[HomeBrew] A real Homebrew Station

[Deon Erwin]

I have been thinking along these lines too.

Our currency in South Africa is performing so poor against the US$ and
Sterling that it has become almost impossible to afford new equipment.  Even
kits are not a proposition anymore, because they also have to be paid in
foreign currency and shipped home.

The Elecraft kits look wonderful, but are not much cheaper than some very
nice commercial radios on the market.  Many other cheaper kits are perceived
as not being "serious" radios and then there are the CW-only kits which do
not draw much attention either.

So, where does this leave the young Hams and the other Hams in our club who
cannot afford much?

A Real Homebrew Radio is a project that the club can slowly build up to the
completed product.  It offers participants the opportunity to purchase the
kit in phases as they can afford it or as they progress with construction.

One of our club members designed a very decent frequency counter a few years
ago and the kit went through a number of re-runs to satisfy demand from our
club and other clubs in the area.  And this was from a piece of test
equipment that is not even used often.  Imagine the interest in a good
transceiver project.

I recently acquired some state-of-the-art equipment and am very pleased with
it.  However, I still feel the desire to construct a proper SSB Hamband
transceiver with its own bells and whistles.

Jay Craswell has published very fine homebrew projects in the past and one
can incorporate some of these ideas, such as his synthesiser, etc.

Our club subscribes to Radcom and I have not seen the latest issues.  I will
lay my hands on them and look at the article that Jay refers to.  Perhaps
this is what we need to rekindle the interest.

A US television series is screened on our local TV channels and as the
credits begin to roll at the end, a little girl's voice says: "I made this!"

You could say the same as you listen to the 5 and 9 signals from your own
hot transceiver.

I like Jay's idea.

Deon ZR1DQ
.
----- Original Message -----
From: J Craswell <jay@integraonline.com>
To: <homebrew@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 4:36 AM
Subject: [HomeBrew] A real Homebrew Station


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| I've also got the building bug.  Radcom (The U.K. Version of "QST") is
doing
| a 5 part D.I.Y. all band rig 160-10 Meters.  And while it's not intended
for
| "Chinese Copies" I've been looking at it with great interest.  If you have
| the web go to http://www.rsgb.org  and check out the current issue
| headlines.  I subscribe overseas and find the magazine to be very
enjoyable
| to read.  Lots of D.I.Y. stuff.  As good as QST and sometimes even better!
|
| I'm planning on making my own rig with some of the ideas they present.
The
| basic idea that I like is to constuct a radio that is Ham Bands only.  A 9
| MHz IF.  The go for extra high performance recv.  The PA they use puts out
| 20 watts but I don't see why a 100 Watt final couldn't be used instead.
|
| Don't get me wrong kits are ok too.  However a CW only rig is not for me.
I
| operate 80% ssb and my CW is pretty slow.  I also rather like 100 Watts
vrs
| going QRP.
|
| 73 de Jay W0VNE
|
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