Category: Ham Radio
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K3NG Electronic Keyer
Recently, someone mentioned they were looking for a code practice keyer during one of our HF nets. I have a few older keyers in my collection including a CMOS keyer that I built from a QST article back in the early 80’s or so and a Logikey K-1. I had recently built a very simplistic…
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Malahit/N7DDC ATU-100 EXT Antenna Tuner
This is a 100 watt HF/6m Antenna Tuner kit sold through the usual consumer sites like Amazon, Ebay, and AliExpress. It was apparently designed by N7DDC. I happened to run across this tuner kit while looking for something else on Amazon. At $30 or so, it was cheap enough to take a chance on and…
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Automatic Power Off
I have used an APO-3 automatic power off unit in my vehicles for many years. I recently needed to add a second one for my rear-facing dash camera in my truck and wondered what it would take to design and build one myself. I decided to use an Arduino Nano as the microcontroller since I…
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3D Printed Dipole Support
for portable or fixed use I had some left over aluminum tubing from other antenna projects and thought it would be useful to build a 10 meter dipole out of it. I needed a way to attach the elements to a block of wood and attach the block of wood to a TV antenna mast.…
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Code Practice Oscillator
My Brother Dana, K6NR, needed a CW oscillator for an upcoming presentation on Morse Code. I didn’t have a code practice oscillator, but I have plenty of PARTS! So I set out to build one. I Googled for Code Practice Oscillator Schematics to get some ideas and found this design. It’s a clever project that…
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More MMDVM hot spots
I needed to replace a broken hot spot case recently. At first, I reprinted my original ugly square ZumSpot + Nextion design from years ago. I was happy to be able to print it using ABS with my new printer. But I got to thinking how my newer design, a rechargeable ZumSpot+Nextion Hot Spot could…
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QRP Labs QDX 5-band Digital Transceiver
Way back in April of 2023 I bought a QDX digital transceiver from QRP Labs. QRX stands for “Qrp-Labs Digital Xcvr”. I thought it would be fun to take with me on trips. I finally got around to building it in August, 2024. The instructions are very good with excellent diagrams and illustrations on how…
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Tait T855 Rx & T856 Tx module setup
Our high-level 440 and 220 repeaters on Santiago peak use modular rack-mounted Tait radios. Our 440 band repeater uses a T855-20 series 1 module for receive and a T856-20 module for transmit. The transmitter is capable of 25 watts or better, but we have configured it for 10 watts output to drive an external TPL…
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Digital Voltmeter/ Ammeter
I found some small, inexpensive digital voltmeter/ammeter panel displays recently and thought it would be nice to have an inexpensive inline meter that I could use to measure various devices. I designed a case and by version 3, I think I’ve got a nice little gadget. The connectors on the back of the meter module…
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External PL control for VXR-5000V/RLC Club Repeater
A few years ago, I upgraded SOARAs primary VHF repeater at our Temple Hill site to a “new to us” Yaesu/Vertex VXR-5000R repeater. The new VXR-5000V repeater features an internal CTCSS decoder and encoder and a basic repeater controller. Around the same time, I replaced the half-duplex GM-380 link radio with a pair of Motorola…