August came and went...

Somehow, I managed a month without any real Amateur radio activity, the MDT kit remains unbuilt!

August is always a month when we have to entertain our youngest daughter, keeping her active during the school holiday proves harder each year as she gets older, especially when it doesn't seem we have had any real Summer to help us along.

The best day out was a trip up to Blackpool, we do this journey every year,  taking the train from Stafford, and heading North, changing at Crewe, and on to Preston.

 

We like it up here spending the day walking the Golden Mile, the people are always friendly and the food great! There are lots of interesting little shops not just on the sea front, but also in the back streets which we like to peruse at our leisure. I know there is Amateur Radio activity up here from the front sometime close to the water, but I didn't see any sign of anyone.

Now getting back into the Amateur routine along with a few other chores as the Autumn approaches, and of course the MDT kit has to be built during the next few weeks.  I have no planned visits to any rally in the next few months, so I decided to make a little purchase from Martin Lynch & Sons  . The Wouxun KG-UV8D Handheld, 2.5K step version has been dropped in price making it a very attractive purchase for £69 including FREE shipping to UK. This beats any best ebay price I have seen, and makes it easier should it have to be returned under warranty. I ordered one at the weekend, I expect it will arrive about Wednesday, as today is a Bank holiday here in the UK when most take a rest, or extend their weekend break, as it is the last Bank holiday now before Christmas.

I look forward to making a few tests with the Wouxun, comparing it with one or two other handhelds I have, taking it out on location.

The MDT kit arrives with a sting!

Short form reviewing the MDT kit from Ozqrp a few weeks ago, and then watching the VK3YE Video, gave me the urge to purchase a MDT40 kit. Of course miles are no barrier to this hobby any longer, a quick click and it was in the shopping basket. I coughed up the green ones or Pound notes and sent it over via Paypal.

Less than 10 days later a card dropped through my letterbox. Please pay up? "Unfortunately we can't deliver your item because there is a fee to pay". Meaning it was  subject to UK Import Duty of £7.63, plus a £8 Post office charge on top! I really don't mind the Tax, but the Post Office charge of £8, I find this a big no no! A fee for them to handle it and take my money. The Post Office deliver parcels and letters everyday from around the world, and never ask for anymore, until we get into stuff with duty added by customs and then they add this extra sting on top of the bill.

This made the total of the purchase including duty a little over £61. The tax might have taken the icing off the cake, but the kit still represents excellent value for money.  Please don't be put off, Ozqrp has done an excellent job of design, and putting this kit together as you will see below:

Post office then satisfied, I walked away with a receipt and the MDT goody box..

The components came well packaged in a sealed box, with all components wrapped in bubble wrap inside. 
 
VK2DOB the owner of Ozqrp has done an excellent job collating all the components together for the MDT, all which have been separated off into little bags and clearly marked. The case comes with pre drilled, clear labelled, front and rear separate panels for the unit, including the hardware and the knobs. Even a Microphone plug has been included in the kit, so you won't have to spend time hunting around or having to go out to purchase one.

A well designed doubled sided PCB, which already has the only SMD component (the varicap diode) soldered to the board . This will save everyone time from fiddling around, especially those like myself with ailing eyesight.

Last night I printed out the manual and bound it up into a simple folder. I recommend everyone print out "all" the 42 pages, and read it from cover to cover a couple of times before starting. Although what may be quite a simple and straight forward process to me, there is still quite a bit for the novice to take in.

The next time I write on this blog I guess certain parts of the kit will be completed? For now, I leave you with two more excellent VK3YE MDT videos, including extra modifications of the unit.

Portable operating with the MDT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVvqZlzX8sk

Modifications to the MDT:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDd4cjkOAi8


 

A new 40m DSB kit arrives on the QRP scene

Just when everyone is taking Summer siestas and there seems very little news around to talk about.  Along comes a new Direct Conversion 40m Transceiver kit from Australia.


The MDT DSB kit is manufactured by Ozqrp, capable of 2W PEP, it has a full swinging VFO  7.090MHz - 7.130MHz or 7.050MHz - 7.110MHz. A complete kit of components including PCB, and case for $80 (Aus) less than £40 UK plus carriage. Which worked out at $12.50 (£6) posted to the UK, when I did a quick trial purchase test and popped it into the shopping trolley on the Ozqrp website.

Further details and a well written comprehensive manual can be found at: http://www.ozqrp.com/MDTindex.html

Update 4/7/15

Peter VK3YE has now done an excellent video review of the MDT 7MHz DSB:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OtZeFkb1xw



  

The Reverend reviewed

May brought Radcom the RSGB's monthly magazine for its members. It normally takes me about a month to hunt out the bits what I want to read, then it gets filed in the pile with the rest. A quick flick through is always the norm, this months (June issue), I was perusing through at great speed over my evening tea, I hit the bi monthly QRP page written by the Rev George Dobbs (G3RJV). What is this, my name and callsign suddenly grabbed me! George was reviewing my Blog and items I had pulled to the front from the Chinese and others.

                                                                                                    
History lesson: The first time I came to know of a George Dobbs, was back in the mid 1970s when I was a schoolboy at around the age of 12. I built his project Making A Transistor Radio published in a Ladybird book. A three transistor germanium circuit that was slowly put together in stages from a crystal set, to a fully working regen radio. Built without a soldering iron, perhaps he didn't want us to burn our fingers? Components clamped down under screws and screwcups on a piece of wood. The radio worked first time and was the first electronic project I ever built. At the time I didn't know much about George Dobbs, only 20 years or so in the late 1990s, I would return back to the book and discover that this was the G3RJV George Dobbs associated with the G-QRP club he formed in 1974. Since then, George has gone on to write many QRP related books, monthly insert Carrying on the Practical Way in Practical Wireless, and  of course QRP in Radcom and a few others.
 
So it was an honour to find he had devoted his entire QRP page over to my blog. My wife has got fed up with me by now picking up and down Radcom every five minutes and reading the page over and over again. She said of course your going to blog it, you bet sure I am!

George starts his review of my blog explaining the name "The Font of all Knowledge" and how linguistic scholars that make up half of the RSGB would lay me open to scorn for using the name Font, but how Oxforddictionaries.com claim households are split over the word scone. Of course being a man of the cloth he would know from the amount consumed at the tea parties he has resided over at the Vicarage over the years of his service. The real secret is I take no applause for the name, this I give over to my linguistic friend, scholar, and blogger  Roger G3XBM,  who is the one whom is responsible for thinking it all up. Before I started my blog I was passing him over information "and still do" about useful links that could prove valuable to be included in his blog. Roger refered to me as the Font of All Knowledge, so I decided to use this when I created my blog late last year.

I now hope that puts peoples minds at rest where the name came from.

Once George has made every one happy, and comfortable, with the name and the importance of its place within the hobby. He then continues forward taking a look at the items I have reviewed, the pixie kit  which G3XBM also picked up on and built one.

The Oscilloscope Kit, I recently noted and passed the information over to G3XBM:

http://www.banggood.com/DIY-Digital-Oscilloscope-Kit-Electronic-Learning-Kit-p-969762.html

PSDR from Michael Colton:

http://g1kqh.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/pdsr-from-michael-cotton.html

I have been very happy with what I have seen G3RJV write, and I am glad the blog continues to score many daily hits from Amateurs around the world.  Of course its up to me to find things new, this will continue, when I see something good, and of value, along with other aspects of the hobby I am involved in.

Thank you G3RJV for bringing this to the forefront of Radcom, and thanks to G3XBM for creating the name "The Font of all Knowledge" Swoon! (I only went to a Comprehensive school that got burnt to the ground twice in 4 years while I was being educated there.)  

Thanks to Graham G3MFJ for supplying the photo.

Quality control or lack of?

Amateur Radio has taken a back seat over the last few weeks with various family problems.

However yesterday, I had a bit of spare time and I was all revved up for testing a Baofeng with its battery eliminator. This is the part that takes the place of the HT battery pack and slides on the back of the radio instead of, providing regulated power from the car battery cigar lighter socket, in essence you make yourself a cheap and cheerful mobile rig.

I needed to just test it all out and check that it worked before fitting, and the MP-304 power supply which I had recently bought was still sitting on the dining room table in its box, handy for a few Volts so I thought?

Switching on the MP-304, there was no deflection of the meter, (meter switch was in the correct Volts position)? I got the DMM out, and measured the output, plenty of Volts, but still no indication on the Power supply analogue meter?

Should I return it? No chance, with all the hassle of someone having to wait in for the courier to collect, it had got to be worth a look. Anyway, I used to test power supplies by the hundreds, when I worked in the industry, so I did have a good chance maybe?

 

Quick investigation required! Took off the top of the case and I was inside, no going back now. First I measured at the rear of the meter terminals with the DMM, no Volts, nothing on the rear of meter switch that changes between Amps or Volts either. This then leads us back to the plug that plugs into CN2 on the control PCB. Just as I was about to measure at this point, I could see the Blue wire (I have marked it with a small red arrow above) was raised, with its termination tag in the plug sticking out, I unplugged the whole skt from CN2, and the Blue terminal had not been pushed home in the plug in the factory, a smart push and it  clicked in place. Plugged it back into the PCB socket and switched on, and the meter then sprung into life!

 

It does make me wonder if the Chinese really test this stuff in the factory? Time and time again I have come across problems with Chinese equipment like this, which should really be sorted in the factory before shipping, I don't believe QA exists? The problem here is, the dealer gets a bad name, and really it isn't his fault, he buys in a pallet load, one or two get put out for demonstration, and then the rest are stored ready to be shipped out in the original sealed boxes they come in.

After fixing this, it did however give me the chance to have a good look inside and see what it was made of :

Build quality really wasn't too bad, a nice hefty transformer feeding a quality bridge rectifier, control board (which I have already mentioned), that sets up the limits and then drives the outputs. A good quality heatink blown at by a fan, which is triggered by a stat when the temp gets to a certain level.

Cased back up, I was then back to the point where I had started at a couple of hours earlier, testing the Baofeng:

The Pixie money game!

A couple of months ago my friend and Blogger G3XBM was into buying Pixie kits from China, he thought he had bought a bargain for the £7.00 he paid for the kit?  Shortly afterwards I found the kits at around a couple of Pounds lower than Roger had bought his for. But this was short lived, a week or so later Roger blogged that Andy Cutland had found them for £3.19 pence, this undercut my price yet again by nearly £1.50!!

Well the story continues!! I have now found the Pixie kits cheaper yet again!!! The complete kit as above (inc PCB components and Xtal), all for a penny pinching £2.89p ($4.30 US), and the more you buy the cheaper it gets! Oh yes I forgot the price "Includes" shipping!!

You could buy several kits without busting the bank, and put them on different Bands with Xtal and small mod of low pass filter changes.

Is this now the cheapest Transceiver kit  in the world, or can anyone find them cheaper still??




 

Binding up!

The normal good old British early Spring wet weather, had stopped any Sunday outside activity, even the cat was having non of it, she was well tucked up after her lunch. Nothing interested me on the television, a boring afternoon ahead or maybe a sleep in the chair?

I remembered there were 2 years worth of Practical Wireless magazines and a few Sprats scattered over the house. 14 were together, 2 were stuck in a drawer by the bed, and the rest were eventually found mixed up with several other piles of junk, which had been dumped together when the XYL had been on one of her recent mad cleaning rounds.
 

Someone had got me the binders for a present last year, again they took a bit of searching for? But I eventually found them, and set to work. After an hour or so, all were now together sorted and bound, ready for the bookshelf a real professional job!

I like to keep my magazines bound together, making quick reference easy when I want to go back to an article. Todays effort will help with a bulk of projects on the list which you will hear about in the future .