Radio Ramblings

Just before Easter, I bought a PSK Warbler kit from Small Wonder Labs.  This kit, for around £30, gets you on the 80m PSK frequency of 3.580MHz with an output power of around 5W.  I took mine up to the Isle of Man Amateur Radio Society shack this evening, since (for reasons which I’ll explain at another time) I don’t have an antenna which is resonant on 80m, and I haven’t yet built or bought an antenna tuner.  I did put out a couple of calls (using the club callsign, GT3FLH,) but got no reply.

The reason for this became apparent when we put it into a power meter, and discovered that the most we could get out of it was 2W.  It seems like one of the two PA transistors isn’t doing a whole lot of amplifying.  Fortunately (and this is the reason I felt compelled to write about this kit) the circuit is reeeeheheheheeeealy easy to understand.  Dave Benson, NN1G, has done a lovely job with this design, which makes for very easy troubleshooting.  Okay, so I’ve not found the reason for the problem yet, but I’ve got a great idea about where to start looking.

If you’re looking for something to build for yourself in around half a day, this is a wonderful little kit.