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Small Wonder Labs

Rock-Mite 20

Just finished building a little (very little) CW transceiver for 20 CW. This is one slick little radio, and it worked immediately when I powered it up for the first time. See all the details at SWL. My client had purchased the pre-drilled box and the controls, which really makes it complete. See the battery pack that goes with it.

RockMite in its box.

First photo is when I tried it on for size. Looks like it'll get a tad crowded in there.

RockMite in its box ... all wired.

It was a bit of a challenge, but everything fit in. Later, I added a couple cable-ties to dress it up some, even though it'll be closed and we won't see it again.

When I put on the power, I could hear 20-meter CW booming in. Heard an OZ3 in Denmark calling CW, so I answered him. Why not? On my second try, he responded with a QRZ, so at least he heard me, even if I wasn't hitting him solid enough for a QSO. And that's using my Carolina Windom up 50' in the trees; can't have a beam in the woods!


Retro-75

The Retro-75 is a little AM transceiver that puts out about 3 watts. Its transmitter is crystal-controlled at 3885 kHz, but there's a place to install a second crystal. You can see the specs and more details at the SWL site

Top view of Retro-75 board.This is the latest Retro-75 that I built. Notice the white ramp header connectors that are on the board. They allow connection to the tuning pot, volume control, power, speaker, and microphone without having to solder those wires directly to the board. This makes troubleshooting considerably easier when the board needs to be removed from its case. The only soldered connections are the coax and the PTT switch.

 

PSK-20 (plus 30 and 40)

The PSK-series transceivers provide an easy entry into digital communications. See the specs and more at the SWL site.

I describe my experiences with a PSK-20 in one of my blog pages. All you need to get on PSK is an antenna and RX/TX audio cables to your computer. Any of the popular PSK software packages can be used with the radio. See my Software Links page for some of the available ham software available.

 

Last Updated on Monday, 14 June 2010 09:33
 
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