[SADXA] SDR Transceiver Kit

[dyarnes]

Hi All,

Last night I mentioned to the group about a new all band/all mode kit that would be available soon.  It is called the “QSX” transceiver, and it a follow up to the single band, CW QRP transceiver called the “QCX” transceiver.  These rigs are the design of Hans Summer, G0UPL.  Hans is an extremely capable and well known designer of all sorts of nifty things.  He’s been doing stuff like this for years!  

The predecessor QCX rig only cost $49 complete!  It is an amazing little rig that runs a few watts, has a DDS VFO, dual VFO’s as well, built in keyer and code reader, and all sorts of added features.  Pretty amazing.  Now the QSX rig is in the works, will run pretty much all modes, power up to 10 watts, and probably include most/all of the other features found in the QCX rig.  The price isn’t set firmly yet, but Hans says a mono band QSX will probably run around $75, and the “all band” version (presumably 160 through 10 meters) will be somewhere in the area of $150.  It might run a bit more, but knowing Hans, I think he already has a pretty good idea of what his price will be.  Anyway, that’s incredible for a full featured SDR rig.  I can tell you that the QCX rigs works great, and the RX is superb!

Now, this is a kit, but all SMD parts are pre installed for you.  Thus it is simply a through-the-hole construction project.  The manual for the QCX was amazing, and so will the one for this new rig.  Assembly is very easy.  You only need to be able to solder!  There always seems to be a lot of preliminary angst about winding toroids, and there will be a few, but I have no idea why this scares folks so much.  They are so simple!!!  If you can count, you can wind a toroid!  If there is any difficulty with toroids, it is making sure that you properly strip the enamel coating off the ends that you solder to the board.  That’s not really hard, just something requiring a little care.  

There may be little interest about this in the group, but just in case you have wanted to build something but just not done it, here’s your chance!  More importantly, this is not some meaningless project—it is a really serious transceiver!  Maybe you are not into QRP, but it’s a lot of fun, and with the increased interest in some of the newer digital modes, this could be an ideal rig with which to operate those modes.  Again, you can’t beat the price!!!!!  It is incredible!

If you are interested in learning more go to the following website—be sure to watch the video as well.  The gal doing the interview wasn’t very helpful, and Hans had to kind of interview himself, but the info is pretty thorough:

http://qrp-labs.com/qsx

You might also want to snoop around that web site and take a look at the QCX rig info, and particularly the manual!  There are a bunch of other gadgets available there as well.  

I have no real “affiliation” with Hans other than the fact that he is a friend, and I have long been amazed at what he does.  By the way, I have a QCX rig set up for 40 meters in case anyone wants to see one of those  in the flesh!  There are well over 5,000 of these out there now.  

Cheers!

Dave W7AQK