I have also had some of my shipments from QRP Labs get held up in'cusoms'. Not all, and I can't remember if it was FedEx or USPS, but it did occur. Eventually came through with no issues.?
--
73, Dan? NM3A
There are moments when everything turns out right .... Don't let them alarm you; they pass.?

-Jules Renard

Hi Keith

I hate to bring this up here and I certainly don't want to bother Hans with my question but WHY should my stuff from QrpLabs be held up in the US awating clearance (customs) This is rediculous.

It's not normal, something is wrong. US has no customs clearance. Anywhere. And certainly not in North?Jackson OH. I suggest you call FedEx and inquire. From my side, I have started a FedEx inquiry with customer support at this end, and CC'ed you on the email.

73 Hans G0UPL

Hans?

I beg to differ with you. About 15% of the time inbound international shipments?

addressed to me languish anywhere from 1 to 10 days in Customs. The typical

point of entry for my packages is New York.? Sometimes Canada.? Tracking services

usually display "Awaiting Customs" when the package is held. As much as I wish

we were exempt from customs holding shipments, it occurs.?

Perhaps there are exceptions, but if so I am a frequent flyer.

Regards

Chuck WD4HXG

On Dec 13, 2023, at 11:59 AM, Hans Summers <hans.summers@...> wrote:

Hi Keith

I hate to bring this up here and I certainly don't want to bother Hans with my question but WHY should my stuff from QrpLabs be held up in the US awating clearance (customs) This is rediculous.

It's not normal, something is wrong. US has no customs clearance. Anywhere. And certainly not in North?Jackson OH. I suggest you call FedEx and inquire. From my side, I have started a FedEx inquiry with customer support at this end, and CC'ed you on the email.

73 Hans G0UPL

Thanks for the update, Hans. Been fiddling with it for about 2 hours now, and it doesn't seem to exhibit anything game-breaking :-)
However, while configuring a few preset messages, I accidentally discovered that, while the keyer does not work in digi mode, the presets sending feature seem to do, and it even honors the practice mode. Is that normal?
In all honesty, haven't check with some older firmware, to see if it's something new to .014

Thanks again and gn!

73,
YO3GFH
op. Adrian

Back home, and I've made some progress - but I'm not there yet...

Re-flowed solder to all LPF toroids and also T401+L401, verified continuity to the 9 points that are correct for rev2. No way to verify correctness of T401, alas - but I'm sure I triple-checked it when installing.?

Repeated hardware tests, still no joy on any band. Set to receive on a resonant antenna at 40m, and was getting... well... *some* reception, but nothing like the usual FT8 moans. Put a DVM on the diodes, and got the expected values from all 6 (40mv on D509 and D512, 8v on the rest (built a 9v version, running with 9v input by this point).

One interesting oddity - the *first* time I ran any AF or Image test on a band, it failed (or rather, ran but gave very poor results), then if I tuned up or down a band, and back again, it worked, as did every subsequent test before I exited back to menu.

Tried a factory reset, as per Steve's suggestion... and the hardware tests all suddenly worked! (RF values aren't amazing at 80m, but hey, problem for later...)

Hooked up to WSJT in a fit of optimism, and I've got CAT control, but I'm not getting any audio into my tablet (which I assume is a configuration problem), and I also can't get anything that sounds like more than the vaguest suggestion of FT8 noise out of the headphone socket either. DIGI mode not CW mode. I'm also getting a tested SWR of 5 from a dummy load, and from an antenna I'm pretty sure is resonant.

So... yeah. Going to go over all the connections around the general area of the RF connections next, see if I've got a bad solder joint around there somewhere - but I mostly wanted to give feedback on the RF sweep issue, mention the weird symptom with failing the first sweep, and say that the factory reset turned out to be a significant help.

Cheers for your help so far, and I'll keep you posted!

73

Tom

M7EUT

On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 12:16?AM Steve Beckman <n3sb@...> wrote:

Hi Tom;

Try a software reset.

73, Steve, N3SB?

-------- Original message --------

From: Tom Garnett <garnett@...>

Date: 12/7/23 2:26 PM (GMT-05:00)

To: [email protected]

Subject: [QRPLabs] QMX - all RF filter sweeps bad, no continuity from IC402 to T401

Hi, first time building something as complex as this, very much pushing my limits here.

?

I've built and powered up a QMX - rev 2 - firmware loaded,?screen and controls operating fine, terminal access acquired, diagnostic screen looks okay when idle. Audio and image sweeps look good, but all 5 RF filter sweeps are just showing a line of noise around -60, which I'm pretty sure is bad.

Some of the comments on this group pointed me to the T401/L401 area, so I went back to those with a DVM, and noticed that when it comes to the continuity check on page 43 (end of section 2.13) I've got continuity between?all 6 A/B/C points, and over to pins 7 and 9 on IC403, as expected, but I do *not* have continuity to pin 7 on IC402.

?

I rather hope that will let someone suggest where I might look for bad joints/components, since I can't for the life of me figure out from any of the diagrams how it might be *supposed* to have continuity there!

(Looking again at the schematic, I can see that it "ought" to have continuity with pin 9 of IC402, and testing that with a DVM, it does.)

?

73

Tom

M7EUT