew 20M SSB Transceiver

 


The LOTW has been down for 8 Days. Is the ARRL being held up for Ransom?

For those who belong to the ARRL, sounds like your membership fees may soon see a huge spike.

This is a follow-on post to yesterday's blog entry about the modules and boards available from Todd, K7TFC.



20M HB SSB Transceiver


Of note this is a two VFO, two Filter SSB radio on 20M. The VFO's have memory and it puts out 5 watts.

I was thinking of the array of K7TFC's modules and how the modules in this radio could be directly replaced with the stuff available from K7TFC.

  • The ADE-1's for the RxTX Mixer and the PD/BM
  • The J310DGM seen in the video
  • The W3NQN LPF
  • I used the Plessey Amp, but the TIA boards are a drop in
  • I used two filters but easy to convert to one filter from Todd.
  • Mine has an Arduino/Si5351 bit the Xiao RP2040 Board would work FB
  • My audio amp is the 2N3904/LM386, but the new audio amp board is a drop in.
  • K7TFC's op-amp board could become the Mic Amp
  • Lots of possibilities for the BFR106 module.

Believe me I had to work hard to come up with all of the boards including the design, LT Spice Simulations, general layout etc. Perhaps not all who read this blog could see how Todd's Boards would simply plug into my design, but I sure can. Bottom line -- a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done for you!

Always slightly ahead of the curve.

73's
Pete N6QW

Popular posts from this blog

January 26, 2024. A simple CW Transceiver/Transmitter

Cruise through the lower part of the ham bands bands and what do you hear? Well, FT-8 and CW. Often you will not hear any SSB stations yet go to the lower part of the bands, and it is a cacophony (I love that word) of bad sounding signals and some high-speed keying. Fast is not so much of the issue as is bad, run together and jerky keying. But none the less our hobby started there.    So, you could crank down your ICOM 7300 and watch the waterfall on CW or you could homebrew a radio. Actually, to do CW right you need more thought up front than you do with a SSB transceiver. Often, I will state that a CW Transceiver is much more difficult to build than a simple SSB rig. I published two articles in QRP Quarterly on CW transceivers and all I got was a yawn so maybe history will repeat itself.  Yawn!   30M CW Transceiver with RIT!   Of interest is that the LO is a Varactor tuned LC oscillator using a NE602. Look closely at the RIT circuit which is only activated on ...
Read more

March 31, 2024. Happy Easter to those who celebrate this day.

What a great day to Binge on Chocolate and experience the pain of that filling that has been leaking.  I would be in that category with the leaking filling(s) had I not just spent an amount equivalent to one of the fancy new uptown appliance box transceivers on two filling repairs. Well at least I can binge on the Chocolate bunnies without fear of pain. Regrettably everything appears to have jumped in price including the price of parts. Well not so much the parts as the shipping costs.  That notably is seen in the eBay treasures. I spotted a nice heathkit DX-20 for about $50 and the shipping was $65. Likely it is a twofer with part being a way to in effect charge a higher price by inflating the shipping and in part by increased shipping costs. Shipping with insurance across the US was about $150 for this jewel and that was three years ago. 6AM on the Left Coast ~ 20M Easter Sunday! My only hope is the cost of Chocolate Bunnies remains steady although a pound of See's Candies f...
Read more

August 30, 2024. A PNP 20M SSB Transceiver

Shown below is the Block Diagram for the 20M PNP SSB Transceiver steered in the  Transmit Mode . The components shown in the dotted block are relay steered so that the block module is single pass and amplifies in a single direction. The Block diagram show steered in Transmit.  Essentially the steering process works so that the IF Module input follows the Balanced Modulator on Transmit and then the input side follows the Receive Mixer on Receive. All done with some relays and a bit of RG174U coax. For those who count things in detail, this block diagram is not unlike what was used for the PSSST Transceiver which can be found on my website . Yes, a warmed over P3ST only using PNP devices. TYGNYBNT. 73's Pete N6QW
Read more