June 2016 – Ham Radio Blog

Testing the Pixie II

June 16, 2016June 16, 2016 russell Leave a comment

It’s Alive!

My new Chinese Pixie II fully assembled and nestled in it’s Altoids tin enclosure.

Okay! I just got to test the receive part of the Pixie II… and it worked!! This is the first fixed frequency radio I’ve ever built or even heard, so I have no basis for comparison, but I can tell you that it worked and that is very exciting for me. I thought it was cool when I built a little ground plane antenna for 2m and then a 5/8 wave whip for my 2m radio, but this is really something. I know I didn’t design the radio, but just the idea that I built it from a bag of parts, put it in an Altoids tin, hooked it up to a dipole antenna that I made from some speaker wire, and heard real, live CW is amazing! To me, this is what ham radio is about. And I can’t wait to finish my next radio project of redesigning and building a variation of the qrpme.com’s Sea Sprite (which is just an improvement on the Pixie II).

Testing Different Frequencies

I went through the crystals from the 8-pack (plus the one that came with the Pixie II) and picked up transmissions on 7.030, 7.040, 7.050, 7.070 and 7.110. The first 2 probably came through the clearest, but 7.110 came through well enough for me to catch some if it. And that’s important since it’s the novice frequency and will probably be the frequency I call on first. There’s a good reference for QRP at QRP Portal. Here’s the calling frequencies chart from their site:

40m	7.003	CW	(Japan, daytime only!)	–
	7.028	CW	VK	VK3YE
	7.030	CW	(Europe)	AC6V, ARRL, GQRP, K3WWP, NJQRP, RU-QRP, VK3YE
	7.035	CW	(QRP-L)	AC6V
	7.040	CW	(US)	AC6V, ARRL, K3WWP, NJQRP, VK3YE — now moving to 7.030
	7.060	CW	(Europe)	AC6V, NJQRP
	7.090	SSB	(Europe)	GQRP, NJQRP, RU-QRP
	7.110	CW	US Novice	AC6V, ARRL, K3WWP, NJQRP
	7.285	SSB		AC6V, ARRL, NJQRP

So 3 out of 5 are primarily CW frequencies, 7.070 is PSK31 for regions 1 and 2, and I guess 7.050 is CW and digital modes. While I was able to pick up some transmissions, boy was that confusing! It’s going to really take some work to pick out a single station. They’re all stacked on top of each other! I probably heard 4 or 5 different stations on every frequency I picked up. Fortunately for me, I built a little 1/2 watt audio amplifier I built a little while back that worked great with the Pixie II. Though I was able to hear the stations with regular headphones, the amplifier really helped to pick out the individual stations.

Now I just need to find the time to finish learning CW and play with my new toy. I think a CW decoder may be in order for practice.

Chinese Pixie II 40m QRP Kit

June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 russell Leave a comment

My Chinese Pixie II 40 meter QRP kit and 40m crystal set finally arrived!

The Pixie II 40m CW QRP kit and 40m crystal QRP calling 8-pack that I ordered from EBay just arrived in the mail! I can’t wait to be done with work so I can get started assembling it! Unfortunately, I’m self employed so I work ridiculous hours pretty much every day. Boo.

I ordered a 40m crystal 8-pack (pictured below) to get the major US 40m QRP calling frequencies. I was glad to find that it came with a SIP socket strip to use for the crystal socket. And I still have to figure out an antenna for it. I think something like the doublet dipole out of speaker wire, but I’m not sure how to connect it to BNC. I’ll probably end up using a simple wire connector since I don’t plan to use coaxial cable.

Pixie II and 40m crystal set — This is what came in the mail today! My new Chinese Pixie II 40m QRP and 40m crystal set

The complete Pixie II packaging — Everything that came in the package. The full schematic, BOM reference, PCB and all the components and connectors.

Pixie II PCB — The Pixie II Printed Circuit Board. Component placement is labeled with standard schematic alphanumerics. The included reference sheet is required to know what to put where.

Pixie II conponent placement — Pixie II component placement. Nothing is soldered yet.

Pixie II component placement with SIP socket — Component placement showing the SIP socket used as a crystal socket.

As soon as I opened the kit, I was pretty impressed. I was a little surprised to find a full schematic of the Pixie II and “instructions” included with the kit. Normally, these kits come with just a PCB labeled with values and a bag of parts. The PCB is legit thru hole and small enough for the infamous and much talked about Altoids tin and is clearly labeled to be referenced to the bill of materials sheet that came with it. I can’t wait get on the air with it and I got it just in time for ARRL Field Day!

Homebrew QRP (CW or SSB)

June 1, 2016June 1, 2016 russell Leave a comment

I’ve been getting frustrated trying to find complete/useful information on building a radio from scratch. All of the designs I find are really old and have parts that are hard to find now or are new and really complex. I realize that the transmission standards are higher now, but is there no middle ground? I’m looking for simple with modern and easy to find (read cheap) parts.

It would seem that QRP CW is my answer for now. I’ve found some homebrew QRP SSB, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Possibly the best resource I’ve found to this end is qrpme.com. They have lots of cool little QRP rigs and accessories to choose from ranging from about $30 up to about $50. I’m looking at the Lil’ Squall II that’s based on the infamous Pixie II, but with a crystal socket and changeable lowpass filter. It’s still fixed frequency, but you can easily change the crystal and filter and jump to other frequencies or even whole different bands. This kit is so simple and so well documented, that I’m going to attempt to build it from parts that I source myself whether from scavenging from other stuff, my local Hackerspace or ordering from EBay. I’m hoping to keep my cost well below the already inexpensive kit.

I’m also looking at the Rockmite II kits on the qrpme.com site. I will probably end up just ordering one of these kits when I can save up the $50 and justify spending it on a radio.

Another possible solution that recently caught my eye is the Arduino/AD9850 DDS combination that may allow one to build a VFO radio for less than $30. That sounds pretty cool. I’ll have to do some more research on this to see if it’s what I think it is. I’m not really sure what this would be capable of. If it would pick up and send CW, that would be cool enough for me. If it can also be used as part of AM, DSB, SSB or whatever, that would be rad.