19 Dec 2019

15m CW QRP

This was on before but it is worth repeating.

Many years ago, I needed a simple QRP CW transceiver for 15m. The result was the Pipit, which was built (I think) in 1984. It put out 800mW, but worked plenty of DX with simple, low, wire dipoles.

At one time it was used with a 10/15m trap dipole loaned to me by G3TFX. The design of the Pipit appeared in GQRP SPRAT. A version based on more commonly available toroids would be a good idea. The rig worked really well and for a period was the only rig I used.

These days I suspect there is less CW.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/15m_pipit

1 comment:

Pedro Colla said...

Hi Roger, there is a healthy plenty of CW still around albeit band CONDX doesn't favour QRP work sometimes. However it is a kind of an easy project to turn these great number or QRP projects around to simple WSPR and FT8 transceivers. There are two approaches. Transform it into a simple DSB transceiver (such as CRKit's D4D) which has an unbelievable performance on FT8 or to take a xtal transceiver such as the Pixie (or scores others) and replace the xtal with a combination of a cheap DDS board programmed with an even cheaper Arduino mini or so. Old circuits, new fun. 73 de Pedro LU7DID.