NJ6N’s Amateur Radio & Electronics Blog

  • Hendricks BITX20A SSB Transceiver Kit

    Hendricks BITX20A SSB Transceiver Kit

    Many years ago, circa 2007, I bought a Hendricks Bitx 20A, 20 meter QRP SSB transceiver kit at the Pacifcon conference in San Ramon, CA. I bought the main kit along with the machined and painted Ten Tec case and KD1JV digital frequency display kit. I figured I would build it over a holiday break…

  • Ultimate 3 WSPR/QRSS Transmitter

    Ultimate 3 WSPR/QRSS Transmitter

    Way back in 2016 I purchased a QRP multi-protocol transmitter kit from QRP Labs (https://qrp-labs.com). I believe my thinking was that SOARA could use this to replace the clubs K6LLL memorial 10 meter beacon at Temple Hill. The current K6LLL beacon consists of a BASIC Stamp microcontroller that generates the keying for a Radio Shack…

  • PowerPole Distribution Box

    PowerPole Distribution Box

    I’ve designed and built several different Anderson PowerPole distribution boxes over the years. Recently I found a design by KM6RW on Thingiverse for a “Decora” style PowerPole distribution panel that fits into a standard electrical outlet box. It can be installed in the wall or on the surface. I sliced the STL using Cura and…

  • Building an svxLink station

    Building an svxLink station

    Components Preparation Installing & Configuring svxLink pi@raspberrypi:~$ aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****card 0: seeed2micvoicec [seeed-2mic-voicecard], device 0: bcm2835-i2s-wm8960-hifi wm8960-hifi-0 [bcm2835-i2s-wm8960-hifi wm8960-hifi-0]Subdevices: 1/1Subdevice #0: subdevice # pi@raspberrypi:~ $ arecord -L…sysdefault:CARD=seeed2micvoicec…hw:CARD=seeed2micvoicec,DEV=0

  • MultiMode Digital/Analog Repeater

    MultiMode Digital/Analog Repeater

    Recently, I built a full duplex repeater that supports FM, Yaesu System Fusion, DMR, and D-STAR all on one frequency pair. Like many SOARA members, I use an MMDVM hot spot for digital modes. My new repeater is essentially a full duplex hot spot using a MMDVM (multi mode digital voice modem) board as the…

  • SvxLink Powered Pi Zero Communicator

    SvxLink Powered Pi Zero Communicator

    Summary: For about $30 US, you can have a Raspberry Pi based EchoLink/SvxLink node. All it takes is a Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero 2, 3, etc. and and Pi Audio Hat. With a little more work, you can use an inexpensive USB Audio dongle for the audio interface. I recently acquired some new Raspberry Pi…

  • Fun with Djspot

    Fun with Djspot

    Darren, G7LWT sent me a Djspot FM transceiver board for the Raspberry Pi to experiment with. The board is used to create an FM “hotspot” that provides access to other svxlink or EchoLink nodes via the Internet. You can use an HT to communicate through the hotspot on a simplex FM channel. DTMF codes control…

  • San Clemente Repeater Upgrades

    San Clemente Repeater Upgrades

    At the SOARA San Clemente repeater site, the ACC RC-850 repeater controller has been replaced with an Audio Test Solutions (Formerly Link Communications) RLC-4 controller. By standardizing on RLC controllers, we have simplified our ongoing maintenance. The common platform will also allow us to standardize repeater commands for our users. The EchoIRLP Echolink/IRLP node computer…

  • SOARA Temple Hill Repeater Upgrades

    SOARA Temple Hill Repeater Upgrades

    As reported in a previous blog post, SOARA has acquired new repeater radios and a new 6-port RLC-Club Deluxe II repeater controller for the Temple Hill site. Last Friday, August 6th, they were installed. The new Bridgecom CS-540 440 and BCR-220 220 repeater radios are installed and connected to the new RLC-Club Deluxe II 6-port…

  • Powerwerx SS-30DV repair

    Powerwerx SS-30DV repair

    We had some exciting fireworks at our annual SOARA Field Day this year! One of our generators had a failed regulation circuit and presented 160 VAC at the output. The victim of the high voltage spike was Dana, K6NR’s Powerwerx SS-30DV switching power supply. Powerwerx does not repair them or provide schematics, but they do…

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