The club construction project for 2022 was an FT8 receiver for 20 m which would draw very little current and so could be left on 24 hours a day. Club members would then have a facility to do either monitoring or reverse beaconing up to PSK Reporter. The picture above is the prototype.
The project was designed to allow a complete build from scratch to happen and for all aspects of construction from electronic to mechanical construction to take place. It was designed to a budget of 30 GBP and to a simple schematic with very few coils needing to be wound.
The electronics were built on plain vero board and mounted in an aluminium die-cast box. This type of construction can be used with just about any system operating up to VHF frequencies and so the techniques can be applied to many types of construction in amateur radio. A picture of the inside of the box is shown below.
8 members of the club built the RX at the FRARS HQ near Wimborne and Poole. All of the builds were successful. Having access to test equipment at the club and members who had also built the RX almost certainly helped with the success of the construction project.
This is an example of one of the units that were built to the club’s design. This unit was built by Russ, G4CVX.
Everyone on the project really enjoyed the construction and I hope that a further club construction can be run again soon.
If you are interested in building this unit then please contact us here with a view to obtaining the construction details.
Article by John M5AHQ, 7/11/2023.
