News: Summer 2010
I have uprated my homebrew Sutton DSB HF transceiver transceiver to raise the output from 5w to 15-20w by providing a higher voltage supply to the linear applifier. The IRF510 MOSFETs are now happily running from a 24v supply.
I was hoping to build the Minster SSB transceiver from Walford Electronics but sadly Tim Walford concluded that it's design would make it too expensive to sell so the soldering iron is hot and waiting for the next major design that Tim cooks up!
Halifax and District ARS ran an exhibition station at 2010 Halifax Charity Gala on 12th June 2010 and Brighouse Charity Gala on 26th June 2010. On 17th April club members met at Manor House Farm, Lower Wyke as a practice run which was good fun!
I have a neck condition and so rely on a bluetooth headset for most of my phone calls. I came across this article by K7SFN where a bluetooth headset was connected wirelessly to his transceiver so he could move around and rely on the transceiver's VOX control to switch transmit/receive. He used a Jabra A210 device which was developed as an adapter to provide bluetooth flexibility to non-bluetooth mobile phones.
K7SFN's article puts it very well and mine was a very straight forward project. The device has a 2.5mm stereo socket for mic in on the tip and phones out on the ring with sleeve to ground. As 2.5mm is a faff to solder, I used a 2.5mm-3.5mm adapter and then a 3.5mm to RCA Phone lead to give me two leads. I put a Yaesu mic connector on one lead and a ¼ inch jack plug on the other lead and amazingly it worked well first time as I tried to contact a station in Cyprus, another in Iceland and a nice audio report from a special event station in Portugal! That's fine using my FT-990 but my micro-shack has a FT-747 with no VOX so the next step was to build a VOX circuit!
Before Christmas, the Micro-shack in my Dining Room was first revamped with a T/R switch to switch PTT on the Mirage B108 linear amp and the Icom IC-2E at the same time. It also steps power down to 9v from 13.8v for the Icom. This was then revamped again to be a complete HF/VHF station - the 'Winter Shack' which comprises the 2m equipment, FT-747DX HF transceiver, homebrew 6m transverter and linear amp, homebrew Z-match ATU and Datong RF-Clipper!
