Bob W3BBO and I were on Echolink today, discussing the new Hendricks QRP Kit, which will be available for general sale on May 15th.It's called the PFR-3, which stands for Portable Field Radio. From a lot of the chatter on the QRP e-mail lists, I'd have to agree that is does kind of look like a yellow KX-1.
The kit will be introduced at FDIM in Dayton, which I am not attending again. However, like I said above, it will become available as of May 15th and both Bob and I are sorely tempted.
I think it would be the perfect vacation/portable ops radio. It's small; and it was designed by Steve Weber KJ1DV - who is a radio designing genius! Here are the specs as they appear on Doug Hendrick's Webpage:
Specifications:
Bands : 40 meters, 30 meters and 20 meters
Tuning range: Full band coverage
Mode: CW only
Receiver MSD: 0.2 uV typical
Selectivity : 300 Hz
Receive current, no signal typical:
Active, 47 ma
Idle, 34 ma
Transmitter:
5 watts at 12 volts, all bands
Spurs: - 50 dBc maximum, all bands
5 to 35 wpm internal iambic keyer
Two (2) 63 character keyer memories.
Coax or balanced line output
Built in BLT (balanced line tuner)
Size: 7.3" long, 4.4" wide, 1.6" high. (18.4 x 11 x 4cm)
Power supply voltage: 8 volts minimum, 12.5 volts maximum. 12 to 9 volts recommend.
Does that sound neat or what? And it looks like the price is VERY reasonable. If I remember correctly, the radio itself will be in the $200 territory - Bob told me he thinks reading somewhere that the onboard paddles will be in the $40 range.
I can imagine taking this up to Lake George with my NorCal Doublet and being able to stow it in about 1/2 the space as my K1 paraphernalia occupies. And really, 40 and 30 and 20 Meters are just about ideal!
Looks like I'm going to have to sell something to generate some cash; and get the soldering iron warm in the meantime, too! Let's see, if I order this in May and have all of June to build it ..... it just might be ready for vacation in July! Hmmmmmmmmm ..........
73 de Larry W2LJ
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