G4HJW "Finningley" Optical Transceiver kit

The G4HJW optical transceiver kit

Bernie G4HJW is well known for his innovative work on microwaves and optical comms. Last year he designed a neat, part SMA, optical transceiver kit to build at the Finningley round table meeting. The transceiver is capable of very good results and several (around 70) have been built and used very successfully. I believe the best DX QSOs at 481THz have been over 60km using these in 100mm optics.

Exactly when I'll get my kit built I'm not sure but it will be good to have one of these available for optical line-of-sight tests in the autumn. Once assembled, I shall be looking for some 2-way optical QSOs beyond the 10km speech contact I achieved with my own kit last summer. In East Anglia, the issue is finding some hills to allow long line-of-sight paths.

Bernie is, I understand, considering putting together a further batch of these kits, which make a good introduction to nanowave communications. In addition to these electrical kits, all that is needed is a microphone, headset and some simple optics than can be built for a few pounds.

See http://www.earf.co.uk/nanotrx.htm for more details