Furlough 2040 Supercharged - the Red Roadrunner is on the air.

I've had several comments over the last 24 hours to the effect of - "it looks good, but how well does that pretty red roadrunner work on the air?"

Here is one so you can hear it for yourselves. 

I've made a couple of dozen contacts putting on the air with very good signal an audio reports. Here is one memorable one with the W8A special event station celebrating the 21st amendment to the US Constitution.  The 21st amendment repealing prohibition in the United States was ratified on December 5, 1933 - thus my opening comment about striking a blow for liberty. 

It is often the case that when I tell someone that "the rig here is homebrew" they can't quite get their head around the idea that hams still build radios.   I've also noticed that if I ask for a signal and audio report after they know it is a homebrew rig they are much more critical of the audio - "sounds pretty good for a homebrew" is something every homebrewer has heard.  One contact was so astonished he accused me of surreptitiously running an IC-7300 - I'll take that to the bank.

73 from Great Falls

Dean

KK4DAS

Furlough 2040 Supercharged - Final Bench Test

I've spent the last few weeks putting the finishing touches on what has become the Furlough 2040 Supercharged SSB transceiver.  Originally designed and designated the SimpleSSB by my friend and elmer N6QW Pete Juliano I have extended and supercharged his excellent modular design in a number of ways.  The final (although Pete advises you should probably never say 'final' when talking about a hombrew rig) configuration is as follows:

• 20 Watt SSB and digital dual band transceiver for 20 and 40 meter bands
• Arduino Nano Every microcontroller and SI5351 clock generator
• 9 MHz IF - filter 
• Nextion Color Touch Screen Display
• AGC and S-Meter
• 3 stage Tx amplifier chain, 2N2219A 1st driver, IRF-510 driver stage generating 1-2 watts driver for the 20-watt push pull RD16HHF1 push-pull final amplifier designed by EI9GQ Ed Skelton
  
• Firmware includes full CAT control for digital modes, frequency scanning, persistent frequency and mode memory stored in EEPROM
• Custom enclosure with a CNC cut front panel

KK4DAS Furlough 2040 20-Watt SSB and digital mode transceiver

Walkthrough of the transceiver and the final bench test:

Here is a look at the voice modulation envelope:

And a few more pictures to wrap it up:

Final Bench Test

Final assembly in the enclosure - two levels - Tx board on top

On the air peaking 16 watts SSB phone.

This has been an incredible 2-year learning journey.  Many thanks to Pete and also to Bill Meara N2CQR of the SolderSmoke podcast who started out humoring me as I built my Michigan Mighty Mite and have become great friends.  Also, many thanks to the members of the Vienna Wireless Society Makers group who joined me on the journey at the beginning of the year and we now have about 15 more SimpleSSB transceivers on the air.  Watch this space for more on the VWS maker group progress including KA4CDN, Mike's addition of CW just completed yesterday!

Michigan Mighty Mite - December 2019

73 from Great Falls,

Dean

KK4DAS

UPDATE - For those interested in building a similar rig you should know that this is not a kit nor is there a single master schematic or bill of materials. The vast majority of the components are common resistors, transistors, capacitors, voltage regulators, etc. This is a modular build with each module built and tested and integrated as you go along.  Each module is well documented and by virtue of the Vienna Wireless Society Makers group build there is a great set of documentation and examples for each module.  Where particular components are required (ADE-1 Mixers, SI-5351 clock module, etc) they are called out in the documentation below. 

For builders, I highly recommend you build the original SimpleSSB as specified below.  This is a 10 transistor, Arduino controlled 5-watt SSB phone and digital mode rig for 40 meters.  Once you have the basic rig built then decide which enhancements are right for you.

Build references:

• SimpleSSB Description and Build Guide
• SimpleSSB Mods and Upgrades
• Vienna Wireless Society Makers Group SimpleSSB Googe Drive
• EI9GQ 16 Watt Power Amplifier Start to Finish
• N6QW's Original SimpleSSB Page