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QRPBuilder at FDIM
Gang, The QRPBuilder magnetically attached Iambic and Single lever Paddles are now back in stock. Also, this will be our fifth year at the Dayton FDIM vendor night on Thursday May 15, with all our products available. We hope to see you there. 73, Ken - WA4MNT Karen - KF4EEL qrpbuilder.com
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#qmx #SSB Firmware beta 1_01_000 release
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#qmx
#ssb
Hi all Beta firmware 1_01_000 is now available for the brave to try: https://qrp-labs.com/qmxp/ssbbeta.html That page has a long description of all the new features and changes. Let's keep feedback in this thread, so that if there are non-interested parties they can just click the Mute link and not see it anymore. 73 Hans G0UPL http://qrp-labs.com https://www.buymeacoffee.com/g0upl
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Question: Does the power icon go on and off when you are sending CW?
4
Hi all, Just got a fresh QMX+ assembled and finally got it on the air. After a couple days of fussing I finally got FT8 working on WSJT+. Im small tuner from my ft817 which is manual to tune. All good and the power icon shows full power as FT8 does its thing. On CW the decoder works and the keyer sometimes goes to sleep (wont work) when sending. A power on/off brings it back. My question is when sending CW should the power icon be 'pulsing' when it transmits a character? The sidetone is working but I cant tell if it Is transmitting. Any help? -- Charlie C. - K2CMC LICW/SKCC/NAQCC
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QMX+ with WA3TFS amplifier
31
I recently built the WA3TFS linear amplifier featured in the March QST. The build went very well and with my old MFJ 20M QRP CW radio, 3W in gives 20W out with a peak 4A draw. So, I tried to interface my QMX+ to it and was surprised to see the QMX+ stop transmitting after the first dit. It would recover after a time and would transmit fine by itself or through the amp but it didn¡¯t like it all when I activated the amp. The firmware hasn¡¯t been upgraded in awhile so I¡¯m not sure if this has already been addressed. I¡¯m not sure the RF detection is maybe not fast enough ?? Any ideas appreciated. 73, Jamie WB4YDL
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QMX PA popped. :-(
2
Afternoon all, Well, it was all going too well. I had been using the 003 SSB firmware with good success and decided to flash the 004 update...this went well but I decided to run a calibration cycle and it got about 75% of the way through and the current draw jumped up with the attendant untoward smell emanating from the unit. I suspect the finals have failed. This was running on 10 V from my bench PSU with a proper dummy load so I'm not perplexed as to why this would have occurred. Darn.
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On 4/21/25 I had a CW practice / rag chew session on 20 meters. I worked no stations: Conditions were OK. SSN = 108, SFI = 156, A = 14, K = 5. I heard several very weak stations calling but they were too weak to work. My next CW practice session will be April 23 at 16:00 EDT / 20:00 UTC on 20 meters. Anyone and everyone is welcome. This practice is intended for operators who are new to CW or they need some practice. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW POOR YOUR CW IS. Mistakes are OK. Poor fists are OK. Slow speed is OK. Really slow speed is OK. This practice is meant for you to improve your CW. I will do my best to adjust to your skill level. Operate at any power level. If several stations show up, I will operate as a round-table control station. I will do it as a round-table so everyone gets a chance to transmit. Please listen to my directions. Details: Date - April 23 2025 Time - 16:00 EDT 20:00 UTC Band - 20 Meters How to find me - I will find a clear frequency and call CQ. Go to the Reverse Beacon Network and search for my call sign AB8DF. That will tell you what frequency I am on. Tune your station to that frequency and if you hear me give me a call. If there is a QSO in progress, please wait for a break in the action. Then send your callsign. If I hear you, I will invite you to join the QSO and start a round-table QSO. Reply to this email if you have questions. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW POOR CW IS Ed AB8DF
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QMX SSB settings for Winlink?
13
Hello Hans and others, I just uploaded the new firmware and am trying to get Winlink / VARA-HF working. Are there any specific settings that need to be adjusted? When CAT control supposedly keys up the radio, I can see activity on the signal bars on the right side of the display, but I do not get the bar or even two dots under the "A" on the left side of the display. Thanks, Darrell
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Jeffery Moore contact info
2
Need to get in touch with Jeffery Moore to get my factorey built new qmx+ which will not transmit repaired. A Phone number or email would be helpful. Thanks Steve N1SG
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I finished assembling my QMX+ (including a battery mod) and finally got the chance to test it. In the diagnostics everything appears to check out, until I press P. At that point the SMPS bias current for every band is ~4.6mA (where the PIN forward bias is 30mA). If I press T (while connected to a dummy load), the RF output and the Transmitter Voltage turn RED, with the Voltage reporting ~9.5-10.0V. Power is consistently listed as 0.0W, and the SWR (into the 50 Ohm dummy load) is all over the map. Any ideas what I did wrong? I've looked at all of my soldering connections multiple times and don't see any bad joints or bridges. I've checked everywhere I can think of for continuity, and everything has checked out so far.
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Hello, I recently just fished putting my QMX Rev 4 kit together with the windings necessary for 12v input. As I was going along I verified I all continuity checks as instructed and verified no pads were bridged. Upon attempting to power on the device, I connected my 12v power supply to the barrel connector. The screen immediately lit up and I had black rectangles across the top half of the screen. A second or two later I started seeing smoke, heard a pop, and the screen went dark. Upon further inspection, I was able to discern that the Q108 MOSFET on Plug-in PCB #1 blistered and exploded. The L101 inductor nearby also looks a little singed but the enamel coating does not appear to be compromised. I do not see any other areas of the device that appear to have been compromised or damaged. I was wondering if anyone may be able to assist with what actually went wrong here. I have ordered a new power supply board as well as a replacement MOSFET to try my hand and replacing the bad component. My current theories on what went wrong are: I am missing a bad solder joint somewhere that caused the issue, still attempting to find one if so. It's still unclear why the MOSFET would blow in this case as it's rated for 20V and my power supply used is only capable of 12V out. MOSFET AO0415A Data Sheet There is a step in the instructions that says to bend a tab of the LCD screen at about 45 degrees to clear the L101 inductor. I noticed that this appears to have been discolored possibly due to heat. There's a good chance that this tab was not bent quite enough and made contact with the top face of the L101 inductor, though I don't think the top face is conductive. This could have resulted in a short to ground? My winding on the RWTST Transformer is somehow incorrect. Image upon powering up. Seconds before smoke and pop. Note: I did not press the left dial in, the screen lit up as soon as power was supplied to the barrel connector.
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Release 1_01_004 bugs that did not get addressed
Two issues that I have reported before are not fixed in 1_01_004 and that is OK. I just wanted to make note that I had tested them and the bugs, as expected, are still there: 1. With VFO B selected, SWR sweeps do not sweep. 2. Attempting FT8 with USB mode results in only one transmit cycle. After the first transmit cycle, subsequent transmit cycles produce no power. This has been confirmed by at least one other user. Tony AD0VC
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Hello, I completed building the QMX yesterday. The initial plug in went smooth, no smoke no current draw. I booted the QMX into update mode, put the firmware on it no problems at all. Then I removed and re-inserted the dc plug and tried to start the radio by pressing the left encoder, suddenly I saw big current draw (stupidly i forgot to limit my power supply) it went up to something like 7 amps, so I unplugged it immediately. I dint see any smoke but the device did get hot in some areas. Visually I do not see anything burned on any of the PCB. So now, when I plug the radio in the DC plug nothing happens until I press the left encoder which creates a short and puts the power supply into constant current mode. (This time limited...) Can anyone please advise for any troubleshooting steps? I put some pictures of the boards in attachment. Thank you.
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QDX-M 80m
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#80m
Hi All, I have a plan to build a QDX-M for 80 metre FSQ activities. The QDX-M appears to be ideal for this with it's clever non SSB method of producing the tones required. However, the web page shop only lists 10,11,12 metre bands at the moment. After looking at the circuits for the QDX and QDX-M the changes for 80 metres would seem to be: 1. Use the low pass filter design for 80 m from the QDX. i.e change the inductors and capacitors in the QDX-M to be the same as the 80 m filter in the QDX. 2. Change the inductor in the QDX-M (L12) so that it resonates with the 56 pF capacitor at 3.6 MHz. 3. It looks like L14 remains the same for all bands. So my question is: Has anyone done this and are there any steps I've missed, and can I buy a QDX-M kit with all the appropriate toroids, inductors, and capacitors? I'd like to buy one QDX-M for 80 metres and one extra set of components to change the unbuilt 10 metre QDX-M I have to 80 metres. Apologies for the long and involved post. Best Regards Richard Katsch VK2EIK
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QRP Labs QMX-PLUS-CW/SSB/FT8-NRV to be activated during ARRL Field Day 2025 with new club call sign
Please see: https://www.qrz.com/db/KR4DID 72, Bill, N4QA//QRP on the mountain in Roanoke County, Virginia.
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MI QRP Weekly Zoom Chat
We had six folks join the MI QRP Zoom Chat on 17 April. Please join us Thursday April 24 (and every Thursday) at 4PM Eastern for the Michigan QRP Club weekly QRP Chat where the main topics will be QRP and other ham interests. New hams are encouraged to participate and ask questions. It's fun, it's easy, and it's free. You only need a computer, a smart phone, or a tablet that can connect to the Internet. OR if you can't be close to any of those you can join by audio with any standard phone. Just follow the directions below. No software needs to be loaded or installed. Anyone can join and non members are welcome. Details are here: https://www.miqrp.net/zoom Zoom ID: 811 0835 6229 The topic for Thursday, 24 April will be an OPEN FORUM. Pete WK8S Ed AB8DF Ernie N3ETE Tony W8CDC Stan WB8QJZ Casey KC9IH The bands have been crummy lately. TAXES! Pete is getting an old National five tube receiver. The weather is improving and we are all getting antsy to do some POTA. Stan is still playing with SSTV and the ISS. He had a good pass yesterday but got sidetracked with a ham radio zoom meeting. Another satellite starts in a couple of days so he may try it. He is also working on the DMR Net Michigan One Net https://www.michiganonedmr.net. This sounds very interesting and several of us will be checking it out. Tony is still trying to fix his TenTec. Ed got some color burst crystals to bring to Hamvention and the Michigan Mighty Mite Revival at club night. He also got some non inductive 250 watt resistors. He will build a high power dummy load with them. Pete is working with his Zbitx https://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/zbitx/. The recent firmware updates have improved the rigs performance. Need to look at 40 meters for the CW practice sessions and maybe even for the clubs net. We talked about the FCC issuing callsigns to stations and the ability to get a call sign outside of the station's area. Like a Michigan station being able to get a AB6XX callsign. We talked about tariffs and what they may mean for us QRPers. We are all in a wait and see mode on the tariffs. Pete is trying multiple elevated radials with POTA verticals. He is also looking at towers including a ALM-31 - US Tower. The agenda for the 24 April QRP Chat: Ernie to do a short introduction and acknowledge any new folks to the Zoom chat. The topic for next week will be an open forum. During the open forum anyone can take the floor. We will go one by one until all have had a chance to have the floor. Files, pictures and presentations can be shared if you have any. Please try to stay muted when someone has the floor. Thanks Ed AB8DF
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Yesterday I decided to venture into the latest beta release of QMX SSB. I'm nearly 100% CW op, so this was mostly done out of curiosity. I'm a big fan of Hans and QRPLab, and have been impressed with the SSB technology. Anyway, the firmware install went fine. This QMX+ is factory-built, by the way, and has been trouble free. The only mic I have was intended for use with a PC and has no PTT, so I turned VOX on. The mic test built into the firmware worked fine (with PUTTY) and indicated the mic was working fine with the default gain. So I ran the LONG calibration process (I'm guessing it took about 30 min., but I didn't measure the time), initiated by the R command so it went through all 3 calibrations on all bands with no further input from me, and completed normally, as far as I could tell. But, the curves produced by the phase error and IMD Sync cals are in many cases, drastically different from the ones that Hans posted. I included some samples below - some similar to Hans', and some very different. On the IMD Sync curves, there's a set of numbers to the right of each plot, and those numbers are within +/-2 or 3 of those on Hans' plots. I'm guessing that's what matters for those. After calibration, with my mic (tested good in the mic test) plugged in and VOX on, I get no output when speaking into the mic ( into dummy load). I tried power cycling, the QMX, but still no output. In fact, the radio doesn't switch to transmit at all. The rig still works fine in CW mode. Its certainly possible that there's some SSB setting I've overlooked. Any comments welcomed. 73, Randy, KS4L ++
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Hi, I have released a version 1.2 of the solution. Please refer to the readme front page file at the git repository with details: https://github.com/AC8L/QMX_Plus_Autotuner_Internal_Battery_Speaker/ While I am writing this note - a group buy with 35+ participants is happening for this same version 1.2 - organized by Cal (AD8Q) and Stan (KC7XE). -- 73, Sardar (AC8L, 4K6SA, VA3DUA).
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Another good solar description
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This one has a QRP focus. https://www.qrparci.org/resource/FDIM81.pdf Ed AB8DF
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3D model of QMX+? - To 3D print front and rear covers
2
Hi all, Having real struggles to find an existing cover(s) for the QMX+. All the ones are see are for the QMX. I can model some up easy enough but looking for a 3D model of a the QMX+ itself to model these around. I could model something close enough but looking to save some time. Thanks Colin
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Image Name
Sat 8:39am
Sat 8:39am