George GM3OXX - SK

It was saddening to read in the latest RadCom that George GM3OXX has died.

He was a stalwart of QRP and I have one of his QSL cards on my wall for a QRP contact on CW many years ago. This was either 80m or 40m. George made most of his equipment at home. Apparently he was also on the microwave bands.

Sadly, a lot of our old-timers are going to leave us in the coming years.

I think he died some time ago.

.....and NOT a TS-990 - something better!

Just to put some perspective on things, this is a small CW transmitter that just about anyone could build for a few pounds only and use it to work stations all over the world with a modest dipole antenna or similar. The OXO transmitter was designed by GM3OXX and is a classic design.

http://www.qsl.net/g3pto/OXO.gif

Power from the OXO is around 800mW - 1.5W depending on the band and on the final transistor and its emitter resistor. I have used this design on HF and had hours of fun with it. Long after a rig like the TS-990 would be gathering dust, this little beauty will carry on giving pleasure with each and every contact.

The OXO QRP transmitter

OXO schematic on the G3PTO website

One of the most simple and popular HF transmitters is the OXO, originally design by GM3OXX. The circuit appeared in the GQRP club's SPRAT magazine about 30 years ago. It is essentially a 2 transistor QRP transmitter (plus another for keying) capable of working as a fundamental crystal controlled or VXO controlled transmitter on an HF band. I used this design as the TX part of my Pipit 800mW transceiver for 15m and later the Tenner transceiver for 10m. On the higher bands there is more chance of a little chirp, but perfectly usable. On the lower HF bands the OXO is capable of over 1W. It is a very easy transmitter to build, is almost guaranteed to work first time, and is great fun to use.

As it is some time since I've built one, I might just knock one up this afternoon and see how I get on, perhaps on 80m or 40m CW.

FETer airing today

Hearing all about the great success Chris G3XIZ has had with his FETer transceiver, I fired mine up this afternoon and put a few CQs out on 3560. No takers yet, but have heard a couple of 2W QRP stations over 100kms away (G4ARI and G4FQZ) on the 1 FET receiver.

Earlier, G3XIZ worked GM3OXX for his furtherest 2-way QSO with his 15mW transceiver. This is a remarkable distance for such QRPP and such a simple receiver.