5 volt power!

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nd6t
 

Posts: 4
Joined: 20 Oct 2022, 14:26

5 volt power!

Post by nd6t »

What a wonderful rig! I’ve been running it on 5 volts from a solar-charged pocket USB battery pack with excellent results. The efficiency is amazing, even at that voltage.

I placed it into an aluminum box that I had, replaced the supplied speaker with one that I harvested from a dead Kindle Fire (clearer for these old ossified ears), and successfully tried several electret and buffered dynamic hand microphones that I had converted for previous projects. It even works well using a Western Electric G5 handset with a carbon mic!

I used it to check in with my SSB group on Sunday morning running just under 1 watt output from the 5volt pack. Everyone heard me so well that I continued using it, even through the following net.

Earphone output is quite sufficient through my station speaker, easily covering the whole room without further amplification.


My sincere thanks to Guido and Manuel (and everyone else that has contributed) for an absolutely entertaining and educational project!

72, Don
Constrainted
 

Posts: 56
Joined: 20 Dec 2022, 20:51

Re: 5 volt power!

Post by Constrainted »

nd6t wrote: 20 Oct 2022, 15:41 What a wonderful rig! I’ve been running it on 5 volts from a solar-charged pocket USB battery pack with excellent results. The efficiency is amazing, even at that voltage.

I placed it into an aluminum box that I had, replaced the supplied speaker with one that I harvested from a dead Kindle Fire (clearer for these old ossified ears), and successfully tried several electret and buffered dynamic hand microphones that I had converted for previous projects. It even works well using a Western Electric G5 handset with a carbon mic!

I used it to check in with my SSB group on Sunday morning running just under 1 watt output from the 5volt pack. Everyone heard me so well that I continued using it, even through the following net.

Earphone output is quite sufficient through my station speaker, easily covering the whole room without further amplification.


My sincere thanks to Guido and Manuel (and everyone else that has contributed) for an absolutely entertaining and educational project!

72, Don
Thanks for this report! What antenna(s) are you using? Tuner?
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nd6t
 

Posts: 4
Joined: 20 Oct 2022, 14:26

Re: 5 volt power!

Post by nd6t »

My antenna is a random length (about 175') end-fed wire with the far end held up 115' above ground level by an old pine tree. That wire is AWG 14 copper but is paralleled with 1/16" stainless steel woven cable to insure that it remains aloft during storms. I installed it 22 years ago as a temporary antenna.
'Nuthin' more permanent than "temporary"!
The tuner is a conventional "pi" configuration with a series inductor, shunt variable capacitors. Grounding is series L/C tuned to act as an RF counterpoise. My tuners have internal noise bridges so that I pre-tune before transmitting, thus protecting against mis-match.

This is a wonderful CW rig. The iambic keying, even at 35 WPM, is top-notch. Much better than the QCX. Perhaps it is due to the faster clocking? I especially enjoy the capability of changing the speed in the menu and being able to use it without leaving the menu option.

72, Don
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