Yep, another way. Just found it out today.
If you want a 10 meter radio that's channelized or if you don't want to try your hand at computer science, try this modification instead! The cost: Well below $10 or even $5. The candidate: A Midland 13-866 (or the 853 if it gets fixed).
After the initial failure of the 13-853, I decided that I needed to send it off to a local CB shop for repair. In the meantime, I purchased 3 more 23-channel CBs for conversion - just in case :). One of them is a Midland 13-857 - the coolest CB radio I've ever owned.
In a previous post, I briefly discussed a way to convert an AM-only crystal-controlled CB radio into a 10 meter QRP CW rig with some additional features. Now that I've discussed the theory, I've written this post to track my progress and give you some information should you want to do the same.
In the 6ish years I've been a ham I have not once touched or operated on 60 meters. It is the only HF band that is unexplored territory for me. That being said, 60 meters may be unappealing to many hams as it was for me. You're only limited to 5 channels with 2.8KHz of bandwidth, mode choices of SSB, narrow data modes such as PSK31 or CW, and a maximum power limit of 100 watts ERP. Not very appealing :|
As a computer scientist, we deal with several ICs that serve many purposes. Some are microcontrollers. Some are logic gates. Some are just...rather interesting. There's one IC in particular that has its uses as a minimalist oscillator or transmitter with at least 6 components: the 74HC04, the legendary CMOS inverter.
I remember one time when I was young where we had to take shelter during a tornado warning. As a Midwesterner, you get used to stuff like this. When we were huddled in the basement waiting for the storm to pass, I remember my dad having a black box in his hand, with a grey top and two antennas sticking out from it. It looked like an old walkie-talkie, but in fact, this box would end up changing my life forever.
Decades ago, a ham by the name of Steve, G4RAW, conceptualized a CW transmitter in a magazine article capable of putting out up to 1 watt of RF power over the air. It was so barebones that even the newly-licensed amateur, with little to no experience, could throw it together, tune it up, and possibly make a QSO in a matter of minutes. No, not hours - minutes. 10 minutes to be exact. This rig is called the Ten Minute Transmitter.
If you're like me, you like to build things and experiment with them - you constantly ask yourself, "how does this work?" QRP operation has brought me to that question many times, and today, I want to discuss a few QRP designs I happened to stumble upon. I'm sure you've also seen these circuits across the web. Today, I'd like to showcase some simple transceivers that you can build in a very short amount of time for almost nothing!
How many parts does it take to get on the air? 10? 20? 100? In the case of the Michigan Mighty Mite, you only need a whopping 7! That's right, 7 parts and you've got yourself a working transmitter. This design has been around for a while and comes from the minds of Ed Knoll, W3FQJ, and Tom Jurgens, KY8I. Here's a circuit diagram of the transmitter itself:
