Category Archives: QRP

Announcements, News, QRP, QRP Radios

Icom IC-705 demo and pricing

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Many thanks to QRPer, Pete (WB9FLW), who shares the following sneak peek video of the new IC-705 transceiver from Amateur Logic TV with guest Ray Novak from Icom America:

Pete also notes that Ham Radio Outlet’s price has been announced a the 2020 Orlando Hamcation. According to two members of the group, the pre-order price at Hamcation is $1,175 US–the price will increase $100 after Hamcation.

Availability is still unknown: retailers and Icom have not committed to firm delivery date yet other than noting it will be sometime in 2020.

Thanks, again, Pete for the tip!

Kits, News, QRP

The uBITX V6 is a power outage companion

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QRPer Readers: Please note that the following is a cross-post from my other radio blog, the SWLing Post. For more information about the uBITX V6 and a short post about assembling it, check out this post.

Yesterday, a weather front moved through the area that dropped temperatures from an unseasonably high of 50F to 25F in the space of a couple of hours.  Fronts like this always equate to high winds here at our altitude. This time, it packed a little snow as well.

Last night, around 22:00 local, our power went out due to a fallen tree further down the road.

Here at SWLing Post HQ, we don’t panic about power outages. As I’ve mentioned before, our refrigerator, freezer and some of our home lighting is solar-powered and off-grid–we also rely on passive solar heating and a good wood stove to keep us warm and cozy.

Without fail, I always use power outages as an excuse to play radio on battery power.

This morning, the uBITX V6 transceiver was already hooked up to a LiFePo battery on my desktop, so I simply turned it on and started tuning around the 40 meter band, where I had recently logged a few POTA contacts. Problem was, the band was absolutely dead, save a couple weak stations. After thinking about it a few seconds (keep in mind this was pre-coffee) I put on my boots and coat, walked outside and confirmed my suspicions: the antenna feedline had become detached from my external ATU box.

The winds were strong enough last night, that the ladder line pulled itself out of the banana connector jacks on the side of the ATU box. This happens quite often during periods of high winds and is a bit annoying. Of course, I could secure the feedline in such a way that it would easily survive high winds without disconnecting, but frankly this is an intentional design choice. You see, when a black bear walks into my feedline, it easily disconnects before the bear gets tangled, up, frustrated and yanks my antenna out of the tree!

Trust me on this: bears and antennas don’t mix. I speak from experience.

After re-connecting the antenna, I fired up my portable alcohol stove (the one you might have seen in this post), boiled water, and made a fresh cup of coffee to take back to the shack.

I turned on the uBITX once again and found that the 40 meter band was chock-full of strong signals.

It’s time to go chase a few more parks today and plot my next POTA activation.

Frankly, I’m in no hurry for the power to be restored.  It’s a wonderful excuse to play radio.

Readers: Anyone else enjoy radio time when the grid goes down? Please comment!

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Product Announcements, QRP, QRP Radios

Icom IC-705 price and availability

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Note: We will update this post as pricing information is confirmed by retailers. This is a cross-post from our other radio blog, the SWLing Post.

Many thanks to several SWLing Post readers who have been carefully tracking the price of the Icom IC-705 transceiver which is expected to start shipping around the second quarter of 2020.

Pricing in Japan: 124,800 yen

Paul Evans notes that the price in Japan, according to this Icom Japan press release [PDF], is 124,800 yen + tax. That’s roughly $1150-1200 USD.

Pricing in UK: £1200.

In addition, ML&S have recently posted updated details from Icom UK and have noted that they “anticipate a price of around £1200.” To put that in perspective, the IC-7300 is currently being offered for the same price and it’s been on the market a while now.

This could mean that after the IC-705 has been on the market for a while, discounts could place it well below that of the IC-7300. Of course, if history is an indicator, early adopters will likely pay the top price.

Pricing in US: [TBD]

No confirmation yet from US retailers, but at this point, I would bet we could see pricing around $999 USD. That would be a competitive starting point. Of course, once we have confirmation from retailers we’ll update this with actual figures.

Other regional pricing

We will update this post with pricing and availability once we confirm details. Please comment with any tips!

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Your support makes articles like this one possible. Thank you!

Announcements, Kits, News, Product Announcements, QRP

uBITX v6 QRP transceiver now available for $150/$199 US

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Many thanks to QRPer, Pete (WB9FLW), who notes that Ashhar Farhan (VU2ESE) has recently announced the availability of the uBITX v 6.0–as Pete notes, “just in time for the Holidays!“

Pete shared the following message from Farhan:

Here is what [the uBITx v 6.0] looks like :

And of course, you can buy it on hfsignals.com. The shipping will happen from Tuesday onwards. We have a limited supply of the first 200 boards. The rest is for after Christmas.

The most important thing about this revision is that the Radio circuitry is almost unchanged. We have incorporated the connectors on the PCBs. So, this kit needs none of the confusing soldering. You snap in the TFT Raduino onto the main board, plug the power and antenna from the back, snap on headphones, plug in the mic (supplied with the kit) and off you go!

It is offered in two kits now : The basic kit (150 USD) is without the box (like old times) but with a microphone and two acrylic templates for the front and back panels.

The Full kit (199 USD) has the box with speaker, mounting hardware etc. Both are described on the website.

Now, about the TFT display:

For those who are using the 16×2 display and you would like to upgrade, you will have to do three things:

Add a heatsink to the 7805 of the raduino

Buy [here] and hook it up as per [this article].

Grab the new Arduino sketch from https://github.com/afarhan/ubitxv6

Background:

I have been hacking away at adding a TFT display for the Arduino for sometime. Finally, I managed to do this with a really inexpensive 2.8 inch TFT display that uses a controller called the ILI9341. The display update is slow but, clever guy that I am, the display very usable. it uses the same pins that earlier connected to the 16×2 LCD display. This display is available everywhere for a few dollars.

Many thanks, Pete, for sharing this announcement. The price was simply too attractive to me, so I just purchased the full kit for $199 US. (Thanks for being the good enabler you are, Pete!)

I’ll post an update when I receive the transceiver and assemble it. I do hope this is a workable little radio–it would be pretty amazing for newcomers to the hobby to be able to get on the HF bands for a mere $200 US. I also love the fact that this is all based on open-source, hackable technologies.

News, People, QRP

2019 Homebrew Heros Award Winner

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Many thanks to Pete Eaton who notes that Hans Summers has won the 2019 Homebrew Heroes award. Congratulations, Hans!

Click here to view on YouTube.

FT8, Kits, News, Product Announcements, QRP

QRPGuys new DSB Digital Transceiver kit

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Many thanks to QRPer, Pete (WB9FLW), who writes:

QRPGuys has just introduced a new Multiband DSB Digital Transceiver for FT8.

QRPGuys DSB Digital Transceiver Kit

At $40 it introduces a new price point for such Rigs as it includes band modules for 40/30/20 Meters! For those wanting to experiment with different Bands extra bare boards are available for sale.

The rig as it comes is crystal controlled for FT8 but fear not the main board includes connections for an external VFO. As an example one could use one of the very popular Si5351 VFO Kits and be able to QSY to operate the different modes available to the Amateur Community today.

Let the fun begin 🙂

Pete WB9FLW

Thanks so much for the tip, Pete! What a great little project!

Click here to check out the DSB Digital Transceiver at QRPguys.

Kits, QRP

QHR Kits: A QRP kit maker in Spain

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Many thanks to Dan Sloss (VK2NAD / KJ7AKC) who writes:

G’day,

Thank you for the work on your website. I happened across another QRP kit maker and thought you might want to share the link:

https://www.qrphamradiokits.com/

All the best,

Thanks for sharing the tip, Dan!

Portable, QRP, QRP Radios, Software Defined Radio

Initial impressions of the ALT-512 QRP transceiver

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(Note: This is a cross-post from my other radio blog, the SWLing Post.)

So the ALT-512 QRP SDR transceiver has landed at SWLing Post HQ. This little rig is on loan from Aerial-51 and I’ll be spending the next month or so putting it through the paces.

I can already tell that the ALT-512 has some strong points:

  • It’s incredibly portable and easy to take to the field, providing you have a battery and resonant antenna (or external ATU).
  • The color backlit display is quite readable at any angle despite being rather information-dense.
  • I really like the waterfall display. It’s large enough to be quite useful.
  • The ALT-512 can connect directly to your computer for digital modes like FT-8. No external sound card needed.
  • The menu system contains a wide array of features and options for granular tweaks and modifications.
  • The ALT-512 includes the European 4 meter band.
  • Although I prefer using headphones with small radios, the ALT-512’s small internal speaker does a fine job.
  • Rob Sherwood tested the ALT-512 (indeed, this very unit) recently and added it to his receiver test data. It performed quite well especially considering the price.

Any negatives so far?  Nothing major:

  • No internal ATU or battery options. At this price point (799 EUR), I wouldn’t expect either of these.
  • The ALT-512 is not general coverage. This is a negative for those of us who like SWLing, but a positive for ham radio use as the ALT-512 sports band-specific bandpass filters to reject out-of-band strong stations. You can tune to some stations above the 40M band and also the full mediumwave band and below (down to 100 kHz), although I wouldn’t expect stellar performance in those regions.

So far, I’m very pleased with the ALT-512’s performance.

Next, I’ll be taking it to the field and see how easily I can activate a few POTA (Parks On The Air) sites! Stay tuned!

Click here to check out the ALT-512 at Aerial-51.

Grab And Go, News, Portable, Product Announcements, QRP, QRP Radios, Software Defined Radio

Icom Introduces the IC-705 portable QRP transceiver

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Note: this is a cross-post from our other radio blog, the SWLing Post.

This weekend at Tokyo’s Ham Fair 2019, Icom announced an innovative transceiver to their line-up: the Icom IC-705 QRP transceiver.

The IC-705 introduces several industry firsts for a backpack portable radio:

  • It uses the same BP-272 Li-ion Battery pack as the ID-51 and ID-31 series D-Star handy talkies. To my knowledge, this is the only HF transceiver that uses battery packs that can be swapped so easily in the field–like one would swap an HT battery pack
  • It has a general coverage receiver that spans a whopping 0.5 to 148 MHz
  • It sports a full color, touch screen with spectrum and waterfall displays
  • It includes the D-Star digital voice mode
  • A GPS receiver
  • Bluetooth connectivity
  • A MicroSD card slot for memory storage, screen captures and recordings

All of this appears to be included, not add-on options.

The only IC-705 omission, in my opinion, is an internal ATU (antenna tuner). Something I would have expected, but not a deal-breaker for those of us who could really benefit from the amount of features this radio offers.

Side and back panel view noting ports and connections.

There is no word yet on pricing or availability, but you can count on us to post these details once they’re available. If you would like to follow updates, bookmark the tag: IC-705

We will also review on the Icom IC-705 as soon as it’s available.

Video from Amateur Logic/Ham College

Ray Novak (N9JA) with Icom America did a live video interview with Amateur Logic/Ham College TV yesterday. The video includes a full announcement in English from the Icom Booth:

Click here to view on YouTube.

IC-705 Pre-Release brochure

Many thanks to Ray Novak for snapping a few photos of the pre-release brochure:

Update: click here to download the full IC-705 brochure. Hat tip to Dave Zantow!

A surprise from one of the “Big Three”

The “Big Three” transceiver manufactures–Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood–have not shown a lot of interest in backpackable QRP radios over the past two decades.

By “backpackable” I mean QRP transceivers specifically designed for portable use in the field–radios that typically have built-in battery options, internal ATUs, and designed to be lightweight shack-in-a-box units.

Yaesu introduced the FT-817 almost twenty years ago and it lives on today (with modest upgrades) as the FT-818. Kenwood has no portable/backpackable HF QRP radio at this point.

I bet the IC-705 is being introduced today because Icom sees a strong market among field-portable operators who enjoy travel and outdoor radio activities like SOTA (Summits On The Air) and POTA (Parks On The Air).  In addition, many ham radio operators live in neighborhoods that are either plagued with radio interference (RFI) or don’t allow antennas to be installed outdoors. Portable radios liberate ham radio ops from their shacks and allow them to set up a station far away from noise or home owner’s associations.

Looking forward…

Again, I’ll be in touch with Icom about the IC-705 and will share updates here when they’re available. I’m looking forward to evaluation this rig when it hits the market!

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Announcements, Kits, News, Product Announcements, QRP

Initial impressions of the Mission RGO One 50 watt transceiver

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On Monday, I took the new Mission RGO One transceiver to the field and attempted a POTA (Parks On The Air) activation.

I just published a detailed post including a number of RGO One photos on my other radio blog, The SWLing Post.

In short? Although it’s early days, the RGO One is a promising rig and I’m very pleased with the ergonomics, functionality, and features. It’s very well suited for field operations weighing in at only five pounds and can comfortably operate up to 50 watts if you need a little extra power. I’m looking forward to activating a number of parks this year with the RGO One!

Click here to read about the Mission RGO One on the SWLing Post.