Simply couldn't resist haywiring the board and trying it out after getting it today! Despite the precautions about trimming leads, I left them untrimmed and all worked well! Photo enclosed... packaging, well, it's so much fun this way... no, I'll work on something...
On 40 and 80 meters it seems to receive very nicely for the broad filter on CW - no mike hooked up yet. Tuning pretty smooth and functions easy to figure out. Worked a few stations on 40 and 80 for the Wednesday night (Thursday UTC) CWT contest, and it was not too hard to pick stations apart even with the SSB width filter - above all, the sound was clean with several stations in the passband so we're definitely on the right track. Heard some pretty weak stations down to the noise and pulled out a QRPer I could barely read. I was happy to note the rig tuned down below 3.5 MHz down to the 160 meter band and into the upper AM broadcast band.
Issues to work on - and I of course will contribute. None are deal breakers for the kind of rig this is, but of course we can constantly help improve:
Pretty hard pop when it goes into transmit.
The keyer is cleverly implemented, but isn't very forgiving of mis-timings in transition from dit to dah. I'm sure there are limits with the multiple voltage scheme (plus you don't get iambic).
Straight keying was glitchy - whether it was my contacts or whatever, it kept going unresponsive or responding oddly to key presses.
Attaching my good old Wilderness Radio KC-1 counter/keyer made for good CW.
The only menu function that didn't work for me was changing the CW tone - tone changed but grounding PTT didn't make the frequency enter. Other functions where grounding the PTT line was required to confirm worked fine.
All in all - elegant simplicity overall, with just a few things the community can help improve - which is part of the point!
Thank you for this design and getting such a radio board out into the hands of the world!
John Seboldt K0JD
Milwaukee, WI
