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Simple, but good, DC transceiver kits
9 October 2014 | by At under $30 the Hendricks Kits DCxx series of direct conversion transceivers look good value. See http://www.qrpkits.com/. With a decent mixer, these rigs should do better than many. The image below is actually on the Hendricks Kits site. Link to image will be removed if this is a problem.
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| http://www.qrpkits.com/images/DXxxB5.jpg |
4 Responses to “Simple, but good, DC transceiver kits”
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Hate to nit pick (yeah, right) but on their web site they say the kits are $40 plus shipping, not $30. Still seems like a great price, though. I’ve heard nothing but amazingly good things about the man/company.
Only problem I have with my 40 meter version is some “blow by” from strong AM and SW stations. The input is a little broad. For the 40 meter version, I put in a DPDT toggle switch and switch between 7030 and 7040 KHz, as desired. Works great!
The Rockmite ][ has two crystals — one as a front end filter, which helps a lot, but awkward to switch frequencies, so I have that one for 14.060 only.
73 /paul W3FIS
Guess I should have read the product description better….. Doh!
The “board only” kit (which includes the PCB and all the parts shown in the picture) really is only $30. If you want the full kit (they add in the off-board parts such as connecters) that’s the one that’s $40. If you’re like me and have a decent collection of jacks and such you can probably get away with the cheaper kit.
The receiver section has very primitive front end filtering (e.g. just a simple L/C tuned circuit). If you’re in a rural area, that may suffice. However, if you’re in a suburban area, with one or more strong AM broadcast stations, DC receivers usually fall apart.
Super-hetrodyne may get away with this, even through the mixer is producing all kinds of garbage, because the IF filter cleans it all up.
Those having issues with DC reception with this kit should consider adding a strong high pass filter, with a cut-off below the operating frequency, between the antenna and transceiver.