Well, no, not really. Probably. Who knows? but we live in clickbait times, so Β―_(γ)_/Β―
Been following Hans’ G0UPL QCX projects for a while, but missed out on the first two batches of the QDX. WELL NOT THIS TIME! so I got one and started building it. The kit is great (not too easy, not too difficult) and took me about 5 hours total, going slow. The documentation is absolutely great, explained everything properly (beware, there’s an assembly manual and an operations manual).
The audio scan is not perfect unfortunately, manual says it’s supposed to top out at -60dB, and yet mine has a few peaks at -40dB. Asked on the groups.io, let’s see what turns out from the discussion (I have a feeling my toroid wrapping needs to be a bit better…)
wire
One more inspection for solder whiskers (this thing is tiny, easy to bridge pads with solder) and power it up (12V gang represent):
Jun 05 18:04:58 kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Jun 05 18:04:58 kernel: usb 1-1: Product: QDX Transceiver
Jun 05 18:04:58 kernel: usb 1-1: Manufacturer: QRP Labs
Jun 05 18:04:59 systemd[1984]: Reached target Sound Card.
Jun 05 18:04:59 kernel: cdc_acm 1-1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
Jun 05 18:04:59 kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
Jun 05 18:04:59 kernel: cdc_acm: USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters
This is with an EFHW scattered around the balcony, not even perked on a pole, not checked for SWR, nada. Tried to TX, but it drops the USB connection most likely due to a high VSWR – need to break out the fishing pole to improve things π