Dear all,

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many posts discuss issues with the QMX build (shorts and holy smoke) and as reader one may get the impression this is normal.

Well, I just want to share a successful build story. It was my second kit after a QCX-mini earlier this year, so I would not consider myself a very experienced builder. ??

Overall I had no build issues, got good RF sweeps and between 3.5 to 4 W power output on all bands “as is” – no toroid fiddling (12V build). I see around 150mA current draw when switched on and receiving (backlight on). Several FT8 contacts done on 40-30-20. Below the reports on 30m this morning (~30 minutes operation using a pre-tuned random wire):

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@Hans:

Some bugs I observed so far:

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In Digi mode (FT8):

• Changed from 20m to 30m band via WSTJ-X and got no contacts at all. Surprisingly, according to PSK Reporter, I was still sending on 20m. On the QMX itself, the frequency only changed on VFOA to 10136 and was still on 14074 on VFOB. I observed a similar issue when changing the mode from FT8 to FT4: I got no contacts on FT4…probably I was still sending on the FT8 frequency (WSJT-X v2.6.0 and TS-440S as rig). So it seems I have some kind of communication/sync issue… If I manually switch frequency on the QMX everything works fine.

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In CW Mode (actually what I want to use the QMX for):

Audio issues:

• Sidetone volume can’t be adjusted. It’s either rather quiet, very loud or changes with the AF volume.
• AF volume can’t be turned down to zero. I can always hear a strong station.
• Missing AGC is really an issue and I currently refrain from using the QMX for CW for that reason.

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CW Settings:

• I changed to IambicB and swapped polarity (dit/dah swap) and increased speed to 20 wpm…no transmit anymore but you still heard the sidetone (TX worked fine in straight key mode). I finally managed to get this work by a factory reset and trying different sequences and changing the settings back an forth several times but I assume that’s not the way it should be.

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Otherwise I’m eagerly waiting for:

• the high-SWR protection feature so I can use a tuner without having the fear to fry it
• a mid-band SOTA QMX (60)-40-30-20-17-15? Do you take pre-orders ??

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Thanks Hans for this nice kit!

Matt

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