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(Thanks for reply on a different topic Chuck)

I have recently acquired a Beaconator kit, it's the keyer that drew me to the kit, that and the fact that I'm running out of novel tuna can based kits to build!

I have the canned Beaconator kit with the universal can / enclosure PCB.

I've found the schematic etc on the QRPme site but what I didn't find was build instructions. I'm pretty sure that I can just build from the schematic, so it's not so much of an issue. What I was mostly interested in is the band module. Which band module is it? Would it be the Lil Squall type module? I've worked out that it's definitely not the Super Tuna style modules.

It would be cool to implement a multi-band Beaconator.

73,

Colin

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--
Chuck, W5USJ

OK, so I came to the group today looking for information on a Beaconator kit I've just acquired :-) and I stumbled across my old posts from earlier this year.

Basically I was up to something!
Some folks who know me might remember a stunt I did a few years ago when I soldered a QRPme RM][ ver1 kit on the highest hill in my native Yorkshire. I completed the build with a gas soldering iron and then used the rig to make my needed 4 QSOs to claim the SOTA points. Those SOTA points took my overall score to 1000, thus gaining me the coveted 'SOTA Mountain Goat' award.

A SOTA activator score may be made up from summit points - the score for the hill, and bonus points - additional points for activating during an arbitrarily defined difficult season - usually winter time. (England's winter bonus period runs from? December 1 to March 15). My activator score is a mixture of both summit and bonus points.

I was coming up to 1000 SOTA activator summit points (score without winter bonus) so I decided to do another Al fresco soldering event. I hear so many folks saying that surface mount soldering is too difficult and they won't even try it. I wanted to set out to show that surface mount soldering is not at all scary and can even be done at the top of a mountain!

I looked and looked for a surface mount radio kit, but I drew a blank. I wanted to do a transmitter only, so that I could use a proven set-up for everything else. Given that it's low in the solar cycle, I thought that I'd need at least a couple of watts of RF. I deemed that 40m would be a good band.

I hadn't designed a circuit board before but I was pretty well forced to try, as a 2 watt 40m 0805 surface mount CW transmitter kit is simply not available as far as I can tell.

With a little help from a friend, I managed to layout a PCB using KiCad at the back end of last year. I admit to 'borrowing' the circuit, with a couple of mods, from a kit available online (but as a through -hole design). I reasoned that the PCB is entirely for my own use. I sent off the Gerber files to a Chinese fab house and within 2 weeks around Christmas time I was the proud owner of 5 PCBs!

Unfortunately Covid 19 meant that SOTA was not allowed for a few months, so I had to wait until the lockdown had been lifted.

I built up a transmitter board at home to see if the thing would work, I'm happy to say that the board worked, although a mod was deemed to be needed, nevertheless I had a board that would serve my purpose.

My chosen summit was Ingleborough SOTA G/NP-005. I ascended early to give myself plenty of time to attempt the surface mount build. Using the same trusty butane iron from my previous al fresco build, I put the surface transmitter kit together quite easily. I made just one mistake which I caught almost immediately, I'd mixed up a 1000pF and a 100pF capacitor.

To my relief and surprise the transmitter kit fired up upon first application of power and my QRPometer was showing a healthy 2 watts of output.

I erected a 40m dipole and hooked up a Sudden Storm][ receiver and mk1 Tuna Helper to the transmitter kit. It didn't take long to work my needed 4 QSOs, in fact I ended up working 12!

So, surface mount isn't scary - if I can do it on Ingleborough mountain with a portable iron, anyone can do it with a proper iron in the shack!

73, Colin, M1BUU

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Gangue,

I just checked my mailing software and see that most everybody has their AT2 Buildathon kit. Of course, DX builders won't have them for at least another week. Canadian kits went to a friend, Erci Gunter, who gave me an American address. I sent the Canada orders to him and he will forward them to the Canadian builders. There are still undelivered kits to Canada from the QSO Expo Buildathon in early March as Canada Postal Customs apparently severely bogged down or on lockdown so Eric offered to get Canadian kits through.

I've had many questions from individuals about parts, pictures, docs, other people building or finishing their kits etc. I just can't respond individually to each query and do justice to the group. Please sign up to my Groups.IO mail list and post questions, suggestions, help etc to the list so we can all benefit from the exchanges. Use the AT2 Buildathon: at the beginning of the subject line so we can all filter them to an email folder for easy collection.

I had lots of QRPme orders backed up from when I was FULL TIME on the AT2 kits in the kitting & shipping effort. I had to take care of that business as best as possible before I could get back on this project. I got my AT2 bench 1/2 cleared off and hope to finish that chore later tonight. I will shoot another video or two late tonight and tomorrow morning and post them ASAP. The 1st one will be an overview of the AT2 project, what's what and how to proceed. All of you have waited an extraordinarily long time to get the kit so don't try to build it in one night. Lets take it slow and sure so everybody is on the same page. I'm not saying we all have to build it at the same time and speed. I just want everyone understand the pertinent information on the overall project before they jump into the building process.

For instance Questions fielded:

1: Two standoffs instead of four on the Chinese HV brick on the power supply: Yes, opposite corners of the board work just fine. It's not going to go anywhere with two 6-32 bolts and nylon insert lock nuts.

2: Miniature tube socket but no tube: I always include extra FUN stuff with my QRPme kits. With the discovery of the Chinese HV brick, the high voltage power supply problem was solved. No back to back 'wall warts' were needed and no complicated and dangerous linear power supplies had to be built......but there are purists in every crowd. I spent a couple of months trying to solve the 'double wall wart back-asswards' cheapo HV power supply trick. Not only did I burn up several hundred dollars worth of wall warts, I also went through about $200 in back to back filament transformers too! I managed to get both approaches to work but the costs were astronomical. I started with engineering calculations and picked more QRP reasonable parts that would appear to have the nads to do the job. They all self destructed as I worked my up from QRP (budget) friendly parts to more QRO models. Both approaches work ONLY when you OVER spec'ed the parts by a ton. I ended up working with the TOP END of the performance specs which resulted in power supplies costing over $25 just in transformers. Back to back filament transformers worked a little better but not much. I ended up finding that Hammond Manufacturing still makes plate/filament transformers for the guitar amp rebuild market but they are in the $30+ price range. Hence the Chinese HV brick. They are cheap...but noisy. You may have to use a T/R switch to de-power the brick on receive depending upon your situation. I did add a spot on the power supply where you can hook up the output of a plate transformer and added the parts to make a decent CLEAN high voltage power supply if you want. The miniature socket if for and OA2 tube for voltage regulation if you want to go that route, but you have to supply the tube. You could also do a little rework on the pcb and crank up the Chinese HV brick and then have an OA2 tube to regulate it to 175 volts... BUT it is an AT2 (Acorn Tube 2) kit and not an AT2+1 kit.

3: Yes, two mounting holes for the crystal and the polyvaricon tuning capacitor. Crystal socket uses #4 x1" steel bolts & 1/4" nylon standoffs while the capacitor uses #4x1" black nylon bolts and 5/8" nylon standoffs.

4: The DB-15 connector is to tear apart (very carefully) to get to the socket pins that will be used to mount the acorn tubes to the circuit board. I soldered (very very very carefully) my tube onto the adapter boards but was advised by Colin, G3VTT, not to have everybody do that. Too much soldering heat will ruin the pin/glass seal on the acorn tubes. I discovered that DB connector pins and socket dimensions were the exact same dimensions of acron tube pins. AGAIN, QRP pricing problems became an issue here. I had some NOS socket pin connectors in my junque bins left over from projects in the early 70s. THOSE socket pins are supper. Modern day DB connectors have modern day manufacturing quirks associated with them. Most new cheaper sockets have stamped pins. One can by machined pin version DB connectors but only if they had recently won the lottery and was still flush! So you very carefully take apart the DB connectors, get the pins, re-bend them to fit the socket/tube layout and secure tham to the tube pins with shrink tubing. You can also search YOUR junque bins and sources for OLD vintage DB cables with the quality machined pin sockets and use those. Again, I couldn't afford to include them in a QRP kit priced at $50.

OK, I'm going to close this out for now and go work on the laser cutter. I have a bunch of Lunatic AT2 enclosures I have to cut out. I hope to get all those orders in the mail on Monday. I'll probably work on AT2 videos and pictures early tomorrow morning and post them after I clean them up.

Rex? W1REX

I notice that the power supply BOM only has 2 nylon standoffs instead of 4 as suggested by the youtube video. Is that correct? will only 2 be sufficient. I notice only 2 for that crystal module as well.

---John AC9UV

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Gangue,

This email is to let everyone here know that Lobstercon2021! is ON! My first Lobstercon gathering was in 1999 so this will be my 23rd straight Lobstercon! We ALWAYS have a great time even when it is pouring down rain.... I think in the last 4 or 5 years now, we have had pretty good weather so crossing my fingers that we will have another fine weekend. Lobstercon! is more of a social event that a radio operating event. 'Conners do operate but the social gathering is bigger than operating. I think I can safely say that XYLs and little qrppp tykes enjoy Lobstercon! as much as the QRPers. So talk among yourselves and see if you might want to enjoy a summer weekend on the mid-coast of Maine this year....

I have confirmed the TPB&C reservations and according to the trends it looks like we can meet safely though we might still have to take some precautions. I did host a Lobstercon last year but due to stringent travel rules, we were only 10 Lobsterconners strong. It looks like this year can be somewhat 'normal'.

The page is up:

and I'm ready to start taking names...

Rex? W1REX

Hi, everybody.

Got a question for Rex and he can feel free to take it off list.

I've been doing some weird things. I found an ancient sardine can from a cannery in ME and an old tuna tin from San Francisco with the intention of, well, you know. It's a sickness. The tuna tin label was able to be shellacked and has held up well. I also found a sardine tin label from a cannery in MA that was, believe it or not, labeled with the brand name Radio.
What I'd like to do is make a duplicate or duplicates of the label to use on some projects. What sort of label paper do you use and do you mind telling me how you print them? Yours always look great. Also, do you have a product that might fit in a standard small 3 and change ounce sardine tin that could be an 40m/30m/20m alternative to the 80m Sardine Sender?

73,
-HRS

H. Russell Smith, N0QLT

Sorry Groupers,

I thought I was responding directly to Chuck on that last email that he misstakeingly sent to me via the group which, of course, I then misteakinglie sent back to the group again....

I didn't mean to have you waste your time reading an email without any content relative to you...unlike this additional time-waster....

So I'll add some relevance...

Yep me-2, too many distractions lately...





Chuck, W5USJ (ex K2OFN)
ARCI 5422
EM22cv, Rains Co., Texas
--
Chuck, W5USJ

开云体育

Groupers:

Here is a link to a nice McMC story:

One thing that I did forget to mention: McMC is a business to business company. But there are many ways to get around that. If you have a PO box, make up a business name and add it to the post office's official list of box holder names to your box. Use that as a mailing address and then have the shipping address as your house. Works for me. Granted, I buy LOTS of stuff but really not that much from McMC. Lately, I've spent quite a bit more since I've been experimenting with my laser cutter which consumes quite a bit of raw materials. Mostly I buy kitting quantities of nuts, bolts and the like. McMC accepts personal credit cards and that is what I've always used. Some things are a bit pricey but keep in mind that if you combine different things, sometimes it is cheaper to buy several little more pricier things from one company with 1 shipping fee than from several companies with several shipping fees that add up quickly. During this whole pandemic thing, I've bought more and more stuff online while spending less and less time going out shopping for it myself. Limerick is like 30 miles from everywhere....

Rex

Sorry Groupers,

I thought I was responding directly to Chuck on that last email that he misstakeingly sent to me via the group which, of course, I then misteakinglie sent back to the group again....

I didn't mean to have you waste your time reading an email without any content relative to you...unlike this additional time-waster....

So I'll add some relevance...

PREAMBLE:

I'm currently? holed up in my little basement office with a corundum:

I was working on a little side project for my daughter's upcoming birthday. For over 10 years, she has wanted something in particular and rather unique, that you can't really buy in stores. I have tried to make her one several times with less than gift giving or daughter satisfying results. I tackled it again last week, did hours of detective work online and thought I found the solution. I ordered a couple of parts online for my latest attempt and they arrived in the mail Monday morning. But there was no way that the parts would mate together and nothing in my massive collection of oddball stuff in the Qhut would facilitate any mating, so I headed to my local hardware store.

Now, a little sidebar is in order: My very first job was as a stock/sales clerk in our local hardware store in Cape Elizabeth Maine. I learned both hardware and sales from the best. The owner Chet had been in hardware all his life and this was his retirement business. I started on my 16th birthday and worked 7 days a week all through high school. Anyway, I got to know fairly well the inventory stock of a typical hardware store which really hasn't changed much over the years except for the additions of newly invented stuff over the last 50+ years since I last stocked a shelf. So I left the hardware store business, went off to college, earned an electrical engineering degree and have spent almost 50 years in the field of new product development. Needless to say, I have hosed up many a prototype both simple and monster 'while working in the lab late last night'..

Stay with me as this is all relevant....

I go to the hardware store and search several departments myself looking for a solution to my problem primarily because I don't know exactly what I'm looking for but I'll know a solution when I see it! Plumbing: nothing, nuts & bolts: nada, tools: zilch. So I approach a older gentleman (but not as old as me) clerk and ask him if there is a thread gauge in the store. He stops his stocking and takes me to the nuts & bolts department and shows me a very heavy metal plate with threaded holes, protruding bolt threads for sizing nuts and nuts welded on it for sizing bolts. I politely tell him that I have already been here, seen this and my problem is with a fine thread. He points out that the bolts in this sizing unit have coarse and fine threads which of course is right but I would hardly define 20 tpi bolts as having a fine thread. As many of us know from working with smaller machine screws, 24 tpi is considered coarse (relatively) with 32 and 40 tpi (and up) defined as fine..... So I started to tell him this when he interrupted me to tell me that he was a retired mechanical engineer and he knows all about nuts and bolts and 20 tpi is a fine thread. I tried to explain that in my line of work, 32 & 40 tpi were considered more as fine then what you find on 1/4" bolts etc. He gets testy with me so I interjected that I too was a 'retired' engineer and then he got even testier. There has always been a running rivalry between engineering disciplines and it was now rearing its ugly head here in my local hardware store. I again show him my 2 things I'm trying to mate up and state that what I'm looking for is more in the 32 tpi range. I further explained that it was more like the fine threads found on gas compression fittings but NOT the same. (I had already tried all the compression fitting sizes without finding a match which is why I was trying to find a thread gauge) So he heads over to the compression fitting department, which is about 10 steps away from the nuts & bolts department and proceeds to rifle through all the little bins looking for a match. I politely (my memory is a little hazy here) explained that I had already rifled through all these bins myself looking for a match. He continues to rifle and tell me that I might have missed a bin (or some such nonsense). Frankly, I had given up on his help several minutes ago but was still trying be polite and let him help me NOT find a solution in the bins..... After quite a bit of bin openings and closings he proceeds to tell me that is seems that the answer is not in the bins and further probably not in the store. Then he tells me he has to go back to his stocking task as he is now falling way behind.

All through this interchange, we are wearing our masks as dictated by common sense and the state mandate....but I must admit that we were closer than the suggested 6 feet as our interchange got livelier. He scampers off to return to restocking the nail department and I amble off to look in other departments I haven't visited yet because I didn't think they didn't have any relevance to my current dilemma. My next foray was in well & plastic well pipe, again zilch, and then came the heating/cooling department. I swiftly scanned all the items there and in the adjacent heating & stovepipe department for a final wrap-up of the hardware gondolas. I was standing right next to the furnace filter rack just beside the doors leading to the stockroom and across the isle beckoned the paint and electrical departments but first came the battery, phone, TV accessories, gas line and tubing racks. I was instantly drawn to the tubing rack. I quickly realized that a possible hack solution was to simply hose my 2 weirdly threaded metal parts together with some plastic hose. I found a very heavy walled 1/2 poly tubing that would allow me to 'cut' the threads into it with my actual part. I hailed a young clerk passing by, heading for the stockroom, and asked him to cut me off a 1' piece. Off to the counter, paid my 74 cents for the tubing and headed home. Less than 5 minutes after getting home I had the 2 pieces hosed together with the tubing....but it wasn't working! I took it upstairs to show my wife my non-working hacked together prototype and she takes one look at it says that it looks like my reed is in backwards. What can I say, I'm an engineer NOT a musician!! I quickly turned it around and it instantly came to life! One fine honking prototype!

But wait, there's more!

Tuesday, I wanted to take the prototype and turn it into something that looked more like a gift my daughter has waited almost half her life for. So I head back to the hardware store to get a couple more items to gussy it up with. I get my stuff, head home and spend a couple of hours making a presentable gift. I made it pretty, boxed it and then it was off to the post office to mail it to my daughter so she will get it in time for her birthday. Now it is 6 days until her birthday but watching my many QRPme orders take DAYS longer to get anywhere and lately 2 days just to get it out of Maine (I can drive out of Maine in 10 minutes from Limerick!), I wanted to mail it as early as I could. It's off and my daughter will be thrilled and think I am the best dad in the whole wide world! Which, of course, I am.

The REAL STORY.

Now my wife chimes in on Wednesday and says I need to finally fix her little antique cabinet whose door never stays shut and 1 pair of spindle legs keeps falling off. I fix the legs but need a little magnetic cabinet latch to fix the door. I have just 10 minutes to make the 4pm closing of the hardware store (good help is hard to find) and when I get there a full 8 minutes before closing time. I discover ALL the windows covered over with kraft paper and signs in every window saying the store is temporarily closed and please visit one of the other 3 family operated hardware stores in the surrounding communities. HUH! I return home, ask my wife to check the Limerick Facebook page and see if there is any posting about the hardware store.... Closed due to Covid-19 exposure! No public statement from the store, just confirmation from town busybodies... Now I'm thinking that if they had employees who tested positive on Wednesday morning, I have a small(?) problem. I've been in and out of that store at least 6 times in the last few days, always wearing my mask though, but Monday's dust-up with the mechanical engineer clerk got within the 6 foot rule for 15 minutes of more. I call the store number, answering machine saying pretty much what I read on the non-informational sign posted in all the windows. So I call the closest other store. I talk to manager of that store and he can tell me nothing except that the owners work out of the Buxton store. So I call the Buxton store and talk to that manager. He can tell me nothing more either but I did 'enlighten' him a little on who I was and why I was calling and needed to find some answers. He said he would pass my concerns on. I called MY store again and left a message on the machine this time. Then I got a little more concerned that I needed answers now rather than 'maybe' from my voice message. I called the Buxton store back and asked to talk to the manager again. The clerk said he just went on break and could she take a message. I asked for someone in authority and she counters with her boss Bob. I ask if he was an owner and she says yes. So I say I would LOVE to talk to Bob. She puts me on hold and after a while a nice lady (not Bob) who works in the office picked up the phone. I ask her if she was an owner and she tells me no but that she is married to an owner (I assume Bob) and asks if she can help me. She also mentions that the store manager has relayed the conversation we had a few minutes ago and says that I shouldn't have 'ripped him a new one' (my paraphrase). She goes on to tell me about how hard it is to run the store with no employees and that everyone has to get tested, store has to be cleaned etc. etc. I listened patiently but then I reply by telling her that it was good that she was taking care of her employees etc and then ask her about their obligation to their customers. Absolutely no information flowing to their customers, like ME, and to the community! I tell her that I've been a loyal customer for over 20 years and tell her that they have an obligation to keep me safe too. She counters that that is a decision that I have to make myself and with my doctor...yada yada yada. I counter with it is hard to talk to the doctor without any REAL facts! I tried to explain that ME and their other recent customers could probably use some information to guide us in our decision making process. I didn't want HIPA type info, just something like if we (and I in particular) visited the store on certain days when certain un-named employees were working might be a useful piece of information that would help in our decision making process. I get nowhere with her. I'm not vindictive BUT, even though the local hardware store is about 1/2 mile from my house, I think I might become a future un-loyal customer and only shop there as a VERY last resort! I'll just might plan my hardware purchases around when I can get a shipment from McMaster-Carr, or make a trip to a big-box store 30 miles away. I am now self-quarantining for another couple of days before I go somewhere to have a Covid-19 test and then self quarantine again for the remainder of time that the test givers advise....or results come back....whichever comes first.

ASIDE: McMaster-Carr, if you don't know about them, you should check them out. I'm not a stock holder, employee or anything other than a satified customer. I can order stuff as late as about 6pm and get it off the UPS truck the following day. When it comes to general suppliers of hardware, tools, raw materials, and maintenance equipment & industrial materials, they are tops! No need for a commercial account and small orders are OK. I buy lots of QRPme commercial stock materials from them.

RELEVANCE?

Well, I'm now confined to the farm so I should be able to get lots more things done. I just kitted up almost all my outstanding orders and will send them off to the post office tomorrow. Next item on the agenda is to really get into finishing up the kitting and doing the final build videos for the Acorn Tube 2 Buildathon kit. By one means or another, AT2 kits will be somewhere under or near a bunch of Christmas trees in a few weeks.

Rex? W1REX



--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.

Hello, everybody.

I've got a handful of TRW and TI transistors in a TO-5 or TO-39 package (I'd have to look) and was wondering if anyone had a source for data. The TRWs are 201 B-022 7914 and are supposedly similar to 2N3866. The TIs have either house markings or maybe are DoD surplus. TI customer service wasn't readily able get me info without some gyrations if said data even exists today. Those are 5973-22 A7914. Maybe some of these numbers are date codes?
Be nice to make use of the junk box stuff. I always seem to need a 2N3866/2N3553 here and there...

-HRS

H. Russell Smith, N0QLT

Last night I made a new mute cable for the Sudden Storm. I connected up my home brew TX to the Tuna Helper and I'm pleased to report that all seems fine. The muting of the SS RX seems to work as well as it usually does and no worrying voltages were found in the Tuna Helper at 2.3 Watts RF power input.

Seems like I'm all set to try for a QSO.

Thanks for the help :-)

73, Colin

?

Colin,

I had one Topper modified to provide the mute circuit.? Basically, I did some cuts and jumpers to make the relay connections like the Tuna Helper.

I've also done mods to the Topper circuit to use it for separate TX and RX.? That way I could use the Topper amp for a Super Tuna TX and Sudden ][ RX, for example.

The RF sense circuit is the same for Topper and Helper and that worked OK to over 10W.? At least all the smoke stayed in... :-)

At 03:09 PM 12/1/2020, you wrote:

I will give the set up a try. I've been running the Topper amp for higher powered work and of course the TX / RX switch is built in. I do miss the RX mute function though.

Chuck, W5USJ (ex K2OFN)
ARCI 5422
EM22cv, Rains Co., Texas
--
Chuck, W5USJ

OK,

Thanks Rex and Chuck, it would seem as though I will be OK. I think I may have used the Tuner Helper with my SUPER Tuna ][+ in the past and it still works OK.

I was more worried about the TX sense circuit than the relay.

I will give the set up a try. I've been running the Topper amp for higher powered work and of course the TX / RX switch is built in. I do miss the RX mute function though.

Thanks for you help.

73, Colin

Colin,

I've used the smaller relay at 5W or so OK. Also as much as 15W or so with the larger Topper size relay.

At 11:01 AM 12/1/2020, Rex Harper wrote:

Colin,
While I haven't done ANY calculations or run any destructive tests on the old version (or even the new version for that matter) of the Tuna Helper, my seat of the pants answer would be that either helper will handle the QRP 5 watt 'legal limit' just fine. The main reason I changed the can and relay on the new version was because the small can just had too much stuff hosed up to it to remain stable. And I changed the relay to reduce 1 more inventory item that I had to buy and have on the shelf. Since the Topper used the bigger & less expensive relay and worked just fine, and I now had more space on the Helper][ board, I changed over to the Topper relay to make it easier on my inventory budget. I believe the smaller Axicom relay has an impressive 5A contact rating. I used them in some projects for wheelchair vans because we needed the current rating and the diminutive size was what I was looking for on the ver1 Helper pcb. So hose them up and see what happens. Please report back if everything works great but keep it to yourself if electrons are suddenly turned into smoke particles...
Rex?? W1REX

On 12/1/2020 10:55 AM, Colin Evans M1BUU wrote:

Hi,

Silly question of the day- what kind of power will the Tuna Helper (first edition, small can in my case) handle? I have a transmitter that is producing about 2.5 watts output, is this a safe amount of power? Chuck? Rex?

I am intending to run a Sudden Storm with the home made transmitter so I mainly need the RX mute functionality.

Thanks for any info.

72, Colin M1BUU

?Virus-free.

Chuck, W5USJ (ex K2OFN)
ARCI 5422
EM22cv, Rains Co., Texas
--
Chuck, W5USJ

Colin,

I've used the smaller relay at 5W or so OK. Also as much as 15W or so with the larger Topper size relay.

At 11:01 AM 12/1/2020, Rex Harper wrote:

Colin,
While I haven't done ANY calculations or run any destructive tests on the old version (or even the new version for that matter) of the Tuna Helper, my seat of the pants answer would be that either helper will handle the QRP 5 watt 'legal limit' just fine. The main reason I changed the can and relay on the new version was because the small can just had too much stuff hosed up to it to remain stable. And I changed the relay to reduce 1 more inventory item that I had to buy and have on the shelf. Since the Topper used the bigger & less expensive relay and worked just fine, and I now had more space on the Helper][ board, I changed over to the Topper relay to make it easier on my inventory budget. I believe the smaller Axicom relay has an impressive 5A contact rating. I used them in some projects for wheelchair vans because we needed the current rating and the diminutive size was what I was looking for on the ver1 Helper pcb. So hose them up and see what happens. Please report back if everything works great but keep it to yourself if electrons are suddenly turned into smoke particles...
Rex?? W1REX

On 12/1/2020 10:55 AM, Colin Evans M1BUU wrote:

Hi,

Silly question of the day- what kind of power will the Tuna Helper (first edition, small can in my case) handle? I have a transmitter that is producing about 2.5 watts output, is this a safe amount of power? Chuck? Rex?

I am intending to run a Sudden Storm with the home made transmitter so I mainly need the RX mute functionality.

Thanks for any info.

72, Colin M1BUU

?Virus-free.

Chuck, W5USJ (ex K2OFN)
ARCI 5422
EM22cv, Rains Co., Texas
--
Chuck, W5USJ