Back before Y2K (remember that?) I built an excellent kit transceiver called the Wilderness Sierra. It's a multi-band QRP CW transceiver with a superb receiver and puts out about two Watts on transmit. I carried it around in the Rockiy Mountains and made contacts all over. It eventually went into my storage and stayed in a box for about ten years. I pulled it out earlier this year and it still works and does it very WELL!. My only complaint was that the tuning range was limited to about 150 kHz of any particular band. Fine for CW, but I also wanted to use it for general coverage. Back when this was designed, VFOs were set at low frewuency - usually in the 2 to 3 MHz range and 'mixed' by heterodyne up to your operational frequency. That was because low frequency VFOs were much more stable than high. This does however, limit the tuning range.
Entern the 21st century. We can buy an inespensive Direst Digital Synthesis (DDS) VFO for about $50-75. The DDS VFO is super stable, accurate and covers from a few Hz to about 50 MHz or higher, depending upon the version. I built one a few months ago and have been doing exeriments with it (No small animal s were harmed during these experiments... :P ) This last week, I grafted this DDS VFO into the QRP rig and it works! Now I am modifying the front panel it add the DDS VFO into the Wilderness Sierra to get it operating inside of the enclosure. Later, I will likely add a 10-20 Watt amplifier to the rig so that I can have a nice, portable rig for home and away. Because I am not as 'trail friendly' as I used to be, manpacking anything through 12,000 foot mountain passes is not likely in my future, so building this into a small pelican type case for portable operations is the design goal, once the design ti stable and tested.
That's 'what's cookin' at my bench - you?
DDS VFO KIT: http://www.pongrance.com/super-dds.html
>de RadioRay ..._ ._
Entern the 21st century. We can buy an inespensive Direst Digital Synthesis (DDS) VFO for about $50-75. The DDS VFO is super stable, accurate and covers from a few Hz to about 50 MHz or higher, depending upon the version. I built one a few months ago and have been doing exeriments with it (No small animal s were harmed during these experiments... :P ) This last week, I grafted this DDS VFO into the QRP rig and it works! Now I am modifying the front panel it add the DDS VFO into the Wilderness Sierra to get it operating inside of the enclosure. Later, I will likely add a 10-20 Watt amplifier to the rig so that I can have a nice, portable rig for home and away. Because I am not as 'trail friendly' as I used to be, manpacking anything through 12,000 foot mountain passes is not likely in my future, so building this into a small pelican type case for portable operations is the design goal, once the design ti stable and tested.
That's 'what's cookin' at my bench - you?
DDS VFO KIT: http://www.pongrance.com/super-dds.html
>de RadioRay ..._ ._