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Good evening, everyone. It's time for ham talk
live episode number 226 new kits for CW recorded
live on Thursday September 3rd 2020 I'm your
host Neil rap WB nine VPG. Thanks for tuning
in to this episode of ham talk live tonight We're
joined by Joe Eisenberg K zero in EB and we'll
take your calls live in just a few minutes Last
week here on the show R .J. Bragg used to just
call him R .J., but R .J. Bragg, W -Y -7 -A -A,
was here to talk about the Come and Get Wyoming
special event coming up here in just a few days.
If you missed that, you can listen over at HamTalkLive
.com anytime or on your favorite podcast app
or on YouTube. And you can catch us on W -T -W
-W on the rebroadcast Saturday afternoons at
about 3 30 p .m. Eastern Time and the frequency
for that is five zero eight five a .m. again
WTWW Saturday afternoons about 3 30 it's the
rebroadcast so we're not live so you won't be
able to call in during that show but you can
listen over there and Hope you do. Well, get
your questions ready to go. If you're listening
to us live on Thursday night, you can give us
a call after the interview. Let me give you the
phone number so you have it ready to go. Not
time to call just yet, but have it ready to go.
It's 859 -982 -7373 859 -982 7373. That's the
phone number. We'll open up the phone lines a
little bit later in the show and you can tweet
us whenever you want because I'll just check
that as I can. throughout the show and that's
at ham talk live over on twitter and if you're
on speaker you can type a comment in and that'll
come up as well so i'll be back with joe right
after this word from tower electronics right
here on ham talk live jerry what's up man i've
been seeing you at sunbucks in a while i used
to see you every morning getting coffee what's
up Well, I can't afford SunBucks five days a
week anymore. I had to spend my money on PL259s.
You know, those antenna projects I've been meaning
to do. I had to do them before my HOA finds out
I have antennas. That's too bad, Jerry. I miss
seeing you and catching up over coffee. You should
get your PL259s from Tower Electronics. They
have great stuff. Jerry, you're back! Oh, QRM
heterodyne frappuccino. That's a good choice.
How's it going? Did you get all those antennas
up before the HOA police showed up? Yeah, I got
them all done. Thanks for telling me about Tower
Electronics. Now I can have my coffee. I just
saved a bunch of money on my PL -259s by switching
to Tower Electronics. Don't get caught without
PL259s. Visit Tower Electronics online at PL
-259 .com or at a ham fest near you or give them
a call at 920 -435 -2973 and be sure to pick
up some power poles, adapters and cables too.
You're listening to Ham Talk Live with Neil Rapp.
Yesterday, my XYL said she'd leave me if I didn't
give up ham radio. Over. Welcome back to HamTalk
Live. Thanks to Scott and Jill at Tower Electronics
for sponsoring the show tonight. They help bring
you HamTalk Live each and every week. You can
visit them online at pl -259 .com. And back with
us tonight is Joe Eisenberg, KZeroNEB from Lincoln,
Nebraska, and is well known for his kit building
expertise. He is well known for his picture shows
of Hamvention as well. He's the longtime kit
building editor at CQ Magazine and often makes
his presentations and kit builds at HamFest conventions
and club meetings and Joe started off at an early
age Back in 1969 as a ham and of course that
he's the guy at Dayton with the dr. Seuss hat
If nothing else so Joe welcome back to the show.
It's been a little while actually Yes, it has
Neil I I thought it was only a few weeks ago
and it turns out it was March So I'm glad to
be back on and and Scott and Jill from tower
electronics I highly recommend them because I
tell people to have plugs jacks connectors and
so forth for their kits that they build and they're
the place to go All right. Well, there you have
it Are not out on the ham fest tour again. I
got a couple of them in and then Nothing going
here. So hopefully we'll have some ham fest but
pl -259 .com Don't let that stop you Well, we're
talking a little CW here tonight at least start
off with we'll see how time goes here, but We're
talking about a couple of CW kits tonight. So
You can do this stuff. You're a professional
former professional broad change. I mean broadcaster.
So So Go go for it. Tell us about this first
CW kit Okay, Neil. The first one is It's a Morse
code practice kit and it's put out by the North
Fulton amateur radio league Which is from the
Atlanta metro area north side of Atlanta And
NFARL .org is their website. And they sell these
kits, I think, for about $10. And it's got two
coin cells in it that power it, one transistor,
a little beeper, an LED, a switch, a couple of
resistors, and a touch button and a jack. And
that's pretty much it. And it fits, it's designed
to fit exactly inside an Altoids tin. And it
has a jack so you can plug in an outside key
so you don't have to use the touch key. But it
does fit in an Altoids tin and it looks wonderful.
And I'll be featuring this kit in the October
edition of CQ Magazine. And it's a great kit
for several reasons. One, it's an easy way to
learn code. And number two, it is very, very
simple to build. Yes, you're soldering parts
on a circuit board, but most are very easy to
put on and It goes together definitely in less
than an hour and It's ideal if you're doing a
group kit building experience because it's great
for first -time builders because the parts are
spaced quite a ways apart So you're not going
to have so much trouble in dealing with a crowded
circuit board very low cost, very easy to put
together. I'd say the most difficult part is
when you mount it into an Altoids tin, if you
decide to do that, you have to drill like five
holes in it, four for the mounting screws and
one for the external key jack. But if you're
doing a group and you have somebody who's got
a drill press or something and can make a template,
they can drill these very quickly and Altoids
tins are really kind of tricky to drill so what
I did was I Used a punch to make an indentation
then used a Dremel to Pop the first little hole
in there and then a regular drill to make it
the right size And that seems to do it the best
without tearing that very thin aluminum. That's
in the Altoids tin but Like I said, you can just
close the lid and everything and everybody thinks
it's just altoids and you open it up and there's
your kit. And I'm going to turn it on. Like I
said, it runs on two of these coin cell batteries
like in your remote controls. And we'll see if
we can make it beep. And there you go. It lights
up a blue LED and there's also a red LED on the
touch module. Now the touch module has a couple
surface mount parts on it, but those are already
done for you. All you have to do is solder a
three pin connector to that touch module and
then solder that to the board. So it's not difficult
at all and it's a great deal for a first -time
kit builder. So once again the North Fulton amateur
radio league from Fulton County, Georgia nfarl
.org and I'm pretty sure it's around $10 and
From what I hear they're already getting orders
based on Just my social media mentions of this
kit and it will be in the October edition of
CQ magazine So there we go, and so I actually
was visiting down there and and Audrey and and
Jack a Couple of our Yoda kids are in the North
Fulton Club, so That's a cool little kit for
yeah, and it's a great one and and like I said
if you're doing a group kit build experience
or something That's pretty much an ideal kit
for that The next one is called the Morso Reno
32, which is at the opposite end of the spectrum
in terms of complexity, in terms of Morse code
trainers. And this one costs $100 roughly. It's
actually 85 euros, and it goes up and down a
buck or so with currency fluctuations when you
order it and put it on PayPal. But what this
does Because it has an OLED display and it's
based on an Arduino Nano and it will Let you
use it as a regular keyer and keyer radio It'll
let you send with a straight key or with paddles
and it will decode what you're sending You can
also plug a receiver into it and it will decode
what you're hearing Which is pretty sweet It
comes with paddles. They're touch paddles. It's
just made from printed circuit board material
and plugs right into the kit. You can plug headsets
into it so you can listen quietly. And it has
two antennas. One's a tiny little curly cue and
one's a bigger kind of a whip. And what that's
for is it lets you transmit and receive CW wirelessly.
One is called LoRa which is low radiation. UHF
and it's in the 433 megahertz band but it's license
free because of the the power and the FCC definition
of the device. It's basically a part 15 device
but it also has a full power Wi -Fi transceiver
that works in the 2 .4 gigahertz Wi -Fi band
and so you can actually connect it to your network
like at home. And then if you open a hole in
the firewall according to the instructions for
a particular port, you can actually transceive
with somebody else on the internet outside of
your network. So you can actually, with the Morcerino
32, you can transmit and receive Morse code through
the internet to somebody else who has another
unit like this. Say you look at it and if you
ever saw my pictures of this thing, it's immensely
complex There's lots of surface mount parts and
stuff and guess what you don't have to put any
of those on the board All you got to do is the
through hole parts. How many parts do you have
to solder? 11 no toroids to wind or anything
I'd say the most difficult is dealing with the
display because the very thin fragile glass is
used for the OLED display and so you have to
be really really really really careful to not
crack it and so there's a few tricks you can
use to get the plug -in strips lined up with
the main board and then solder them properly
And I go through that in an article that I'm
writing for the November edition of CQ Magazine.
We'll cover this kit. It has a lot of different
functions. Like I said, it will send random characters
to you, random English words, and random normal
CW abbreviations like CUAGN and stuff like that,
or RST. It will send you all sorts of abbreviations
that we use on CW and you can copy those and
you can look on the screen to check your word.
And you can even scroll back several lines. I
found that out. You power this thing with a micro
USB type cell phone charger. And that puts in
more than enough current to run this thing. You
can also get a small battery pack and a lot of
hobby shops for these micro size quadcopter drones.
There's a particular style of pack that you can
plug right into this. Now what I did was I made
my kit in such a way that I have that plug in
there. And so I can plug in the battery pack.
and power it if I wanted to if I had one but
for right now since I don't have it the wire
just sits there underneath the case and I just
plug in a normal cell phone charger but if you
have one of those little battery packs for a
cell phone to charge it you can actually power
this kit from one of those as well as long as
you just have a micro usb output so that's the
morcerino 32 and that comes all the way from
Vienna Austria in Europe and if you order it
It can take any words from one week to three
weeks for it to get through the mail depending
on what's going on with the pandemic So Neil
there's two kits Believe it or not with one having
just a couple more parts than the other but being
super super simple and inexpensive and another
one that's ten times the cost and about ten times
the features but only 11 parts to solder All
right, sounds like a couple of great kits and
some good practice over the internet with the
with the more expensive one you can just get
on Wi -Fi and do some some practice without all
the the band noise and everything to get trained
and and then you can start tackling the the noise
so some excellent choices there, and I look forward
to seeing those in CQ Magazine coming up soon
in the next couple of months. Sounds good. All
right. Well, we're going to take a break here,
and we'll come back. We've got a couple of questions
for you already, and we've got some other stuff
that we're going to talk about, so we'll do that.
And yeah, we've got a bonus kit to talk about
tonight and some other stuff going on with Joe.
So we'll come back and do all of that after this
word from ICOM America right here on HamTalk
Live. Get out and be active with ICOM's new IC
-705 and its optional multi -function backpack.
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This compact rig weighs in at 1 kilogram or just
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It runs 5 watts with a BP272 battery, 10 watts
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are just today in the park. The IC -705 has now
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Visit icomamerica .com slash amateur for more
information on ICOM radios. Join the conversation.
Give us a call at 859 -982 -7373. Again, the
number to call is 859 -982 -7373. Or, if you'd
rather type than talk, tweet us at HamTalk Live.
Now, here's Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live.
Here's the snap, Rapp takes the rig, he breaks
through the pile up, he's on 80, now 40, now
20, 15, 10, 2 meters, touchdown Hamtok Live!
Welcome back to HamTalk Live. Icom America is
online at icomamerica .com slash amateur. Make
sure to check them out and check out HamTalk
Live on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. you
can see what's going on with the show and all
that kind of thing and of course our website
HamTalkLive .com where this show comes your way
every Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time
and it's time for your calls now so if you have
a question for Joe give us a call right now at
859 -982 -7373 again 859 982 -7373 or tweet us
at HamTalk Live. We have some tweets already
and some comments on Spreaker. If you're on there,
you can type into the comments. And if you're
listening to us on WTWW or on the podcast edition,
we're not live. So sorry. You won't be able to,
uh, to call in. All right. Well, we've got some,
uh, some things to talk about. Uh, but, uh, you
know, speaking of, of ICOM, you've got, you've
got a new Yes I do. Thanks to the fast service
from HRO I have an IC 9700 in my shack and just
starting to get things like the local repeaters
and simplex frequencies and stuff into the memories
and then I'm going to start loading the satellite
memories here shortly and We're going to play
around a bit and do some two meter sideband and
so forth and FT -8 during the VHF contest. Really
look forward to it. And the 9700 is a great radio.
Oh, it is. I am drooling over one. I'm just thinking
for satellites, you know, built in recorder and
everything all in one box. It's just, yeah. must
acquire at some point. And if you know how to
run a 7300, it's the same. Oh yeah. Yep, it is.
It's the same and just love it. Sounds good.
Well, we've got some things to talk about here,
but we have some tweets. and some comments. So
let's jump into those. And again, phone lines
are open 859 -982 -7373. So give us a call and
we'll get your questions answered here by Joe
Eisenberg. He's here with NEB, the kit building
editor from CQ Magazine joining us tonight. So
let's see. First of all, John W4USF wants to
know, what has been your most favorite kit to
build? Actually, the favorite one I had was probably
one of the most well -documented instructions
and everything of any kit that I built, and that
is the Ellicraft KX1. I did that several years
ago. It has a very high parts density, so it's
definitely not a beginner's kit, but it was my
favorite because Uh, it is so explicit in the
directions and very much step by step and stage
by stage. You can test it along the way. And,
um, just an excellent CW transceiver. Of course,
they don't make that one anymore, but the KX
one was my favorite to build. Okay. There you
go, John. And, uh, so maybe you can build one.
All right, Brett, W Y seven B G wants to know.
Do you have a kit for making a red and white
striped hat? Well, you know I could probably
do that on the 3d printer, but it would be rigid
number one and number two. I don't have dual
Extruders in my printer so I can't do it with
my 3d printer I can only do one color at a time.
Well you can do white and then put the Like red
stripes with red electrical tape or something
Yeah, probably could or or paint it or or mark
it somehow But yeah, I don't have dual extruder
on this system All right, Jacob kg7 EQ and wants
to know on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the
most difficult to build What score would you
give that more Serino 32? Actually, I'd give
it a 3 or so and The only reason I do that is
because of how delicate and prone to breakage
the visual part of it is the display. Very, very,
very touchy. And I actually broke one when I
first tried to assemble the kit. And so I had
to get another one from the manufacturer, which
took a couple of weeks. So. That would be the
only thing that would make that a three Surprisingly
for as sophisticated as it is Okay, there you
go and Jacob also says And I would agree I'm
still love the X tronic soldering iron recommendation
Yeah, those have been very good They're really
good for the money, they hold the temperature
real nicely, very precise control and I have
not talked to them lately. I'm going to contact
them since I'm home a lot more and maybe visit
them across town here and see what they have.
They are distributed from here in Lincoln. Yeah,
they've been very gracious to us for Yoda too
and really appreciate that. Very great supporters.
Very great supporters of Yoda. Definitely appreciate
their donation of the soldering stations to use
for our kit build coming up next summer. 859
-982 -7373 is the phone number if you'd like
to call in and ask a question. 859 -982 -7373
or you can tweet us or comment and and I I put
it off I didn't say it but I think we finally
got the audio issues taken care of because as
sure as I say it it it's going to act up but
we've had some terrible terrible audio issues
last couple of weeks thanks to your friendly
windows update and found what it messed up. So
I think we finally got it. Okay, Tripp, K5TRP
wants to know what was the soldering iron they
mentioned. So yeah, so maybe you need to fill
them in a little bit on Xtronic here. Yeah, it
comes from XtronicUSA .com and this particular
iron is in the 3000 series. it has a digital
display it sells for roughly around $60 and if
you have Amazon Prime you can get free shipping
on it they do sell through eBay stores directly
also and through Amazon and it has like I said
digital display you can switch it from Celsius
to Fahrenheit It has a sponge tip cleaner and
a nice holder for your iron But it also has a
brass and flux type tip cleaner on it as well
and a soldering roll holder So your roll of solder
does not go all over the table and so forth So,
you know when you're talking for $60 and getting
something that's that precise and it takes Haco
tips So the tips are widely available and they
also sell extra tips as well. While we're talking
about soldering irons and we've talked about
this on the show before, but since we've got
a couple of people here listening that we're
not familiar with that talk a little bit about
having, you know, and instead of just the old
$2 wood burner, uh, which, which does work. for
some things. Talk about the advantages of having
the temperature controlled iron. Well, it's actually
a real must. And the reason is because the unregulated
irons get way too hot when they're not being
used. And when you use them, then they cool off
and sometimes are below the temperature that
you want to flow the solder. because they are
so hot, it can damage the printed circuit board
by actually melting the leads off of the board.
And so the other thing is, is that those, like
you call them wood burners that you can get for
five or six bucks, the tips are usually not very
small either. And we're dealing with connections
that are pretty small. And so by having the controlled
temperature, you have a much, much, much greater
chance of success. And let's go into the solder
a bit too. My doctor's prescription for solder
is 6337, which is called a eutectic solder. It
flows a lot better. It wets the connection it
flows through on a double -sided board makes
a very strong connection has very little plastic
state which means that not prone to getting cold
solder joints And what I recommend is 031 or
025 thickness rosin core no clean and It makes
for a very nice looking solder job on the bottom
of the board you might see little tiny pieces
of clear flux on there which cleans off very
easily with alcohol but you're not going to have
those ugly brown blobs of flux that flow away
from the connection okay good stuff all right
give us a call 859 -982 -7373 if you have a question.
Well, we said we were going to throw in a bonus
kit to cover here. So tell us about this other
kit. Not a CW kit, though. No, it's not CW. It
lets you do FT8 and other sound card modes. It's
called the FT8 Phaser. And it comes from Midnight
Design Solutions. And you can look them up on
the web. And the FT8 phaser is a digital mode
transceiver, but it has a DDS synthesizer in
it and two buttons on the front panel. The first
one is defaulted to the FT8 frequency. And there's
a way to play with the buttons, kind of using
them like a key or paddle in the programming
mode. You can program the alternate frequency
button, which is the right button on the front
panel. And that Can be set for like where FT
for is like 14 080 or you could set it to? 070
to get on to the Olivia mode frequency or hell
Shriver any of the other digital modes this thing
will do all those it is a single sideband transceiver
in that it transmits single sideband, but receives
double and so the idea being that you don't take
up as much bandwidth when you transmit as opposed
to the DSB transceiver kits. Now there's four
toroids to wind and one of them is a bifiler.
Now the good news is they already twist the wires
together for you and all the parts actually for
the entire kit are already identified for you
and pre -taped to these cards that are almost
the size of like a three by five card. and you
put them in a shoe box or one of those plastic
shoe boxes for storage and you can put the cards
in there and you can pick your parts off of those
cards as you build the kit so you don't have
to sort the parts out like I always preach in
my seminars it's already done for you in this
kit okay so there you go you get another one
you get three for the price of two tonight and
Since it's a free show you got all three of them
for free so Eight five nine nine eight two seventy
three seventy three if you have a question about
those Let's talk a little bit about Well, here
we go again the pandemic Have you seen any many
supply issues any shortages anything like that
going on? I know for a while there was some stuff,
but Things are news on that front things are
slowly getting back to normal or at least almost
normal There are supply issues and lately there's
been postal delivery issues especially on international
mail There's just odd shortages that show up
with certain components and so forth that the
kit makers have to deal with so It's a lot better
than it was before But there are still some odd
supply chain issues. Okay. Well, and I hadn't
had a chance to tell you this. We got a note
from the supplier of our Kits for for Yoda camp
and they said make sure you check the ferrite
rods because we had somebody to get a bunch of
these and they were all broken and Jocelyn finally
was able to go through those last weekend. We
found four so apparently they had made a bad
batch and So we did find four that they're gonna
replace for us, but those are great little meter
Those are the 80 meter DF kits. Those are very
good. I have one. Yeah, they're good kits, but
something just went wrong in the manufacturing
in the middle of all of that stuff and delayed
everything and apparently they got it a little
wrong on the ferrite rods, but we're getting
replacements for those. So there may be some
little things like that that, you know, pop up
and, um, I know I got a shipment, uh, from Spain.
Actually, it wasn't electronic stuff, but it
was like a month late. So there, it just depends
on where it's coming from. But, uh, there may
be some, some random things out there, but, uh,
yeah, I would, I would say not expect the normal,
normal delivery times for just about anything
for awhile. But, uh, the good thing is, is that.
we're home and we're safe and we're able to spend
that extra time that normally I'd get to see
all of you people. We can spend some of it building
kits and then next time I see everybody at HamFest
you can show me the kits you put together and
I can take a picture of you with your wonderful
kit building work. Hey, there we go now that'll
you know leads me to the other question I had
was Are you seeing a big surge in kit building
here? Yes Very much so. Most of the kit makers
are telling me that there is definitely increased
demand because people have more time on their
hands. And especially in the hottest part of
the summer and colder parts of the winter, people
stay in their house more in normal times. But
now they stay home a lot more often anyways,
because they're not traveling very far. They're
spending the time to get the right tools and
the right stuff and have success building their
kits. And speaking of the tools, Chris, A4CB
says the 3000 station is great to use. Is YL
bought one on your recommendation and well bit
and get the extra tips in different sizes was
his suggestion. So thanks for that, Chris. What,
what's your ham fest schedule looking like? Are
you, are you booking anything here? Dead. I,
I, I'm not going anywhere. I'm sitting on like
four or so plane ticket refund, uh, vouchers
and I've been doing a lot of zooms. In fact,
I'm almost averaging a couple of weeks. I'm doing.
So a lot of local clubs are taking advantage
of the fact that they're doing Zoom presentations
and they don't have to fly me in. So I've been
doing lots of Zoom presentations and making recommendations
for kits for them to build as a group through
Zoom. And I really I only have one ham fest that
insists that they're holding it and that's in
Iowa. But we'll see as that one gets closer.
But I'm probably not going to go anyways if things
are going the way they are Yeah And it's it's
sad because you know I don't get to a bunch of
ham fats but the ones that I do are really really
enjoy and It's been a long time since I've been
to a ham fest in my world anyway. So I'm, I'm,
I'm ready to, to go back, but, uh, uh, you know,
we're, we're, we're dealing with it as we can.
Uh, John W four USF wants to know any Heath kit
builds in your distant past. Uh, I did a hot
water seven. I did like three Heath kit hybrid
phone patches. I did a Heath kit keyer And when
I was cleaning out stuff, I discovered that I
have an RTTY interface kit That puts out serial
data that I have not started and it was sealed
away So it's one of those unbuilt Heath kit treasures
and I'm debating putting it together. Yeah and
Because somebody said well, it's gonna be worth
a lot more if you don't touch it But if you don't
do it, what's it gonna do? So it might be an
interesting it might be an interesting Column
to write about it comes from the 1980s. Oh Wow
Yeah, I remember The code oscillator the paddles
and I found those I was so glad to find those
because I looked everywhere at my parents house
trying to find those things and Way back in the
back of one drawer finally found those paddles
that I helped build Heath Heath kit that's probably
been my favorite kit build And I must have been
like nine eight Something like that. Yep. The
other thing I've been doing is collecting things
on my wall. So yeah, we're going to talk about
that here in a minute. And, and John's like,
yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's money. You
got there in that unbuilt Heath Heath kit ready
interface. So, that's, that's a tough call there.
Well, or we're about out of time here, but but
yeah, let's talk about a couple of things that
have gone up on your on your wall here. Congratulations
on a couple of really cool awards. Now I knew
about the YASME award because that's that's big
news. But tell us a little bit about the YASME
award and then we'll talk about this other one
that I didn't know about. Yeah, the as me award
the as me foundation Was founded by the Colvins
who? would take their sailboat all over the world
back in the 60s and so forth. And I used to listen
to them as a short wave listener before I even
got my license. And they went on de -expeditions
to all these rare islands on their boat. And
then after they passed away, there was created
this foundation that finances de -expeditions.
But now they also, since I think 2006 or 2007,
put out one or two awards called the ASME Award
of Excellence. And I was awarded that for my
kit building teaching like we're doing tonight.
And that was totally by surprise and very, very
humbling. It was just a total shock. And so up
on my shelf above my HF rig is this beautiful
cut crystal globe. And it's not light either,
it's pretty heavy. Well, that's a great award
and well -deserved and and then There's the Navy
in Nebraska Well, you know in Kentucky and you're
you've been there a few times Kentucky has an
award called Kentucky Colonel's and you're entitled
to use the term Kentucky Colonel in your name
if you have one of those. Well Nebraska has admirals
in the Great Navy of the state of Nebraska and
of course we're a landlocked state by three states.
You have to go through three states before you
can even touch water from here at least ocean
or the Great Lakes. So they have the Great Navy
of the state of Nebraska and actually it's considered
Nebraska's highest honor and A nonprofit organization
in Omaha nominated me because they saw a social
media post about my production with the 3D printer
of face shields for Lincoln Fire and Rescue for
the pandemic. And so I get this package from
Governor Pete Ricketts, and it says I'm an admiral
in the Great Navy of the state of Nebraska. And
that sits below my clock. Wow, that's That's
a neat thing. So congratulations on that as well
a nice job with all the face shields and I I
bought one the other day and I'm kind of thinking
it may start getting put to use next week if
that's allowable and gotta go back face to face
to school to work so May pull one of those out
Yep, they're very worthwhile and I see somebody
asked about QRS qrp transceiver kids and there's
a JVG Yeah, there's a lot of them out there.
I would say for your first qrp transceiver kit
I would recommend the cricket series of CW transceiver
kits from the four state qrp group and they're
just about as simple as a pixie Except for the
receiver performance is incredible I mean, absolutely
incredible. And they run on a 9 -volt transistor
battery. The CW straight key is part of the kit.
You don't have to wind any toroids because it
has spiral -wound coils. And it's designed by
David Kreip, NM0S, who is an engineer for Collins
Aerospace. That's Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids.
And it's a very simple CW transceiver it's fixed
frequency you plug in a crystal but if you have
different crystals for the same band you can
interchange those and it has a great like i said
a great receiver it sounds nice and it runs on
a nine volt transistor battery and every one
that we put together as group kit builds puts
out a full watt of cw and very simple to build
Well, there you go, thanks for asking the question
Jim and Good Recommendation those those crickets
are are pretty cool. They've got a whole line
Yeah, there's 80 40 and 30 meter versions from
the forced a QRP group Well, let's check here
over on Twitter and make sure we've got everything,
but I think we've addressed all the questions
tonight. Looks like we have. So, Joe, any parting
comments here before we go? If you have any questions,
of course, I'm listed on QRZ and I hope to at
some point put a web page up that has all the
links to kits that I mentioned and kit manufacturers
that make several kits. Try get all that kind
of listed in one place and keep the data up to
date. I keep busy with the 3D printer and making
lots of presentations and I truly enjoy being
on your show, Neil. Well, we enjoy you being
here and and we try to do that every so often
and we appreciate you Jumping in here tonight
and talking about some CW kits and some other
kit building stuff and and look forward to seeing
you It's it's it's been a little while. I think
it's st. Louis. I think Yeah, I think that's
what it was in January Yeah, so Hopefully we'll
we'll get back on the ham fest trail here before
too long so well we're gonna say that's a wrap
for this week's edition of ham talk live thanks
to my guest joe isenberg k0 neb and everybody
out there in cyberspace for listening and typing
in tonight and invite you back next thursday
night at 9 p .m eastern time andy melusi kk4
lwr and tony melusi kd8 rtt will be here and
they're going to talk about the collegiate qso
party so Check that out and for a list of all
of our upcoming guests, visit HamTalkLive .com.
And if you like the show, please leave us a review.
That helps others find the show faster. And,
um, and it's kind of nice to hear from you. So
please do that. All right. So for now, this is
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG saying 7375 and may the good
DX be yours. Thanks for watching!