AmateurRadio.com

First, the obligatory “my apologies for the lack of posts recently” statement.  The usual excuses apply: work, family, sleep, more work, and my forty-something mind and body just doesn’t seem to have the get-up-and-go like it used to sometimes.  But I digress.  While I have the floor here, let me take a moment to wish everyone Happy Thanksgiving!

On the topic of radio, Oscar, DJ0MY, has created a professional quality keyer using the Arduino Nano module and my open source keyer code.  Here’s a video of Oscar’s creation:

Oscar has been a big help in suggesting and testing features of the keyer code.  He’s encouraged me to go out on a limb and code features I probably otherwise wouldn’t have, making the code what it is today.  Oscar says that he will be creating a webpage detailing his work, probably around Christmastime.

I haven’t been on the air much recently, but I did build and start testing a beta release of the OpenQRP OQtransceiver1 rig.

The rig and the OpenQRP project is the brainchild of Steve, K1EL, the creator of the venerable Winkey.  The OQtransceiver1 is a monoband CW 40m unit, featuring NE602s in a superhet design with a narrow CW crystal filter in the receive chain.  The radio control is Arduino / ATMega328 based and the firmware is open source.  The OQ1 features a CW keyer, frequency counter, RIT, memory keying, two line backlit LCD display, and a CW decoder. Output power is slightly more than 5 watts.  The PC board and case is very professional looking and well designed.  I’m hoping to contribute to the OpenQRP project with firmware code updates and new features in the coming months.  I think the OpenQRP project is a nice concept that will likely produce some neat and innovative gear in the coming years, and provide another outlet for learning in this great hobby of ours.