Category Archives: Product Announcements

[The following post was originally published on the SWLing Post by contributor, Robert Gulley AK3Q.]

An announcement has been made by Kurt, OE1KBC and reported by Don Trynor, VA3XFT concerning a multi-mode radio combining various digital modes. The radio/computer is called simply NEW RADIO and is a joint initiative of the ÖVSV, DARC and IARU R1. As stated in Don’s article:

the “NEW RADIO” that will operate on the 2m & 70cm bands and support the most common ham digital modes, including DMR, D-STAR and C4FM (System Fusion), plus analog FM. As reported in the article, the NEW RADIO has been created by hams for the ham radio community will feature a colour touch screen display, 50W of power output, a 1.8 GHz processor, a Linux operating system, plus dual AMBE+ vocoders, allowing for full-duplex, cross-band operation. Also, one of the biggest features of the NEW RADIO is that it will include a built-in LTE wireless modem and SIM card allowing it to be Internet connected while on the go. Apparently, with it being Internet connected, the NEW RADIO will be able to automatically download frequencies, offsets, contacts and other configuration information on the go, allowing for instant updates for users. (The full article may be found here.)

I certainly hope this radio really is “ready for Prime Time” soon as it might very well fill a big need by allowing use of multiple systems without the need to carry around a radio for each digital mode. I suspect many hams have hesitated to jump on the digital bandwagon simply because of not knowing which standard would have dominance. Nobody wants to relieve the VHS/Beta experience! (Yes, I am dating myself here!)

If anyone gets a look at this radio at Dayton I hope you will share with us your impressions!

Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.

Announcements, News, Portable, Product Announcements, QRP Radios

The new LNR Precision LD-11 transceiver is essentially general coverage

May 1, 2016 k4swl 1 Comment

[FYI: This is a re-post from my blog, the SWLing Post]

A couple weeks ago, LNR Precision sent me their new LD-11 Digital Direct Conversion QRP transceiver on loan for review.

The LD-11 is basically a small, tabletop SDR transceiver. It’s like a miniature, simplified version of the Icom IC-7100 I’ve also been evaluating.

The LD-11 is an all-mode and all-band transceiver–meaning, it includes SSB, CW, CW-R, Digi, AM and FM modes on all amateur radio bands (160 – 10 meters).

Though the LD-11 isn’t advertised as having a general coverage receiver, it will indeed tune the entire HF band.

You do this by entering the LD-11’s administration mode. LNR describes this in the LD-11 product manual, but suggests you contact them for help the first time you do this. In the admin panel, you’ll find functions that allow you to set the band edges on each amateur radio band.

For a preliminary test of broadcast reception, I moved the lower band edge of the 30 meter ham radio band to 8.2 MHz.

After saving the settings and re-starting the LD-11 in normal operation mode, I could then tune the entire 31 meter broadcast band on the LD-11.

Hypothetically, you could either widen each amateur radio band to include adjacent broadcast bands, or you could simply set one of the ham bands to include the entire HF spectrum. To make it easier to navigate and tune through the bands, I’m choosing the former method over the latter.

Since the LD-11 has a proper AM mode, broadcasts sound great–especially via headphones!

Proper AM filters for broadcast reception!

Better yet? The AM filter width can be widened to an impressive 9.6 kHz! Woo hoo!

The LD-11 has four filter slots: F1, F2, F3 and F4.

The F1-F3 slots can be set to a fixed user-defined widths (common widths are default).

F4 can be altered to any available filter width without having to enter the admin mode of the transceiver. Simply press the “F” (blue function button) and the FILTER button simultaneously and use the encoder/tuning knob to specify the filter width in .1 kHz steps. Pressing the F and FILTER button simultaneously again, will save your filter width for the F4 position.

I’ve been using the F4 filter position for widths between about 8.2 and 9.6 kHz in AM.

It’s still early days with the LD-11, but I’m enjoying this little transceiver immensely. It reminds me of one of my favorite QRP transceivers of yesteryear: the Index Labs QRP Plus (though the LD-11 is much smaller, more versatile and has a much better front end than the QRP Plus!).

LNR Precision sold out all of their first run LD-11 units within moments of having announced availability. I’m willing to bet they’ll bring a few LD-11s to the upcoming Dayton Hamvention, though.

Check inventory status and view LD-11 details on LNR Precision’s website.

Announcements, News, Portable, Product Announcements, QRP, QRP Radios

LRN Precision announces two new QRP transceivers: the LD-11 and MTR5B

April 3, 2016 k4swl 1 Comment

LNR-MountainTopper-LD11-Announcement

LNR Precision announced two new QRP transceivers this weekend: the MTR5B and LD-11.

Below, you can find details I pulled from LNR’s press release and website for both units:

LNR-Precision-LD-11

The LD-11

The LD-11 is a new 11-band QRP transceiver based on the LNR’s LD-5 transceiver. The LD-11 covers from the 6 meter band down to the 160 meter band. A new feature on this model is a built-in panadapter. AM/FM/SSB and CW modes are all included.

Here is the description from LNR’s website:

The new LD-11 is Digital Direct Conversion, SDR type, build-in CPU (SM32a) DSP radio in which RF signals are directly converted to a digital data via differential and balanced A/D converters. This enables direct sampling with extremely low phase and floor noise.

The DSP is unique and features two independent channels. It also employs a unique differential algorithm within the software which is applied for IQ processing of the channels with phase suppression of the unwanted side-band channel.

The balanced ADC and DAC gives additional noise floor reduction and the receiver can handle interfering signals that are 100 dB stronger than the desired signal at a frequency separation of 10 kHz, and is about 130 dB stronger at 50 kHz separation. As the receiver and transmitter are using the same DSP channel, there is no gap between the receiver performance and the transmitter performance. Thus, there is a clean neighborhood on the bands. At the development stage, our intentions were motivated by the TX side-band noise of existing SDR manufacturers, so our aim was to fully equalize our transmitter to have noise performance that is compatible with the best modern receivers, or even better. After a arduous year of development , we think we achieved it!

This 11+ band radio is based on the LD-5, which has proven to be one of the most exciting QRP transceivers introduced in the last few years. Quite frankly, the performance rivals high end units offered by other manufactures at a much lower price point. Our motto is that we make QRP transceivers that you will want to take out in the field (without fear of breaking the bank).

LNR-Precision-LD-11-L-Side LNR-Precision-LD-11-R-Side

Note: I will review the LD-11 in the coming weeks and post images and notes here on QRPer.com.

The MTR5B

The new MTR5B 5-Band Mountain Topper is a fully-assembled 5-band CW transceiver KD1JV designs “Steve Weber” kit. The following are specifications/features from the LNR website:

40M, 30M, 20M, 17M, 15M
Size: 4.337″L x 3.153″W x 1.008″T
Weight: approx 6.4 OZ.

Features:

Switch selected 40/30/20/17/15 meter bands (no band modules to lose or change out)
Wide operating voltage range, 6 to 12 volts 15 ma Rx current at 12V supply
Efficient transmitter. Low current with 4W output
LCD display
Push button or Optional rotary tuning
24 hour clock built in, with battery back up
Three 63 character programmable message memories
Message beacon mode with adjustable pause time

MTR5B-1

If you were lucky enough to grab a first production unit of either of these radios, I would love to post your overview/review! I’m looking forward to checking out the LD-11.

News, Product Announcements

The Siru Innovatios SDR20 multi-touch portable SDR

June 5, 2015 k4swl Leave a comment

[Note: this post was originally published on my shortwave radio blog, the SWLing Post.]

A few weeks ago, at the Four Days In May conference (held alongside the Dayton Hamvention) I met Jarkko Mäkivaara from the Finnish company Siru.

Jarkko was demonstrating the SDR20: a radio that immediately grabbed my attention from across the room. The SDR20 is a fully portable, robust, multi-touch portable SDR transceiver.

The screen on the SDR20 is as responsive as an iPad and fully developed around SDR functionality. While Jarkko didn’t have an HF signal of any sort inside the hotel convention room, I was able to play with the interface a bit, which I found rather intuitive.

The SDR20’s product brochure lists some of its features:

2-channel transceiver operation
Two methodologies for implementation: IQ Mod / Demod and Direct Down and Direct Up (DDC, DUC) conversion
Up to 200MHz bandwidth per channel
100mW transmit power. Higly efficient 1kW exciter available separately.
Frequency range covers DC to 2.5 GHz
State of the art Altera Cyclone SOC-FPGA (Including dual-ARM9 Cortex)
Graphics Prosessor accelerated Multi-Touch screen with a slick user interface
GNURadio, C++ API/Python, VHDL/Verilog/High Level Synthesis sandbox
High-speed ethernet interface for computer connection
Internal clock 20 PPS
Coherent operation with external clock source (GPS, Rubidium etc.)
Rugged and stylish enclosure / Rack mount

Of course, the SDR20 is truly designed for industrial and government/military applications, thus it carries a price tag reflective of those markets: €3,395.00 (about $3,800 USD).

Still, seeing the SDR20 gives me hope that multi-touch, portable SDRs will become more commonplace as capacitive screens, processors, DSP chips and solid state storage continue to decline in price. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Siru is able to lower the price on future iterations of their portable SDR line.

If you would like to take a look at some of the SDR20’s specifications, check out this PDF product sheet and the video embedded below. Of course, you’ll find even more information and updates on Siru’s website. The SDR20 has shipped to Beta testers and should begin full production in the fall.

Morse Code, News, Product Announcements

Bencher, Inc. sold to Vibroplex, LLC

March 19, 2015 k4swl Leave a comment

(Source: Scott Robbins W4PA, Vibroplex)

Press Release – March 18, 2015

Bencher, Inc. of Antioch Illinois announced the sale today of the Bencher Amateur Radio product lines to Vibroplex, LLC of Knoxville, Tennessee. This sale ends Bencher’s presence in the amateur radio field, thus allowing the principals, Jere Benedict, President, and Bob Locher, (W9KNI) to move towards retirement.

The product lines sold include the Bencher BY series of Iambic Paddles, (the world’s best selling iambic paddle, with over 150,000 sold) as well as the ST series of single lever paddles, the Bencher Hex Paddle, the N2DAN Mercury Paddle, and the Bencher RJ series Hand Keys. Also included in the sale are the HK-1 Universal Hook-up kit and the YA-1 Low Pass Filter.

Vibroplex has agreed to honor the manufacturer’s warranties of all covered products, and to offer parts and support for these products as well.

Vibroplex will continue to offer the Bencher products through existing marketing channels.

Vibroplex may be contacted at http://www.vibroplex.com, or at (865) 309-5073.
Jere Benedict and Bob Locher wish to express their gratitude to the amateur radio community for its interest and support since the sale of the first Bencher amateur radio products in the early 1970’s.

Announcements, Kits, Product Announcements

The new Splinter II kit from Breadboard Radio

May 26, 2014 k4swl 1 Comment

I’ve just learned that Bill (W4FSV) has cooked up a new QRPp receiver / transmitter kit at Breadboard Radio: the Splinter II.

In his blog, Bill mentions some of his first contacts on the Splinter II:

“I have never been to Dayton or the QRP event Four Days In May. I hope to go someday, but you see my birthday is May 17th and it always conflicts. My wife, kids and grandkids insist that I’m there at my party! As thrilling as it must be to go to Dayton and FDIM, I had my own QRP adventure about a month earlier. On April 16th I finished my own building session…the Splinter II prototype. Later that evening I made the first two contacts with the Splinter II…KK4GFR, Jim in Clarkson, KY followed by KF2UZ, Jack in Hyde Park, NY. Then on the 17th, I worked SV1ENG in Greece (see above). On the 23rd I worked PA3BUD in the Netherlands. Finally, on the 24th I had a QSO with SM6CWK in Sweden.

These contacts were especially nice since they were all new countries for my QRPp totals.

Yes, I really wanted to go to Dayton, but my Four Days In April were still pretty cool!”

Bill, I must say, you certainly would enjoy Four Days In May. We’ll sing Happy Birthday to you if you make it next year!

The Splinter II can be ordered online at BreadboardRadio.com.

Thanks for the update, Bill!

Announcements, FDIM, Hamvention, News, Product Announcements, QRP Radios

The Ten-Tec Patriot: an open-source SSB/CW/Digital transceiver

May 15, 2014 k4swl 18 Comments

Today at the QRP ARCI conference, Four Days in May, Ten-Tec is showing off their latest open-source transceiver: the Model 507 Patriot.

Building on the concepts behind the Model 506 Rebel, released last year, the Patriot is open-source and firmly targeted at the makers and experimenters amongst the amateur radio crowd. Like the Rebel, the Patriot is spartan by design, leaving it to the maker to develop the transceiver’s character via crowd-sourcing.

Unlike the CW-only Rebel, the Patriot has SSB and digital modes in addition to CW.

Mic and line levels are adjustable by recessed pots on the right side of the Patriot

The Patriot arrives as a fairly bare-bones 20/40 meter transceiver, but with all of the essential functions pre-loaded, including:

AF gain
RIT
Bandwidth selection
Tuning step selection
Band selection (20 or 40 meters)
Tuning knob/encoder
Mic Level
Line Level in/out
CW Speed

I’ve had the Patriot’s progenitor for about a week now, and have had it on the air a bit. But as this is a very early beta version, I can’t comment on much other than to say that audio reports have been quite good on SSB. I’ll dive into the digital modes after the Hamvention.

Of course, when I receive an actual production unit of the Patriot, I’ll give a more thorough overview.

In a nutshell? I like this direction for Ten-Tec and am happy to see that they are growing a new line from the seed planted by the Rebel. By producing basic, open-source, and relatively affordable radios, Ten-Tec may actually be blazing a path to transceivers with benchmark performance and crowd-sourced firmware. I have no idea if Ten-Tec is contemplating this, but I’m sure many manufacturers are–it’s a great direction for any company. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more on the Patriot!

News, Product Announcements

Elecraft announces the new PX3 Panadapter

April 6, 2014 k4swl 3 Comments

Last Friday, if you were lucky enough to attend the Visalia DX Convention, you would have seen the debut of Elecraft’s new KX3 accessory, the PX3 Panadapter. (Many thanks to Eric (WD8RIF) and Michael (KD9AUR) for the tip!)

The compact PX3 form factor is similar to that of the KX3 (see photo above). Features/Specs include:

Full-color, fast waterfall of spectrum display
Plug-and-play operation
Dynamic range and frequency span of up to 200 kHz
Can detect signals
down to the noise floor of the KX3
Wide supply voltage range (8-15 V)
Low current drain (typ. 140 mA @ 13.8 V)

Click here to download the product sheet as a PDF.

You can pre-order the PX3 on Elecraft’s website: $499.95 as a modular kit, $569.95 factory assembled and tested. I understand that Elecraft plans to start shipping in June 2014.

Announcements, News, Portable, Product Announcements, Websites

W1SFR offers an array of products for the QRPer

November 12, 2013 k4swl 1 Comment

The KX3 helper non-slip pad. — The KX3 helper non-slip pad tilts your KX3 at an optimum angle for operation.

Steve Roberts (W1SFR) has recently informed me about his new website, KX3helper.com where he sells an array of products for QRPers.

Steve’s product line includes:

KX3/KX1 Helper: A foam stand lined with non-slip material to hold the KX3 at a high angle (also other rigs with the controls display on the top surface such as: KX1, HB1-B, TenTec 40/ series, and PFR).
QRPad: A foam stand lined with non-slip material for rigs with front-facing controls such as MFJ, OHR, Weber, and Open QRP.
FistRest: Neoprene mat covered with non-slip material to provide support when using keys.
EndFed 40-6m Antenna: 31 feet long and made with genuine “Wireman” 18 ga Silky Antenna wire. The 9:1 UnUN weighs 3.92 oz. The Antenna wire and lug weigh 3.12 oz. Total weight about 7.34oz.

I’m impressed that Steve tries to source all of his products and materials locally and that his items are quite affordable.

Check out Steve’s site by clicking here. Many thanks to Graham (G3ZOD) who also informed me about KX3helper.

Announcements, Portable, Product Announcements, SOTA

SOTAbeams new line of radio stands

November 12, 2013 k4swl Leave a comment

Many thanks to Graham (G3ZOD) for this tip:

SOTAbeams (UK) has a new range of perspex stands for popular QRP CW radios.

These include personalized ones with callsign for K1, KX3, FT817, and X1M, and a non-personalized one for KX1, HB-1B, and R4020.

Click here to view SOTAbeam’s range of radio stands.