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XYL Ham Video

A ham friend sent me another XYL ham video where this one covers a SOTA operation. This was almost like an unboxing video where we see the XYL pull into a parking lot, next she dons warm clothes and then a backpack full of gear. This sojourn was a SOTA (Summits on the Air) which is not as well-known as POTA.

I am contemplating a BYOTA this summer which yes, that is a Back Yard on the Air. Cold Beer and a real Bathroom are only 60 steps away. At 84, I find pit stops are more frequent.

What really caught my attention was the $1500 IC-705 she had stashed in her backpack. Highly attractive (the radio) and yet the latest technology packed in a very small box. The climb up the summit was a real cardio exercise and so it was "hammy and healthy"!


IC-705

I could conjure up volumes about homebrewing a rig to take on a POTA, SOTA or BYOTA operation and while being able to say the rig on this end is homebrew, it would not even be close. The real difference is the IC-705 packs more functionality per cubic CM than could be had with a rig like this.


A 5-Watt 40M SSB Rig on a Wooden Plank

I dug out this rig yesterday and added an IRF510 stage (extreme lower right-hand corner). The output was 38 Volts PTP into a 50 Ohm dummy load. For any 8-Day Extra class licensee... take the 38 VPTP, square it and multiply by 2.5 and the answer is 3610 Milliwatts or 3.6 watts.

You can check me by taking 1/2 the 38 (= peak voltage) next multiply by .707 for conversion to RMS. The next operation is to square that result and divide by 50 (ohms) and you get 3.6 watts.

Now the advantage of my method is that you can simply take the log of 3610 and multiply it by 10 and you have a that my rig puts out 35.6dBm. 

The wooden plank rig of note uses a Digital LO/BFO based on the


Seed Xiao RP2040 and a 4.9152 MHz 8-pole QER filter both available from K7TFC at mostlydiyrf.com

While you are there at K7TFC's website you can also purchase mounted ADE-1's and W3NQN LPF's which are bits used in this design. The IF stage is like the P3ST with BFR106 versus the 2N2222A. The steered Rx RF Amp and Tx Pre-driver use the BFR106. The driver is a 2N2219A followed by a IRF510. The microphone amp is a 2N2222A and the audio amp is a packaged unit using something like a LM380N.

Them that know can make things go. 

73's
Pete N6QW

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