Category Archives: QRP Radios

Announcements, News, Portable, Product Announcements, QRP Radios

The Discovery TX-500 QRP Transceiver

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Please note: This is a cross-post from our other radio site, the SWLing Post.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Vlad, who shares some images and a video of a new QRP transceiver in development: the Discovery TX-500 by a company called lab599.

Specifications have not been published yet, but we have confirmed a few details from the manufacturer:

  • 10 watts PEP
  • HF plus 6 meters
  • Weight 570 grams (1.25 pounds)
  • Voltage 9 – 14 VDC
  • 105 milliamps at 13.8 VDC and with backlit display on
  • CAT control via USB and using Kenwood codes
  • I/Q outputs
  • Weatherized
  • Expected availability autumn 2019
  • Target retail price is $700 US
  • Product website is forthcoming

All of the following images came from the Discovery TX-500 gallery on Instagram:

Here are a few videos:

Click here to view on Instagram.

Click here to view on Instagram.

Click here to view on Instagram.

For someone, like me, who loves playing radio in the field (Parks On The Air and Summits On The Air) this looks like an ideal rig. It’s one of the only ham radio transceivers I’ve seen that is weatherized to some degree (how much, we don’t know yet).

I don’t see a speaker on the TX-500, so I’m guessing it might require a mic/speaker combo or an external speaker of some sort? I also don’t see a built-in ATU, but at $700, I certainly wouldn’t expect one.

With a power consumption of 110 milliamps at 13.8 VDC, this little transceiver should run for ages on a modest battery pack.

This is certainly a fascinating prototype QRP transceiver. If the Discovery TX-500 transceiver can be produced and marketed at $700 with all of the features mentioned so far, it should certainly fly off the shelves. They can certainly take my money!

Of course, I will plan to grab one of these for review. I’m also eager to see how this little SDR transceiver might perform on the broadcast bands.

We will post post TX-500 updates and details as they become available. Bookmark the tag Discovery TX-500 and stay tuned!

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Articles, Kits, News, QRP Radios

Robert talks uBITX and navigating the world of used radio gear

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Robert’s uBITX QRP transceiver kit with fire red chassis.

Many thanks to my buddy, Robert Gulley (AK3Q), who shares the following announcement from his blog All Things Radio:

I have posted two new articles in the Reviews and How-Tos section. These were both previously published in The Spectrum Monitor magazine earlier this year.

The first article deals with buying used and new equipment, while the other article is a review of the uBITX QRP transceiver. Thanks go to Ken Reitz for graciously allowing these to be posted after their initial publication!

And thank you, Robert!

Readers, I highly recommend both of these articles.  In his used equipment guide, Robert makes practical suggestions for navigating the world of pre-owned radio gear and shares some important tips. His uBITX QRP Transceiver article is essential reading for anyone who has considered building this incredibly affordable kit.

Kits, Morse Code, News, QRP Radios

Four State QRP Group announce the Hilltopper 40

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Many thanks to Pete (WB9FLW) who notes that the Four State QRP Group is now shipping the Hilltopper 40 transceiver.

Here are details from the Four State QRP Group website:

Dave Benson K1SWL, founder of the renown Small Wonder Labs, listened to you and has designed a 40 meter version of his winning Hilltopper design. Four State QRP Group is honored to have been selected to kit the new transceiver. The Hilltopper is a high performance CW transceiver for the 40M meter band. It is the perfect solution to your portable operation needs – small, lightweight, wide 40 meter frequency coverage and low current drain, extending the life of your portable power source. The receiver is adapted from K1SWL’s SW+ Series with minor modifications. The front-end circuitry was revised to replace the now-vanished 10.7 MHz IF transformers. The receiver output is suitable for headphone use.

The transmitter strip is a proven design using three BS170 transistors for the PA. The frequency source for both transmitting and receiving is a DDS VFO employing a Si5351 PLL module. Control for the rig is provided by an Atmel ATmega328P. This runs both the frequency control and the full-featured CW keyer.

A custom silk-screened PCB enclosure is included with the kit. No drilling or cutting required!

There are two pre-installed SMT ICs on the board, but the remainder are ALL THROUGH HOLE parts, and all jacks and connectors are board mounted, the combination making this kit very easy to assemble with no external wiring needed.

Click here to check out the Hilltopper 40.

News, Product Announcements, QRP, QRP Radios

N6QW introduces the Sudden QRP SSB Transceiver

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Many thanks to Pete Eaton (WB9FLW) who writes:

From the fertile mind of QRP Hall Of Fame Pete N6QW comes a new Radio Project, the Sudden QRP SSB Transceiver. If you have never Scratch Built such a Rig and would like to N6QW’s latest offering deserves close inspection.

Using only readily available (and cheap) components (and few of them) one can build a Full Blown SSB Transceiver for either 40 or 20 meters. The Radio’s Design will be featured in 2 installments of GQRP’s Sprat Magazine. The 1st being in the Fall issue (Receiver/LO) and the second part with come in the Spring 2019 issue (Transmitter).

http://n6qw.blogspot.com/2018/09/2018-year-of-ssb-transceivers_14.html

Pete is also providing extensive documentation on his Website:

http://www.n6qw.com/Sudden.html

One use for the Rig is on the Digital Modes, to that end he has design a simple Digital Adapter (which is also described on n6qw.com). One possibility is for a dedicated FT8 Transceiver!

Even if you do not intend to build the Rig take a moment to check out his Web Page. There you will find a wealth of information on designing and building such Transceivers.

Pete WB9FLW

(not to be confused with Pete N6QW 🙂

Thanks for the tip, Pete! How exciting! This looks like an innovative little rig and I love the concept of only using accessible components–in the end, that will give this little rig some longevity.

Kits, News, QRP, QRP Radios

QRP Labs Announces The QSX Transceiver

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The QSX Transceiver

Many thanks to Pete Eaton (WB9FLW) who writes:

QRP Labs has just announced the QSX an All-Band All-Mode Transceiver Kit that should be available later this year. The Target price for the 10 Band Model is $150, also available will be a 40 Meter version for $75.00.

Details from QRP Labs:

QSX (QRP Labs SSB Xcvr) is a 40m SSB transceiver with 10-band (160m-10m) and enclosure options. The kit inherits all the functionality of the famous QCX single-band CW transceiver kit but adds SSB, AM, FM, PSK31 and RTTY. This will be the lowest cost all-HF radio available but also high performance and packed with features. These are the planned features of QSX:

  • Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology with standalone Digital Signal Processing (DSP), no PC required
  • Very high performance 24-bit Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) and 24-bit Digital to Analog Converter (DAC)
  • 40m (single band) or 160-10m (10-band, including 60m) versions available
  • Modes: SSB, CW, AM, FM, PSK31, RTTY, WSPR beacon
  • Power output: 10W from 13.8V supply (power output is adjustable by the firmware)
  • Single power supply needed, 12V to 14V
  • USB host interface and connector, for USB keyboard to allow PC-less operation on PSK31 and RTTY
  • USB device interface and connector, for PC CAT Control
  • QSX can appear to a PC as a high performance 24-bit USB sound card and radio – for digital modes from a PC e.g. FT8, either demodulated or as I-Q for PC SDR programs
  • Built-in CW IAMBIC keyer (or straight keying also possible) with raised-cosine key-envelope shaping
  • DSP features (selectable sharp filters, AGC, Speech Compression, Noise Reduction etc.)
  • Dual microphone inputs (mobile phone headset with VOX, or RJ45 connector for Kenwood/Yaesu mics)
  • Dual VFO (A/B/Split), frequency and message memories
  • Through-hole assembly only
  • Built-in test equipment features for alignment, debugging and general purpose use
  • Detailed assembly manual
  • Macro facility for user defined sequences of operations, or redefinition of controls
  • Front panel: 16 x 2 LCD (yellow/green backlight), 2 rotary encoders, 4 buttons, mic/earphones socket
  • Soft-power on/off switch, the radio saves its state automatically on switch off, so that it starts up in the same state next time
  • Free firmware updates for life, very simple firmware update procedure via a USB memory stic

QSX is still in development! The above list is subject to change. The following is a FAQ with information about QSX.

More Info on QRP Labs Web Page:

https://www.qrp-labs.com/qsx.html

Check out the following video from YOTA 2018:

Click here to view on YouTube.

Fantastic! Many thanks for sharing this, Pete! This looks like a brilliant little kit for any skill level of patient kit builder.

Announcements, Kits, News, Product Announcements, QRP, QRP Radios

The uBITX Transceiver: Pricing and more details

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Many thanks to Pete Eaton (WB9FLW) who shares pricing and additional information about the uBITX general coverage QRP transceiver:

Here are the details, if purchased before Christmas $109 delivered!

http://www.hfsignals.com/

From uBITX creator, Ashhar Farhan:

1. The ubitx is now available for sale, for $109 dollars (includes the shipping), but only until Christmas. *After Christmas, the price will increase to $129 dollars. for this initial batch, a few ham volunteers and I pitched in to sort the crystals, test the coils, tune-up and box these initial kits, we won’t be able to do that any more. we will have to hire more people (which is not a bad thing) and get them to do it.

2. The ubitx is on sale at hfsignals.com, not hfsigs.com. it is easier to remember. we will soon point hfsigs.com to the new website as well. The new site is in wordpress, that means that we can have volunteers writing and updating it rather than waiting for me to hand code the content in html and vi editor.

3. We need help with proof reading the web content.* If you find any typos, please mail me on [email protected] address (not the bitx20 list),

These apart, the early buyers must be aware that they are beta users of sorts, the firmware will sure get updated. i hope there won’t be any revisions of the PCB.

Pete adds:

Just as an aside the original price of the Heathkit HW-8 was $139.95 (in 1970 dollars) and it became a QRP Classic. The uBITX may become  one as well and like the HW-8 there will be (and already are) all sorts of mods/additions one will be able to do. The uBITX is 10 dollars cheaper (after 12/25) works 80-10 M, does SSB in addition to CW, and is a Superhet to boot!

Farhan your hit this one out of the Ballpark!

Very cool, Pete!  I am very tempted to purchase the uBITX transceiver before Christmas and have it delivered via DHL service.  The only thing holding me back is simply the amount of projects I have on my table at the moment! $109 is an incredibly low price for a full-fledged QRP transceiver!

I’m absolutely amazed that it is also has a general coverage receiver.  Perhaps the uBITX could serve the SWL as well as the ham radio operator?  I suppose we shall soon find out!

Click here to read our other posts regarding the uBITX transceiver.

Click here to order the uBITX transceiver kit.

Please comment if you plan to or have purchased the uBITX. We’d love your feedback!

News, Portable, QRP Radios

The uBITX Transceiver: An Update

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Many thanks to Pete Eaton (WB9FLW) who shares the following post:

Last March Ashhar Farhan VU2ESE the designer of the very popular BITX20 and BITX40 series of mono-band HF Transceivers announced a new low cost Rig called the uBITX (micro BITX) a full blown 80-10m 10 Watt SSB/CW Transceiver. Now comes word that after many months of very hard development work by Ashhar this much anticipated Rig will soon be available.

For those not familiar with the Project this is *not* a kit, rather like its sibling (the BITX40) it consists of two assembled and tested Circuit Boards. The RF board measures 5.5 x 6 inches and a second small plug in daughter card that takes care of the digital portion of the design including the 2X16 LCD, Arduino Nano, and Si5351 which are used in the VFO. Add a Cabinet, Knobs, and Connectors and you have a full blown HF Rig. An added plus is that except for the Gerber PCB files everything else (including the firmware) is Open Sourced!

The original description can be found here:

http://www.phonestack.com/farhan/ubitx/ubitx.html

Farhan has just released the Firmware, Schematics, and Wiring Diagram for the production version on GitHub

Arduino Sketch:

https://github.com/afarhan/ubitx

RF Board Schematic:

https://github.com/afarhan/ubitx/blob/e481ea2a2457fc4e7be7a6a4bc9a0fba12bf2cde/ubitxv3.pdf

Digital (Raduino) Board Schematic:

http://www.phonestack.com/farhan/ubitx/raduino.pdf

Wiring Diagram:

https://github.com/afarhan/ubitx/blob/e481ea2a2457fc4e7be7a6a4bc9a0fba12bf2cde/ubitx_wiring.png

Farhan has a social conscience as well giving several local Ladies much needed employment for final assembly and checkout of the Rigs.

There are still a few final tweaks being done to the design so pricing is still to be determined. But if it’s offered at a similar price point as his earlier Transceivers it should sell like Hotcakes!

For the latest info check out the BITX User Group at:

https://groups.io/g/BITX20

Wow!  Amazing project!  Thanks for the tip and updates, Pete!

News, QRP, QRP Radios

CommRadio CTX-10 approved by FCC

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The CommRadio CTX-10

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, R. Lewis (KF5GV), who writes:

Just noticed on Universal Radio web page the Comm Radio CTX-10 has been approved by the FCC. They are accepting pre-orders on Dec 1. No indication of pricing but hope they announce it soon.

Thanks for the tip!

I’m looking forward to checking out the CommRadio CTX-10. For one thing, it’s in one of my favorite radio categories: portable general coverage QRP transceivers!

Since the CTX-10 receiver is likely an iteration of the excellent CommRadio CR1 series, I expect it’ll perform well on the broadcast bands as well as the ham bands. I look forward to reviewing the CTX-10.

Follow the tag CommRadio CTX-10 for updates.

Announcements, QRP Radios, Websites

73 Radio Row: A retailer with QRP goodies

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73RR Logo - B

(Source: 73 Radio Row press release)

A new website designed for radio amateurs, SWL’ers, CB’ers and all communications hobbyists has launched on the Internet recreating the atmosphere of the famed Radio Row in New York City.

According to its founder, Richard Fisher, KI6SN, “’73 Radio Row’ takes its cue from an era when New York’s legendary radio district bustled with communications fanatics shopping for surplus and used gear along Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan.” 73 Radio Row’s Web address is: http://www.73RadioRow.com

The site features used radio receivers, transmitters and transceivers, as well as unbuilt kits, new/old stock antennas, Morse instruments and station accessories of all kinds.

“We are crazy about radio, the same as everyone else,” Fisher said. “RETRO is NOWtro.” For complete details, visit: http://www.73RadioRow.com or write to: [email protected]. Call (951) 395-1923.

I discovered 73 Radio Row right after it launched–I ordered a portable ER TiCK Deluxe Keyer for the very affordable price of $26 US shipped.

IMG_20160507_073723040-001

The keyer was dispatched immediately and I received it within a couple of days.

I just noticed, this morning, that Richard has listed an American Morse Equipment Precision Straight Key for $35.

KK1+-+A

I know Richard Fisher (KI6SN) quite well and can certainly vouch for his integrity. In fact, he’s even giving a portion of 73 Radio Row proceeds to Ears To Our World–what a nice guy!

Announcements, News, Portable, Product Announcements, QRP Radios

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

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

LNR-Precision-LD-11

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.

LNR-Precision-LD-11-front panel

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!

LNR-LD-11-Shortwave-AM

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.