Hot tip

..Ok, I fixed the soldering iron heater, eg: bought a new one, for the price I could have bought 4 cheap soldering irons but probably would not last the same time so I stick with this one since I'm already used to shape and size.

After getting again some heath from the soldering tip I finished re-cabling the Speaky, minus the external cw key but will solder those 3 wires in a near future.

Also a better cable routing will be finished after getting this QRP "beast" to full working condition :)


I powered it on and kind of worked..... have noise, good! Had a little problem in the frequency display, I programed it wrongly and the most interesting/strange stuff is when I disconnect the counter signal input the radio enters TX mode. I changed nothing and now it's OK on that issue but now sometimes it doesn't count....go figure, not critical for now I'm measuring VFO frequency with my external frequency counter....

All controls work but can't see much change from the pre-selector, more on this latter.
Here's an idea on the parts involved:

I can receive an 8 Mhz (the IF) signal from the frequency generator and a big signal on the 40m band (the only band module connected for now) transmitted from the FT-817 to a dummy load, still real air transmission got none so far. Will have to debug but I'm thinking that could be an issue from the bandpass filter or the first rf amp part before the first mixer, more debug on the next days....
Didn't checked transmission part so far.

Here's a global view of the receive part:

Have a nice weekend...