Those of you who are truly fans (OK, all one of you) might remember that I asked for a radio kit (the Rock-Mite) for Christmas. Well, my brother-in-law Art drew my name in the Secret Santa list, and bought the thing for me.
I had some time off between Christmas and New Year’s, and I built it. It’s finally encased in an Altoids tin (the preferred radio enclosure for the QRP crowd), and it actually works! I haven’t made a contact on it yet, but it does put in a booming signal to my “big” radio, an Icom IC-756Pro.
Here’s a picture:
I even bought it a toy – That aluminum block to the right is a KK1 “straight key” from American Morse Equipment which also came as a kit. When I get a few bucks ahead in my “war chest” I’m planning to buy the KK2 paddle kit to go with it. This isn’t to say that I really know Morse Code all that well, but I’m practicing and getting better.
January 8, 2008 at 7:00 pm
[...] There is also the ‘RockMite’ 30m CW transceiver kit at Small Wonder Labs (in case you didn’t know I’m sort of “into” ham radio, and this is a very cute, and relatively inexpensive toy. Of course the ‘RockMite’ connectors and controls kit to go with it would help me get on the air sooner, and that’s ever-so-important (that’s me channeling Shirley Temple, who appears twice on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album by the Beatles, oh-by-the-way.) Too late! [...]