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Assembly has begun ... While the Thunderstorms & snow outside keep me indoors. Cheers, Davey - KU9L

I have a WWVR Ver 3 receiver that I have been troubleshooting using my standard aerospace electronics methods to eliminate any assembly errors. So far I haven't found any since I took the whole evening and basically triple-checked as I went and also rechecked with my dental tools to locate any hidden shorts or opens. Fortunately, these kits are very easy to assemble with fewer parts than my old Heathkit days. However, upon powering up, I do not yet get to hear the familiar sound of hiss in my headphones. I do hear a loud click in the headphones, followed by a soft low-frequency buzz from my 12.3-volt buck converter supply. After a few seconds, it switches to silence for 1/4 second, then repeats endlessly with the low-frequency buzz & then silence cycles. I can only find the Ver 1 documentation and I have a Ver 3 board so there may be an assemble detail I may be missing. I have a Sudden Storm Ver 2 kit unbuilt, so I borrowed the LM-386-3 and the SA612 from it. This time there is just a soft click in the headphones and no hum or his, total silence. Antenna or dummy load, nada, nothing to Hiss about. There is not change with the SA-612's swapped. No change with the Varactor installed or not. There is no change with the band module installed or not. I may build the Studden Storm I have just to make a comparison. First I have to check on a few campgrounds I haven't opened yet to see how deep the snowdrifts are and to see if I can get in there to drop off the Host's water tank and get to their golf carts to install the batteries. But I look forward to a little sudden storm action later tonight. I might have been wise to order up a few LM386s ahead of time. Fortunately, I have been following my aerospace ESD practices, however, at 23% relative humidity it is only going to get drier in here as the summer progresses. It is still getting down to freezing every night and we expect a few more snows before the holiday weekend when I really start to get busy for the season. Cheers, Dave David Davey Knapp, depending on who is asking - KU9L

Preliminary: Showing only the nanoVNA marker data, more details to come later. K9DP N4ELS Compare S21 Gain at Marker 1 and Marker 2: ~.55 MHz to ~1.6MHz K9DP -45.8dB to -2.36dB N4ELS -73.7dB to -40dB Recall that -30dB is a factor of 1000 and -40dB 10,000 AKA K9DP BCI HP Filter kit AKA QRPme BCI HP Filter Kit

Hello all, So, did any of you build the Sea Sprite+ transceiver, still working on it, or plan on building or buying it? Did you recently join this QrpmeKits google group? Please talk about It. I want to hear from others. Some of us who got our Sea Sprites can help you. I still need to do the mods for the audio and BCI filter and add the switch to bypass the no tune coupler or point H for a 50ohm antenna. Currently, it is hard wired to use the 50ohm antenna on point H which I used to measure power output via a 50ohm power meter and dummy load that can display QRPp and QRP power levels. I am interested in learning how to use an RF Probe or tracing probe to see what is going on in the radio on receive or transmit. See the output on my used oscilloscope or my TinySA spectrum analyzer or other tools to measure with. Any recommendations? Whatever i do, i want to write it in a notebook, draw some graphs or circuits on some graph paper and make notes. I may take more photos and create a video of it operating and upload to YouTube but need those mods done first. Still learning Morse code and hopefully I can Get on the air on May to make contacts using the little radio. Any others still learning morse code? 73 Daniel KK4MRN

Hello all, I have attached a photo of my Sea Sprite+. I resized it to make the size smaller. Thanks to John AC9UV, I learned how to tap off point "H" and ground to use a 50ohm power meter and 50ohm dummy load to measure QRP power levels or use a different antenna. Anybody else care to share a photo of their Sea Sprite+ in their ham shack or wherever you made contacts? Please? Once I can make contacts in Morse Code using another rig, I will build and put the end fed half wave antenna in a tree and try to make contacts. I am still learning. However, I will use my Sea Sprite+ to make contacts on my back porch. Or, I could just the end fed random wire antenna and 9:1 unun and counterpoise that I already am using, but I need to finish my home brew z-match. 73 Daniel KK4MRN

Hello, Somehow I missed where a BCI Filter (Broadcast Interference?) was mentioned that can be built for the Sea Sprite+. I think Rex pointed out a circuit that can be built? I could hear a AM Broadcast station on my Sea Sprite+. Does anyone know where that BCI filter circuit was? Would a band pass filter for 40m work like qrp-labs band pass filter kit? 73 Daniel KK4MRN

Group, With all that time on my hands after the buildathon I pieced together a Rockmite ][ 20m kit I had waiting in the wings for about 2 years. I almost got it done but am waiting for a Power Mod kit from Rex. I have the 30 and 40 Rockmites already built so just filling in gaps. Not a kit for a very beginner as the build instructions are small but well marked, but then the band specific part and the band mods and the enclosure are perterbations on the straight build and a little scattered. Read before building is always best. ---John AC9UV 73

Now that we have stable power at the campground again and I needed to finish up my projects as we are leaving FL this weekend, I decided to finish up my Tuna Power System Kit. This kit is a central power distribution kit for all of my tuna can kits, it also will charge a sealed lead acid (SLA) battery with an 18-20 volt charging input. The kit is set up for wall warts outputting from 0.4 - 1.0 charging amps. I don't follow instructions well, ask my teachers from grade school! I believe in populating data points wherever I can. Assembly was halted because I was missing three 1K ohm resistors out of four the kit claimed to need. Because our campground had no power for 36 hours and no internet, I could not attend the Buildathon live. However, after the power came back on and then became stable (they doubled the size of the transformer), I decided to finish my TPS kit. I bought a box of Diodes, 1/4w, 1/2w, & 2w resistors assortment to cover for those missing parts. In my case, I was missing three 1K ohm 1/4w metal film resistors but was given three 3.3K ohm resistors by accident. In this case, I calculated that those would not work in the place of the missing parts. Anyway, I finished the assembly and even made a couple of mods to add a digital voltmeter at both the Battery input and the solar input so I could determine charging potential. I went to buy an SLA battery but found a cheap Chinese 6ah LIFEPO4 lithium battery instead. I wondered if it could be used in the TPS kit. I plugged it in and the TPS kit sprung to life with 13.3 volts of output. I then plugged in a 20-watt solar panel that claims 20 volts open circuit and 18 volts at full 1.0 amp output!!!! Since this was a little higher than Rex or Chuck intended (0.7 amp max), I removed the 1n4004 1.0 amp rectifier and replaced it with a 3.0-amp 1N5404 diode instead. The 20-watt solar panel sprung to life at 17.5-volts and with whispy clouds, I was measuring between 0.7 - 1.0 amps via my amp clamp meter on the solar plus input. The green LED illuminated to show charging and the battery voltage slowly began rising. Once it got to 13.8 volts I thought, "Well, the charge regulation should kick in now!" But it didn't, it continued to climb to 14.0 volts, 14.1, 14.3, 14.5, and 14.6 volts ... whew! Suddenly it jumped to 20.5 volts!!!! Oh my!!! Why is this? Well, the battery voltage continued to hover around 14.6 volts, but the BMS (Battery Management System) detects the higher voltage that the charging circuit tries to ramp up to and it disconnects the charging to protect itself. The battery still provides a 14.6-volt output, but the charging circuit with a near-zero amperage sees an open circuit that matches the voltage input from the solar panel. Now, this would not be good for a radio's sensitive input voltage, but since it was an open circuit voltage I put a load on it and the voltage came right down. I am not sure why the UC3906N IC circuit did not limit itself to 13.8 volts since that is what I would expect with an SLA battery. I moved the TPS kit over to the Explorer battery box that I did a video on and tomorrow I will repeat my experiment to see what happens when the 12AH of LIFEPO4 batteries are near full charge. Tonight the voltage only rose to 13.5 volts as the batteries were chugging along all day powering my 30-watt 12-volt DC soldering iron. I triple-checked my TPS kit and verified all resistors, two capacitors, IC, and voltage regulators were installed correctly and at the proper values. So aside from the 13.8-volt regulation voltage, I declare the kit to be a success. I have a 24-amp MPPT solar charge controller that I charge my Explorer box with so I don't really need the charging circuit of the TPS kit, but I did try out the USB charging circuit and it worked perfectly. I left my fingerprints on the VR1 heatsink as I was charging my Android phone on it, a load that was not in the design criteria I am sure ... but it worked magically! Anyway, back to soldering. When I get to Illinois on April 4th I will start on my Sea Sprinte so my grandkids can see what Po

Has anyone found success in finding a 401-size can? I have measured every can at our local WM and aside from the occasional 6" huge size, the largest I "can" find is the 307 size as shown. Our WM is next door to our snowbird campground and walking distance, but before I take the two hour drive to Costco I thought I would seek an extra breadcrumb locally. My next search will be Public 3 miles away. Cheers es 72, Davey - KU9L