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Sticky
#qmx #SSB Firmware beta 1_01_003 release
127
#qmx
#ssb
Hi all I updated the SSB beta testing webpage of the brave, here: https://qrp-labs.com/qmxp/ssbbeta.html and released firmware version 1_01_003 to it. These are the changes: Bug fix: Initial value for noise gate samples was 100 (should be max 99) - makes no real difference but it needed to be fixed Added TX indication underlining the A character when transmitting from USB sound card in SSB mode. Note that the two possible states for this indication are a single dot (indicating PTT has been applied and now the radio is in TX mode) and the solid bar (indicating audio is being received from the PC and transmitted). There is no double-dot like there is in Digi mode indicating insufficient volume, because in SSB mode the radio transmits whatever you give it, even if the volume is low. Bug fix: CAT command TQ1; did not cause transmit when in SSB mode. Now TQ1; and TQ0; work properly in SSB mode. Bug fix: Prevent button presses from accidentally activating VOX, which was happening due to sound picked up from the internal (cancellation reference channel) microphone when you pressed buttons right next to it, and that prevented band change because the second click of the double click was ignored because by then the radio was in transmit mode. All fixed! Now you can click buttons however you like and when button clicks are done, VOX is temporarily disabled until your button pushing frenzy is over. Power meter now reads Peak Envelope Power (PEP) when in SSB mode. Previously it was just reading a sampled value (NOT an average); so if the power meter was updated 10x a second, the updates would just randomly pick a value from the SSB amplitude envelope, which was most unlikely to be its peak value. Bug fixL Calibration hung at DAC 1300 when run on LCD. Now the calibration completes properly when run from the LCD. Many thanks for all the feedback so far, SSB in QMX is getting better and better! 73 Hans G0UPL http://qrp-labs.com https://www.buymeacoffee.com/g0upl
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Hi Everyone, I have a QCX mini that has been working perfect for the past 2 years. With all the QMX SSB developments, I have not powered it up for quite some time. Today, however, I decided to give it a spin. If you look at the picture, I encircled the lost lines on the LCD (1 horizontal and 1 vertical). The radio works perfect. What I have done: 1. Factory reset the radio - did not fix it. 2. Reflowed all the connection from the LCD sister board as well as the connectors on the main board - made no difference. So before I start really stripping things, have anyone else experienced this and what was the solution. 73 ZR6TM Timo
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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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How to turn QMX-Hi into QMX-LOW band?
2
#qmx
Hi dear All, I have a _not assembled_ QMX-HI kit (20, 17, 15, 12, 11 and 10m) version . I changed my mind, I decided to build a QMX-LOW (80, 60, 40, 30 and 20m) version. For this purpose, will it be enough for me to buy aditionally the set of band-specific parts for the QMX low-band option (80-20m, product Code: QMXLOW)? It includes all capacitors, all powdered iron toroids, wire, and ferrites (binocular cores and toroids). Are the QMX board and board-mounted SMD components the same for all versions? Thanks in advance for your advice and recommendations, Wlado 73
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Hello! I am trying to find right settings to start work with WinLink and VARA HF threw QMX. CAT connection is OK. The only problem here is that when I choose some Gateway channel QMX always switches to USB mode from DiGi. But it is not a big deal to return back to DiGi manually. The main problem is that when I start connection with the chosen channel QMX shows two dots as TX status. Which means that audio level from PC is too low. But I've put it to maximum. And everything works fine with WSJT-X and JS8Call. So problem is definitely with some WinLink VARA HF settings? Can smb help? Hans, did you try to use WinLink with QMX?
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QMX+ loose some characters while sending stored messages
5
#qmx
#QMXp
#QMXplus
#troubleshooting
hi, may i`m wrong with some qmx+ config, but sending cw from stored messages isn?t possible without loosing some characters, as like as "cq de df4bj" may ends in "ca de dfuba" or something else. Same behavior if sending from logging programm via cat. Did i don`t have correct configs or is that an known issue? I have installed the v1_01_003, updated from 1_00_027 on QMX+ Rev 3 , but going back to a non ssb fw doesn`t help. any suggestions ? vy 72/73 de Udo DF4BJ /qrp
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After assembling a QDX rig for a local ham I received a couple of the QDX PA mod PC boards made by WB2CBA which have the FDT86256 mosfets. They have a max voltage of 150V compared to the 60V of the BS170. Since I like to experiment I decided to try and adapt one of the boards to my QMX+. I filed off the two "tabs" opposite the mosfets being careful not to file off any of the traces. It fit perfectly where the BS170's were. After some testing it seems to work well. My QMX+ is presently wired for 9V and I have a Buck-Boost converter stuck on the back set at 10V so I can use any battery I like from 5V-30V. On 80m-30m I can easily get 5w with the 10v input. Since I like to "play with fire" I plugged in my 12.6V battery and got 6.5w-8W on the lower bands. The mosfets stayed very cool....into a dummy load. While playing on FT8 with my Hexbeam and low SWR sometimes the finals got warm and actually got pretty hot on some of the higher bands but kept work fine. If anyone else out there can or wants to give it a try, especially if you have the proper test equipment please let me/everyone know what you found. The info for the PC boards are here... https://github.com/WB2CBA/QDX-PA-MODIFICATION/blob/main/QDX%20FTD86256%20PA%20Modification%20Story.pdf Tim - K5DEZ
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What do people do for building or sourcing custom inline fused power cables?
8
#parts
#power
#supply
#12v
Hi all, I'm a new ham trying to build a power supply cable like this for my QDX or QMX+ to use my existing battery in the field: 12.8V LiFePO4 battery > 18AWG cable w/ ring terminals > inline home-brew buck converter > 18AWG cable > fuse (1.5A?) > 18AWG cable > 2.1mm barrel connector The part in bold is what I'm having trouble finding an obvious solution for. Is there a way hams typically build such fused cables without a whole lot of extra splicing? I feel like I'm missing something because I don't see much discussion about this or any pre-made assemblies like that. Sources for such an assembly would also be appreciated. I saw this thread but ordering from UK to US and cutting off the Powerpoles isn't a good option. /g/QRPLabs/topic/95334671#msg95573 Here's some background discussion on the buck converter build we're doing if anyone's interested in that. Thanks, Mike
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Ham Radio Crash Course is building a QMX tonight!
2
Popular American West Coast Youtuber is building a QMX on stream tonight at 8 PM EDT (US East Coast Time). Seems like it might be of interest to the group. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iOY1p7flPU&lc=Ugw2vcdWfQbWKblZc_R4AaABAg.AGomNNvKyjwAGpN0n8kGVR
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QMX+ with WA3TFS amplifier
7
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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60-15m QMX wound inductor attachment question
6
Hi All, I'm very new to building kits, and radios in general. Working though my 60-15m QMX and I am at step 2.12 where I am winding and attaching L511, L506, L512, L508, L513, and L510 and I wanted to confirm that winding number 0 should go on the outside through hole for each inductor and the final winding should go through the hole that is closer to the center of the toroid? This seems to be the way it should be, following the instructions from L502 but I wanted to be sure since I have not been able to find a clear picture online showing how these inductors are mounted and there are not explicit instructions in the manual for these specific attachments. Thanks in advance! Andrew
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QMX+ with 100 amp/hour lithium iron battery
19
Just about to finish my QMX+ build and I have a voltage question. The kit was built for 12 volts. I have a 100 amp/hour lithium iron battery for vhf base station emmcom backup. At full charge, its just north of 14 volts. Would it be wise to install a buck converter in the battery box to limit voltage out to 12 volts for the QMX+? Thanks in advance - I really don't want to fry this little gem. -- Jim, W7EZN 73!
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Winlink and VARA HF setup for QMX
4
I would be grateful if smb can explain in detail what I need to do send e-mails threw QMX. I have no experience with Winlink and limited experience with FT8 data transfer. I have tablet PC (Win 8) with VARA HF and Winlink Express installed and I have QMX. What I need to do to set all these properly?
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My QMX+ (Rev.3, 12V, FW 003) complains about low voltage at the finals. See picture: 9.7-9.8V in red. I checked the voltages at C506 and C529 and they show the expected divider ratio of ~5.7:1. But the actual voltage at C506 is ~11V (12V regulated power supply). May be this is one of the reasons for the SSB calibration problems? Gottfried oe1ira
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QMX+ Firmware laden
7
cq Nun habe ich den QMX schon einige Tage. Bisher ist es mir nicht gelungen, die Firmware zu laden. Im Detail: Der QMX soll auf einem Mini-PC ZOTAC für Portable Eins?tze installiert werden System: Win7 32Bit. Der QRP-Labs QMX-Transceiver wird im Ger?te-Manager mit Fehlercode 28 und als COM1. erkannt, erscheint aber nicht als Wechseldatentr?ger im Explorer Code 28: Treiber fehlt! Nun habe ich die QMX Installation auf dem Desktop Win10/64 versucht. Der QRP-Labs QMX wird als ?Serielles USB-Ger?t“ mit COM3 und bei ?Audio“ als QMX-Transceiver im Ger?te-Manager erkannt, erscheint aber nicht als Wechseldatentr?ger im Explorer : Was kann ich tun, um die Firmware zu laden? =================================================================================================================== Google ?bersetzung: cq I've had the QMX for a few days now. So far, I haven't been able to load the firmware. In detail: The QMX is to be installed on a ZOTAC mini-PC for portable use. System: Win7 32-bit. The QRP-Labs QMX transceiver is recognized in the Device Manager with error code 28 and as COM1. but it doesn't appear as a removable drive in Explorer. Code 28: Driver missing! Now I've tried installing the QMX on the Win10/64 desktop. The QRP-Labs QMX is recognized as a "Serial USB Device" with COM3 and under "Audio" as a QMX transceiver in the Device Manager, but it doesn't appear as a removable drive in Explorer. What can I do to load the firmware?
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QMX+ microphone ideas
3
I recently purchased this microphone kit from Pacific Antennas https://www.qrpkits.com/microphone.html for $15. The kit was easy to build and seems to work ok with the QMX+ usng a MIC Gain set at 50. Anyway I made my first SSB contact today on 10m so I'm satisfied. I've enjoyed reading about what others are trying and look forward experimenting some more. Les, N1SV
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Wouldn't it be loverly if the next version of the QMX had a display like the zBitx. Hans has done some amazing work with the QMX, with SSB and with bringing us some absolutely amazingly good quality radios and kits that definitely punch above their weight class. Thanks for everything you've done Hans. Can't wait to see what comes out of the QRP-Labs stable next.
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SORRY, Life got in the way. I had to change the time. It is now 15:00 EDT / 19:00 UTC Ed AB8DF On 4/9/2025 11:39 AM, AB8DF Ed Kwik via groups.io wrote: On 4/08/25 I had a CW practice / rag chew session on 30 meters. I worked three stations: Date / Time Call Bnd Frequency Mode Power Rec Snt Name SPC# Comments Off 4/8/2025 14:14 W9TO 30 10.111 CW 50 559 559 Tom OH K3 at 50 watts 100 ft sloper doublet 14:28 4/8/2025 13:44 KC9HEK 30 10.112 CW 60 599 569 Brian NY K3 at 60 watts 100 ft sloper doublet 14:04 4/8/2025 12:54 NM1I 30 10.109 CW 50 579 559 Butch MA K3 at 50 watts 100 ft sloper doublet 13:37 Conditions were OK. 30 meters seemed to be better than what I have been experiencing on 20 . SSN = 167, SFI = 162, A = 13, K = 2. My next CW practice session will be April 11 at 09:00 EDT / 13:00 UTC on 30 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 11 2025 Time - 09:00 EDT 13:00 UTC Band - 30 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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MOD Board
4
Hi all, is the circuit board availble to purchase and where to order? This would possibly solve a problem with my starion setup. -- 73 ChuckR
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QRP Labs FDIM/Hamvention
Will QRP Labs be seller the QMX+ kit at FDIM and Hamvention? Looking to acquire the following: QMX+ 160-6m, 5W multi-mode transceiver Assembled or Kit: Kit Optional Enclosure: Including enclosure Add kits: QLG3 GPS/GNSS Receiver Add kits: 2.1mm power plug Joe N7QPP
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Image Name
Sat 8:39am
Sat 8:39am