A big tip o’ the hat to Chris N2YYZ for passing along a new-to-me technique for soldering tiny SMD parts.
I’ve heard of the hot air flow method and the heat-it-in-a-skillet method with solder paste as well as a few other techniques but drag soldering? That’s a new one on me and I must say, it looks impressive.
I’ve never heard this method mentioned in all the reading of various groups over the years so maybe it’ll be new to others as well. Continue reading 'Drag soldering'»
Many people who’ve used an ATS-3 mention the receiver characteristics of this amazing little riglet. The typical refrain is “signals seem to just pop out as I tune the rig”.
That certainly is the case and it is an amazing characteristic, especially given its size. To a lesser extent the same can be said for Wilderness Radio’s SST.
More years ago than it seems, the ARRL made a posting to QRP-L asking if any QRPers would be willing to send their kit-built rigs to their lab so that measurements could be made and reviewed in an upcoming article in QST. You can read/download that article here as a pdf file.
But back to the ATS-3… Continue reading 'QRP kits: Audio response'»
Click for larger
Over the next few days I’ll be using Spectran and a Gigatronics 2420M to plot audio output characteristics vs RF input for the various QRP rigs that I own.
Those results will be posted to the QRP pages section under the QRP Equipment category as well as to the particular page of specific rigs that have their own page on this site.
I’ve always known that the ATS-3 series of transceivers have a very narrow bandwidth – as do the SST’s from Wilderness Radio – compared to the DSW and other rigs…but have never known to what degree. Continue reading 'Bandwidth measurements of QRP rigs'»
KT5X operating QRP @ 14,040' on Handies Peak, with ATS-3, LiPo battery & EFHW antenna. Click for larger.
The mountaineering trio of Guy N7UN, Steve wG0AT and Fred KT5X are now back to oxygen-rich atmospheres of lower elevations and, hopefully, collating their photos and memories into write-ups and a video.
Although they couldn’t know it, as I worked Fred and Guy, I had just finished a landline QSO with another ham who is also a QRPer…but who enjoys QRP in a completely different way. Dan WG5G is on the DXCC Honor Roll, having worked 338 countries with 5 watts.
The range of interests and possibilities within the sub-category of QRP is both amazing and indicative of the variety and versatility we have at our disposal at being proficient with low-powered equipment. Continue reading 'Dual aspects of QRP'»
A classic can be defined as something that’s the best of its kind and no longer available. There are other definitions, most of which usually require the object under scrutiny to be from a bygone era.
Making matters murkier, there is bound to be disagreement of which specific items within a category qualify as classics.
The classic ham radios have been listed, blogged about and traded on eBay with the classic verbiage no doubt adding (successfully or not) to their asking price.
But what are the future classics? What might they be? Continue reading 'What are the future classics?'»
One of the neatest features of any ATS-3-series of QRP radios is their high performance-to-size ratio.
The diminutive size comes at a cost though and one of those is the method of tuning. We are all used to rotary dial tuning and the pushbutton UP and DOWN buttons on the ATS-3 not only lack the traditional feel of tuning a radio, it also could be argued that you aren’t even tuning it: you’re letting the radio tune itself with your only input being in telling it which direction to tune. Continue reading 'Czech out this rotary encoder for ATS-3x series rigs'»
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