Now, I'll the first to profess that I'm no EE. And most of my home brew projects come out looking like those baking failures you find on Instagram. And I'm certainly not on par with the home brewing skills of my good friend W3BBO who builds transmitters and receivers that are so good looking, that you'd WANT one in your shack. Nothing "ugly" about his construction techniques.
But a 9:1 UNUN? Really?
Even "Mr. Two Thumbs" W2LJ can handle one of those!
And I have! And, gosh darn, it actually even works!
So if I can do it, you can do it, too. The parts are easy to find and the step by step instructions are easily found on the Web. Just search for "EARCHI". You can "roll your own" for half the price you'd pay on the online auction site. And maybe, just maybe, you can buy parts in bulk and have yourself a club project. Now THAT'S an idea!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Antennas and antenna tuners, baluns, etc., are the easiest things to build, yet, few people seem to build them. When I was a novice in high school, a friend and I built a (non-rotatable) 15 meter 2 element beam out of some electrical conduit and scrap lumber. it was tied to the top of his chimney with rope! It actually worked! We had no fancy test gear so had no idea if it worked better than the old 40 meter dipole that we had to take down, but we weren't afraid to try! Nowadays, nobody is willing to try anything that doesn't have a smart phone app attached. Sad state of affairs.
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KF7JAF
Yes, there are those of us who still build stuff. Right now, I'm working on a pushbutton K9AY controller, a couple of trap dipole designs, 6m beam antenna, automatic antenna switch, 100w dummy load (looking for a suitable heat sink), as well as a number of software projects. Plus, I've collected parts for other projects (such as a 6m transverter).
ReplyDeleteYes, many of us still build things. We've never stopped.
I like to build the things I need but can't buy cause no one makes it LOL.... Like a switch box I made to switch the audio out from various rigs to a common speaker as well as the PTT from either a footswitch or handswitch back to the selected rig... a few switches, some jacks, a few wires and you have a custom solution to your problem :) . I also enjoy building antennas since they are usually easy to make and usually work FB. But I also come from the days of Heathkit - that's when you could really build things... 73 de K9PLG
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