Build Your Own Ham Radio

 

It's true that you can spend A LOT of money on just the radio in your station. Nevermind the antenna, speakers, keys, mics, or other accessories, you can spend good-used-car money on just the radio if you're looking at flagship rigs. Even if you're not looking at the top of the line, there's plenty north of $1000. You may be tempted to think that you'll never afford this hobby.

I'm here to tell ya, it ain't so.

A little over a week ago, I ordered a Cricket 40 from my friends at the "4-State QRP Club." It cost me $35 delivered. I received it Tuesday. The Cricket 40 is a kit. All the parts and PC board are included. 

 

It comes with 2 crystals, 7.030 and 7.122 MHz, so you can operate in the advanced and novice portions of the 40 meter band. They also have 20- and 30-meter band versions available for purchase. I chose 40 because of an old saying: "40's always open" meaning you can almost always propagate to someone on 40 meters. Other bands are more volatile in how far your signal will go, but it seems like 40 will always get you the states, and on some fine occasions, you can reach out and touch Europe, Oceania, etc.

 

 

 The documentation for the kit is online at the 4SQRP website. Bill of Materials and Assembly manual are there and the directions, especially for this kit, are straightforward and clear. I had it completed in just a couple hours, it really is THAT simple. The hardest part is identifying some of the smaller pieces, like mica capacitors. They are super tiny. I had to take pictures of them with my cell phone and blow them up a million percent to see the markings.

Can you read that?!?!

 

 So after a couple hours of soldering, I plugged in the 9V battery and to my elation, immediately heard the musical tones of Morse code. What a thrill.

 

 

 All this for the low low price of $35.

Now, let's talk about that a little more. This is a fully functional CW transceiver (it transmits and receives). It even has a built-in straight key. But it has it's limitations. 

1. It's simple and inexpensive. That means fun and affordable. It also means no filtering, no band width adjustments, no noise reduction, etc. It's raw radio like our great grandfathers did it.That presents a challenge to operation. 
2. It's QRPp. What's that? QRP is one of the "Q Signals" used in ham radio. Most strictly speaking it means "reduce your power" or "shall I reduce power" but it's also a designation of operating at 5 watts or less. QRPp, with the second "p" designates 1 watt or less. Again, this presents an operational challenge. It may take longer to get a response when you call CQ. On the other hand, the 7.030MHz crystal parks you on the frequency favored by the QRP community, so this might not be as challenging, but QRP is a method that requires great skill and patience. Anyone can master it tho, and many hams find it great fun. There's nothing like busting a pileup of killowat stations with high-gain beam antennas with low power and a wire antenna. David and Goliath all over again! 

Those are the big ones I can think of, but I think it's worth it. Anything worth doing is worth working for. Learning how to operate a radio like this one will lead to better operating on any radio at any frequency.

Once you've built a kit like this, if you enjoyed it, you can always try other kits. They range from simple to complex, from all through-hole components to some surface mount soldering if you have the skill. I think next up for me is going to be a 5 watt transceiver with a tunable VFO. Something like this QCX+ from QRP Labs. There are also SSB and AM mode kits, so you can build yourself a voice radio too, it's not ALL CW. There are also antenna tuners, filters, and many other things you can build yourself.

I hope that inspires you to give it a try. I think it's a LOT of fun for the money. I can't feed my family at McDonald's for $35 anymore, but I can build an HF Transceiver that I will use for years and years and maybe pass it on to someone else.

Tnx fer reading es 72!  (72 is the QRP'er's version of "73" or "Best Regards.")