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Thanks, Jack. I suppose that's another issue too, isn't it? 40m has been very rough lately for hearing any sort of signals worth copying. I've got the radio on now and there are LOADS of CW signals on the band. In fact, it's copying a signal on 7.054 that's very loud... but there still seems to be excessive amounts of hiss present. If I switch from the amplified speaker to the headphones, the CW signals are almost too faint to copy unless you really concentrate. Too much work there since I'm still trying to bring my CW skills way up from where they were back in 1981.

I was thinking about the LM386 being a bit suspect and I started tearing my parts drawers apart trying to find another. I've got more laying around here someplace but can never find one when I need it. :-)

And you're absolutely right about the Pixie. I built it and put it on the air several times and made some contacts with it... but the darned thing is so susceptible to the strong AM broadcast stations in my neck of the woods (even with a band-pass filter in line) that it's not much fun to use. Been in a box for the past two years.

73s.

Aaron - N2HTL

On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 11:03 PM, Jack Purdum jjpurdum@... [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] <SoftwareControlledHamRadio@...> wrote:

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I've built several Pixies and none of them can hold a candle to the Forty-9er in terms of what can be heard. Also, the power output from the Pixie is pretty low. Indeed, I never made a contact with one, although I didn't try that hard.

I'm not good enough with the EE end of things to say what's wrong, but something is definitely wrong, as my rig hears all kinds of stations, even this week when 40M is in the toilet. The fact that you can hear some stations and managed a QSO tells me that it is working, although perhaps a transistor or the LM386 audio amp might be soft. I'll defer to Farrukh nad?Dennis on this. If you socketed the amp (you did, right?), try substituting another 386 and see if that helps.

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From: "aaronhev@... [SoftwareControlledHamRadio]" <SoftwareControlledHamRadio@...>
To: SoftwareControlledHamRadio@...
Sent: Friday, April 8, 2016 10:22 PM
Subject: [SoftwareControlledHamRadio] Re: 40m QRP Transmitter Success

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Thanks for the tip on the cases, Jack. I need to take a hard look at all the choices because with all the "revisions" I have in mind, I want to be able to fit everything in. :-)

I'd like to ask another question of the group, if I may. This is the first time I've built a 49-er, although I have experience with the Pixie and how that rig performs in comparison. Now that I've had the 49-er on the air and have gone through various tests (including making a successful contact with a gent in North Carolina who was shocked at what I was using), I've noticed what may or may not be a shortcoming in the radio itself. Again, I have no idea what I should expect with the 49-er so I figure I'd better ask before getting into unnecessary trouble-shooting.?

Throughout all my testing, I've used both headphones and a mini-amp that's padded down so I don't distort the input. In either case, there seems to be a very high signal-to-noise ratio coming from the radio. I'm not talking about atmospheric or band noise. I'm talking about loud hiss. While I'm certainly not expecting receive performance equal to one of my Kenwood or Yaesu rigs, the front end of the 49-er seems a little deaf. I'm hearing CW signals, but in my neck of the woods there should be an S5 - S7 noise level and I'm not hearing that at all. In fact, the only CW signals I am hearing on the 49-er are ones that are registering a 10+ over S9 or slightly lower on my other rigs. The best way to describe it is if there weren't an antenna hooked up to the 49-er and I was hearing everything only from the length of coax hooked from the radio to my antenna switch.?

Again, there ARE indeed quite a few CW signals that the 49-er is picking up... but they seem very faint. Is this just the way it is with the 49-er? I have checked and double-checked every component on the board to be absolutely sure nothing is wired or installed incorrectly and all is as it should be.?

Perhaps I'm just blowing smoke, but if I'm going to convey to the class that THIS is the way the radio is, I want to be sure I know what I'm talking about. :-)

Thanks again... and best 73s.

Aaron - N2HTL

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Aaron