Rally, "Amatoertraef Fyn". QCX PCB.

 In the past week end I went to the annual HAM radio rally, "Amatoertraef Fyn".

There are a few presentations, and a license exam at the event, and of course a flea market.

I was close to get a MCRF SDR, but passed on that.

At some comissioned stand there was a neat little thing:

- An assembled QCX transceiver (CW single band, with the option for transmitting WSPR)

- An assembled filter switch board for 5 filters

- 6 assembled low pass filters for 6,10,15,20,30,40m

Not a bad catch for DKK 200 (about $30)

At the rally no one knew the band that the transceiver was built for. someone said 15m, but looking at the toroid phase transformer that looked like it had too many windings. My guess was 20 or 30m.

Time to look at the stuff:
As I brought it home, I found that the PCB still had some solder flux residue, but otherwise the soldering work looked good. A bit of cleaning with isopropylene alcohol and a toothbrush cleaned that up, and the test begins.

Switching on the transceiver starts up on 30m, as shown on the LCD display. A quick TX test shows about 2W output (a bit low for the 5W spec, but as there is no cooling of the PA transistors this should work nicely I will leave it at that. The TX test was easy, as there is a spring/microswitch on the PCB, so I could just key the TX.

The TX frequency was shown as 50Hz off on my TRX tester, so I went into the adjustment menu and fot the synthesizer reference oscillator frequency adjusted. The TX is now within +/- 10Hz of the nominal frequency. 

This will work perfectly for CW work. For WSPR work the reference oscillator should probably be replaced with a TCXO, so it remains stable enough to 1-2 Hz.

The only serious draw back of the original QCX is a lack of AGC function. However, there is an add-on for this, so I should order the kit PCB for that, and for the other two QCX+ kits I have already, and should start building (for 20m and 60m).