QRP-pages

Welcome to my QRP pages. I'm bitten by the bacteria. Solderingsmoke has damaged my brain. I'm lost to the great fun of building my own rigs. First out is the Mkars80 from G6ALU/Steve Drury.
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Take a look at my

"Pimp My Mkars80"

Project. Klick here.

Warning: The folowing is written in LA6UOA-english. Enjoy!!

(QR... what?? --> QRP = Reduce power/I will reduce power. Normaly the term is used when using home made rigs or sending with under 10Watts on SSB and 5 Watts on CW (Morse code) QRPp meens operating with drasticly reduced power, like milliWatt. Just thought you liked to know:-))

Ok, the photo above shows the Mkars80 5W SSB transceiver when finished building. It arrived in the snailmail without the norwegian costoms knowing it. 103-1 to me, finaly breaking the scores of zero! (Darn sods!) I used about one week from I got it until it was finished putting it together. Only error was a transformer that I had solder wrong and a trancistor that was soldered in the wrong way. All fixed in a minute by my friend LA2ULA/Ronny. In fact, Steve was never more than 30 minutes away via mail! What a support!!! My mate Erik, LA4JGA, has the power. He's the one to blame for the great reports I get, after he did the tuning up. It's in fact easy, but I wonted a expert to do it.

Now, lets see... Building the kit: To start of, I have only soldered plugs and wires before this kit. That's how easy it is! Steve has done a great job, thinking out how to separate the parts. If they are easy to mix up, their probably in different bags. No problem at all! You will need a lamp with magnifying glass on. I garantee you that:-) I borowed LA4JGA's. It's a small world, allso in the soldering world! But I managed.

The manual is well made, and there is small squeres to x out, when finished putting the part on the PCB, and an overview of the parts to look at when lost in (soldersmoke-) space.

After I was done soldering, I used my Dreml and cut open the opening for the screen in the aluminium box (Yes, both the screen and the box is supplyed from Steve! Without extra cost!) If you download and print out the templets for the holes, it's a walk in the park to get the holes done. I recomend using Step drills for the holes (Klick to see what I mean)

All that was left was to get a good mic and a speaker. Using the manual, I modded a KOSS SB/45 headset with mic, bought on my local hardware dealer. The trick is to get a PTT to work in there. I use a push-switch that I soldered in on the wire, just like they say in the manual. After finishing the solderjob on the PTT and plugs, I just wrap it all in shrinkwrap (Just remember to put it on before you solder on the plugs and switch) Now, I get great reports on the audio!

That's about it! Ordering is a walk with the dog: Send a mail to Steve. Look for the adress at hes pages (here) He (and I) likes PayPal so handeling is easy! For 51 pounds (about 531 kroner) U'll get a pileload of fun and just imagine the fases of the others when whispering out that youre running wooping 5 watts! Listning, takes about 120mA. Sending uses only 1.2 Amps. If you use it before a 1 to 1,5 houre warmup time, you'll risk loosing the lock on the frequency from time to time. That happends when the transceiver is cold, the "Huff&Puff" can't hold it in synk any more. Steve has made a change to the design allready, using 1nF ceramics, instead of the green Mylars that used to be there, shipping with version 1.3 of the manual/kit. I guess it was a lot more unstable before the update. After a warmup time of about 1 houre, it's very stable, and the funfactor rockets! Thanks to Steve Drury for lovely building- and bandfun! On the air with self made rig... How awsome!!

Next project: I have a PSK20 from Small Wonder Labs, waiting for me. It can take a while, so I'll just order another Mkars80 for heavy modding-fun, while waiting for the yankee to arrive!

Stay tuned!! In the meanwhile, take a look at what to do with a Mkars80 in...

PIMP MY MKARS80!!

73! de LA6UOA/Trygve:-)