I have always been a big fan of moving coil multimeters, don't get me wrong the digital DMM is great. But there is something about an old fashioned moving coil meter I have always liked, a bit like the boy or grew up to be a man and still loves steam engines I suppose?


Christmas brought me a couple of envelopes with some money and I was busy browsing late last night, temptation got the better of me:



The MF500B is a full sized bench multimeter (plenty of images available on the web):

 

Some recent component finds I have on order for myself, which you may find useful for your own Amateur projects all prices seem very reasonable:


10 pieces of copper clad board useful for building your QRP projects on, size 10cm x 15cm:


http://www.banggood.com/10Pcs-1_5MM-CCL-1015-FR4-Glass-Fiber-Board-PCB-Circuit-Board-p-962233.html


2200 uF 16V electrolytic capacitor x 50 pieces:
Ideal for some decent smoothing on your project supply rails: 

http://www.banggood.com/16V-2200UF-Power-Supply-Board-High-Frequency-Electrolytic-Capacitor-p-962535.html

                                               Merry Christmas & Happy New Year





                                              
                                                      73's & 88's from G1KQH

Christmas reading time, Sprat 161 popped through the letterbox in this mornings post. I see Graham (G3MFJ) gave me a little mention about the TDA2003's that I recently had come across, he had decided to grab a batch for G-QRP members sales:   http://www.gqrp.com/sales.htm

What interests me about this chip, as well as being a high powered 10W audio Amp, plenty of circuits which are available on the web. The TDA2003 has also been used in VLF PA design Amateur projects. From G3XBM: https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vlf/8-97khz-earth-mode-transmitter

Also at 73KHz The Heyphone John Hey (G3TDZ):

http://bcra.org.uk/creg/heyphone/
 http://bcra.org.uk/creg/heyphone/pdf/heyphone-schematic-tx.pdf
 
I emailed John recently about the TDA2003 and  he reckons that they will work at 137KHz depending on manufacture? Time to get testing a few on the end of a signal generator..

Simon Brown (G4ELI) author of SDR-RADIO has recently started writing another program called Greyline for Windows, and is still moving it forward. We are now up to Version1 Build 222.






I wrote about this in early October http://g1kqh.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/new-software.html

Since then the Great Circle map has been given a zoom option, and some minor bugs have been ironed out. I also notice there is now an interface for the Yaesu FT-3000 that has been added, not much reference to this at the moment, and as I do not own this radio I cannot test it out? However, I feel there are great things to come from this program, so it is well worth a download and keeping an eye on its website for future updates:
 
http://www.dit-dit-dit.com/Downloads.aspx

The month of December has come and nearly gone without any Blog output from me, poor show I hear you all say. Christmas shopping and the family have had the better of me of late, but don't worry I will be back to the keyboard shortly after I have eaten the last leg of the Turkey.

There are a few little electronic toys I am hoping for this year, as well as a book. All will be revealed very soon!

73 Steve   

Oleg Boradin who runs the small Russian QRP 72 Club has started his Blog recently to support the club:

http://qrp-club72.blogspot.ru/

Alternative server link:http://qrp-club72.blogspot.co.uk/


Some may know Oleg for his small QRP design the Micro 80 that featured in Sprat 72 (Autumn 92).  This is a very small and simple 80m CW Transceiver http://www.indianapolis.net/QRPp-I/micro-80.htm and is very easy to construct. A UK revised component circuit I found at:http://www.qsl.net/g3pto/micro80.html

Maybe worth thinking about if your starting out in the QRP route of Amateur Radio.