I was still wet behind the ears and a madly keen SWL on the
amateur radio bands, when I had my first introduction to magic and mystery of CW
and QRP. I seem to recall it was 1973 or there about.
During the weekly Sunday club bulletins on 7074 kHz Chris
ZS2CH would frequently announce himself on CW on the normal SSB net. During the
call-in he would again be given his turn to exchange the normal pleasantries.
We never seem to see this cross-mode QSO taking place anymore….
At the time transistors will still pretty much state of the
art and were not in wide use by the amateur fraternity. My amateur band only receiver
was a TRIO-JR500S. It was a pretty modern
and that was an all valve affair not a single transistor.
When I learnt that Chris was using an all transistor transceiver
that he had self built I was amazed. Here was this tiny little homebuilt radio
running of a few batteries and Chris was talking to the world. I immediately
became hooked on QRP and CW.
This is some 40 years later and I still feel the same.
As Larry W2LJ says “do more with less”
I will try and get hold of Chris. Maybe he can provide me
with a bit more details.
Have Fun !!
Pierre ZS6A
Chris ZS2CH provided the following info:
I have dug out the QRP rig which I used mainly while
caravaning.
I am afraid I had stripped some of it. The audio section
has gone, I was never really happy with it.
Just a quick line up.
RX: Direct conversion 40M only with a RF stage and a
balanced mixer with
2 diodes mounted on top of
the vfo. The audio section was 3 stages driving a pair of
ear phones. No much selectivity there.
TX: A Xtal osc 2n1613 driving a push pull pair of
2n1613's running 1 W output.
The xtals are still 2nd WW surplus, the type you could
dismantle!
