Happy holidays !!!

Hello all !!!

Even at christmas i have no time for myself.... (not complaining though... this is an awesome time)
We travelled down to my parents and we are spending the holidays at their place.
So inbetween the starter and the main course i am blogging to all you out there.

We ( Alex, PA1SBM, en GF) wish all people reading my blog the best Xmas ever, and for the new year all the best DX and lots of succesfull homebrew projects!!

Merry christmas and a happy new year !!!

p.s. i hope to get some time soon for the Bitx20 so keep an eye on my blog or twitter !!

73's 

Alex

PA1SBM

4 meters / 70 MHz 1/2 wave antenna.

For a long while i own a Ascom SE550... And i installed it in my shack, and it has been happilly hanging under a shelf next to my Kenwood TM-733e....

Well it was not that happy i think.. reason be the lack of an antenna....

I did not want to just walk in the store and buy one because i like to build antenna's to see if i can make something as good as a "professional" supplier. So i started to search for a design on internet and found....
http://www.70mhz.org/halfwav.htm   by by Ross Wilkinson G6GVI .

So i started to build one , but i could not seem to get it just right.... I could not get it to a SWR under 1:2.
Nothing els left to do then walk over to my neighbour (also a ham amateur) and tell him he would be without his mfj antenna analyser for the next few days.
Now this is never a problem, so i hooked up the MFJ and started to find a sweet spot for the coil, and experimented with different trimmers. Until i hit something which was good enough for me...

After getting to this... and yes i know it is not 1:1 and it is not 50 Ohm... but sufficient for what i want to do with it.
The guts of it look like this......

 

 

 

The door it is in front of is the entrance to my shack :)
Ok, this smal project is done, now back to focussing on my Bitx20!!

73's
Alex
PA1SBM

Busy,busy, busy,busy, aaarrrrgggghhhhh

Hello all....

I think the title of this post says it all.......

Lately my work has grasped all of my free time. doing 6 days a week , 10+ hours a day..... 3 to 4 hours commute.... Well you can imagine that this sucks all the energy you have out of you... if you can't... let me assure you , it does.

As some of you all have already gotten in touch with me if i plan to finish the Bitx soon... Let me assure you i have no intention to finish it tomorrow, but i do intend to continue in a steady pace...
It is allready annoying me i did not spend any time at it for the last 2 months.

In the mean time i did finish an antenna (quick project) which i will write about soon.

Keep posted... more new posts are on the way!

73's

Alex
PA1SBM

BITX20 - 19. VFO..stupid stupid stupid....

Just a little quick post which will show again why you need a proper guide/manual to build stuff if you don't know what you are doing too well.....

Today i came home early and while driving home i was talking on the repeater of Zaandam, where all of a sudden PA1ED came on... as you might remember he is the one who got me started with the Bitx20 and is also the one i talk to if i need a proper translation from what Sunil writes in his guide, to something what I as a dutchie understand. The conversation started like this.....

Me: Hey Ed, guess what, my IK3OIL FLL VFO runs at 14 MHz !! Woohoo!!
PA1ED: Ohh then i think it's broke... what did you do with it?
Me: Huh? What are you talking about??...
PA1ED: Well , unless you wanna end up at 24MHz, the VFO should not run at 14, but at 4 MHz....

Then as he said this , it hit me....the BFO runs just under 10 MHz... and you need to add that to the frequency of the VFO what will end up to be the frequency you use....
This was what Ed explained quickly as well as i was nearly at home..... So back to the drawing board ....

I will get there though.... just happy to have people correct me right in time before i really blow up things!
So again a big thanks to Ed! :)

73's

Alex

A new toy in the shack! A PM3055 scope

I have been wanting a scope for a while now, but i did not want to buy a new one or a expensive 2nd hand....
So i have been keeping eye on thge dutch eBay called "marktplaats" where all of a sudden i noticed an advert for an Philips (Fluke) PM3055....which was an expensive one back in the days :)

Now the 3055 came in 2 editions.... the 50MHz, and a 60Mhz.... As this one was a 50 MHZ i was a bit reluctant to buy this one. But the seller stated that the scope was good (yeah they all say this) but that it included original 2 probes and that both the user manual AND the service manual were included.

After some research i quickly found that these scopes have problems with their power supplies... but also the fix... Just replace all axial capacitors and ur good to go....

So after 1.5 hours driving there, and 1.5 hours driving back..... this is the new edition to the shack !

Next will be an LCR or an ESR meter ... not sure yet..... sugestions are welcome!

73's

Alex
PA1SBM

BITX20 - 18. VFO at 14 MHz....

Last Saturday i got my potentiometers which i ordered. WOW fast delivery this time from China. Just 6 weekdays. So needles to say I started to work on the VFO again.

The strange thing I had is that my VFO was at around 12 MHz. Which of course is too low :)
The only thing I could think off was the toroid I had wound to be wrong. After checking it turned out to be according to what IK3OIL writes in his building instructions......
Well almost.... it says to use 0.5mm diameter wire... which i did not have , so i used something slightly thicker... well twice as thick.....

As the instructions show that if you use less windings , the frquency will go up , i started to remove one winding at a time.... And i got it to get to 14 MHz!!
But as i had to remove too many windings to my liking, i decided to get me some 0.5 wire.
So that's now ordered, and as the eBay wrote me yesterday, sent allready as well :)

I checked all other components as well and I noticed that IK3OIL thinks that C8 needed to be 60pf ceramic, so as Saturday is a ham parts fair again , I will look for that as well.
I'm not really sure why this is though... the normal trimmer I used seemed to work OK.

I hope this all will "solve" my "problem" :)

Will keep you all posted... until the next post!

Alex
PA1SBM

BITX20 - 17. VFO first test....

Yesterday we had the "ROM" at "the lichtmis" Dutch amateurs will know what i am talking about, but as i have a lot of people and fellow ham's following me from abroad (which I'm really proud of, and thankful for) I'll explain what this is..... It's a small radio parts meeting. which has become a "must go to" for most hams in the Netherlands. Even though it's in the north part of the Netherlands, i always hear people from down south as well... This market is without a doubt one of the most fun markets to go to.

Well, anyway, i bought some parts which i still needed for the VFO. uhmm well, i only needed a 2k multiturn potentiometer (variable resistor)(blue thing in the picture)
This morning i started to hook up everything to see if it would work.... and it did....
For calibrating i need a 10k potmeter as we call it in the netherlands :) and i dont have any...
That's why you don't see a 14 MHz on the display yet. the vco is not hooked up yet
I'll be placing an order on eBay shortly after this post :)

Again i am getting a step closer to a working bitx, but there is still al bit to go... s-meter, agc...
But i think after the winter I'll be qrv on this set :)

UPDATE: potentiometers ordered :)