Taking Stock, New Desert Ratt 2 Recording, and A New Tut80 Run

When I started this blog almost 4 years ago, I was getting a (very small) handful of page views every day and had no idea that anyone would find it at all interesting or useful. In fact, I don’t think anyone did at first. Then I started building a few things and found that some people enjoyed looking at the pictures of my builds and in some cases, were encouraged to try building things themselves.

I used to think that in order to have a blog, website, or other kind of internet presence, you needed to be really, really good at something or it wasn’t worth putting your stuff out there, but I was missing the point. I think that the point is sharing. I don’t need to be one of the best at something, because everyone does things differently. If I do my best at something, and share the way that I did it, that information could well be useful to someone else who was trying to figure out how to do the same thing. Maybe my approach will present an interesting alternative to someone who was thinking of a different approach.

My last post on the NA5N Desert Ratt 2 Regen is quite a good example of this. I certainly didn’t design it so wasn’t offering anything radically new, but for anyone wanting to build one, there aren’t very many examples on the internet, with pictures, of DR2’s. Of the ones that exist, there aren’t a lot of detailed pictures, with discussion of construction details, all in one place. Perhaps someone was interested in building it, but was wanting to know the winding information for toroids (which doesn’t seem to be available online), or was wondering whether the tuning would be too fine, what kind of reduction drive to use etc. This is why I like to include this kind of information in my posts, in case it can help someone.

Since I sold my FT-817 2 years ago with a desire to rely more on homebrew gear, things have gone quite well. Admittedly the main rig at AA7EE has been a K2, which is not exactly home-brew, but it still felt good to prove to myself that I could assemble a kit of such complexity.

Apologies for the following 2 lackluster photos (it has to do with my inability in using flash to light indoor scenes, among other things) but here are the main bits of gear I have built in the last 2 or 3 years. These are the ones that worked; I left out the partially completed projects (which includes 2 DSB rigs that have working receivers but not fully working transmitters) .

On the top shelf, from left to right, is the 40M DC receiver using a Hi-Per-Mite filter, and an OHR WM-2 QRP Wattmer.

On the middle level is my K2, Fort Tuthill 80 (see news about a further release of Tut80 kits below), and the NA5N Desert Ratt 2 Regen.

On the bottom level you can see the Norcal 2N2/40, the first beta of the CC-20 and the first beta of the CC1 (it’s successor), both sitting on top of the G3WPO DSB80, and the N1BYT WBR Regen Receiver for 40M.

On the desk in front of that lot is a little 2 transistor TX on 7030 based on the Pixie 2 design. I have used it successfully with the WBR for a 100% home-brew on-air experience! –

The reason I arranged all these projects at my operating position and took their picture together is because I wanted to review my progress so far.  My interests are shifting, and it looks like ham radio will be taking a backseat to other pursuits for the next few months. This was a good way of putting a bookend on this period before I begin another one. This color shot shows why I usually drag my projects into outside light in order to photograph them.  I really need to work on my flash lighting skills (note the blown-out red channel on the freq displays – a bit of HDR work with Photoshop could have helped this, but sometimes I just want get on with things and post them!)

In other news, the videos I posted of the Desert Ratt 2 were intended to give a general sense of what this neat little regen is like to tune around the bands.  It doesn’t really give a good sense of what the audio from the receiver sounds like though, as I was using an MFJ-281 ClearTone speaker, which has a restricted audio response. On top of that, I was using the internal microphone of an old compact camera (Canon A80) to record it. To remedy this I made a recording the other night from the speaker jack of the DR2 directly into the line input of a little flash recorder (the Marantz PMD620, if you’re interested) and posted it to Soundcloud.  This will give you a much better idea of the quality of the audio from this receiver. Unfortunately, band conditions weren’t too good, so I wasn’t able to find any consistently strong signals with little in the way of QSB, but this recording of Radio Habana, Cuba isn’t too shabby.  It has been edited down, and the edit points are marked by cowbell sounds. When the signal gets strong, you can hear the wide frequency response and good fidelity of the Desert Ratt 2 –

And finally, I’ve had the pleasure of an e-mail chat with John K5JS, of the Arizona ScQRPions, and he informs me that they will be producing a final run of the Dan Tayloe designed Fort Tuthill 80 Direct Conversion CW QRP TX/RX. They already have the boards and many of the parts, so it sounds as if they just need to order some more parts and have a kitting party. This is no mean feat, as kitting is an awful lot of work. I don’t know when this will be happening, but it is definitely in the works. As you no doubt know, QRP Kits are selling versions of this rig for 15M and 160M, but I think it would be fun to buy another of the Tut80 kits when they come out and mod it for 40M. Has anyone done this? Could they post details of their mods to the Tut80 Yahoo Group if they have, perhaps?

In the meantime, the weather has been getting nicer and combined with the fact that the bands haven’t been in great shape, it’s as if mother nature is coaxing me to get out more. I plan to do just that. My bicycle has a new chain, and the weather is perfect for bike rides.  There’s also a new camera calling my name, which will require new photo software, and the inevitable upgrade of my operating system (I’m still on XP), as well as much time spent outside taking lots of pictures. I’ve been looking at my rather old photo portfolio and realizing that there is much work to be done, and much fun to be had.

Much work. Much fun,  I love it when the two go together 🙂

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