A Minion has been at work!

A few weeks ago–out of the blue–I received a QRPver Minion SDR operator’s manual in the mail. From the return address, I couldn’t determine why I would have received it–in fact, I assumed it was sent to me in error.

Still, I read through the manual because I came very close to purchasing one last year. I had seen the Minion SDR transceiver on Gil Grusome’s channel Radio Prepper.

A few days later, I received a USPS Priority Mail box in the post. Again, scratching my head, I opened it to find a QRPer Minion SDR transceiver inside! Woah!

The fellow who sent it included a kind note saying that he wanted this to be considered a contribution to my work here on QRPer and YouTube. He noted some of the Minion’s shortcomings (which Gil had also pointed out) including how sensitive it is to any RF coming back from an antenna. I’ll need to build an RF choke for sure.

I could tell from his note that he’d rather remain anonymous, so I respect that.

Thank you so much for passing the Minion along! I look forward to putting it on the air! It is an incredibly tiny radio–much smaller than I had even imagined.

I’ll need to take it to my buddy Vlado for a minor repair up front. Somehow, when I plugged a speaker into the audio jack, I broke it off the circuit board. It can easily be fixed by Vlado with a little outpatient surgery. πŸ™‚

Thank you again to the kind subscriber/reader for passing along his Minion. I’ll put it to work!

5 thoughts on “A Minion has been at work!”

    1. I’m looking forward to putting this little guy on the air. Need to build that in-line RF choke first! πŸ™‚

  1. I’ve been meaning to get around to building a common mode choke, and will be following Jim Brown K9YC’s “Cookbook” (http://k9yc.com/2018Cookbook.pdf). He recommends FT240-31 mix toroids. The best price I’ve found for them so far is https://www.newark.com/fair-rite/2631803802/ferrite-core-cylindrical-119ohm/dp/43K4703?ost=2631803802 – $5.10, which is lower than Mouser, Digikey, KF7P and others. There may be lower prices out there, but I want a reputable supplier. Jim’s experiments also discovered that 12 gauge Romex or THHN wire works better than enameled copper, due to lower losses & cost, and no worry about scraping the enamel off and shorting to the ferrite.

    A downside to these chokes (2 cores in series, and packaged), is that they’ll frequently be larger than our radios!

  2. Si did you ever review this radio. it looks interesting. Now you can get it with a low pass filter which should help

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