I bought myself one of these cheap Chinese HF QRP rigs last week....It's already 3 days late getting here...Bought on eBay.

[timbo]

uSDR uSDX+ Plus V2 10/15/17/20/30/40/60/80m 8 Band SDR All Mode HF SSB QRP Transceiver

Only US$125.90, buy best uSDR uSDX+ Plus V2 10/15/17/20/30/40/60/80m 8 Band SDR All Mode HF SSB QRP Transceiver sale online store at wholesale price.

usa.banggood.com

I didn't but should've bought the auto tuner for it...I'll probably wait until I get the rig first. If I decide to keep it, I'll buy the tuner.

Stuck in KC Missouri...I hate the USPS tracking. It's almost never correct...why do they even use it?

 

[ToddDubya]

I've not used one, but those seem to be popular and provide more value than their pricetag implies.

Edit: Either they've repackaged them or that's not what I was thinking of. I was thinking of the (tr)uSDX.

 

[timbo]

I've not used one, but those seem to be popular and provide more value than their pricetag implies.

Edit: Either they've repackaged them or that's not what I was thinking of. I was thinking of the (tr)uSDX.

I believe they are basically the same thing. The one I bought has 8 bands, the one you referred to has 5 bands. I did a lot of reading on these and a few folks said it's kind of clunky to use (very menu driven) but there is software out there that makes it much easier. There is a fair amount of info out there for firmware upgrades/mods. Looking forward to getting it and trying it out.

 

[ToddDubya]

They're open source if I remember correctly.

 

[timbo]

They're open source if I remember correctly.

yes, they are...time to relearn my long lost programming skillset.

 

[timbo]

The uSDX+ came in today and so far, it's working. I guess that's a plus (no pun intended). It didn't come with an internal battery which, after re-reading the blurb on eBay, I saw that it specifically said it doesn't come with a Lithium Ion battery...due to travel/shipping restrictions (I guess). Powering it from my Astron shack supply it seems to put out 3-5 watts, depending on what band I'm on. I need to pick up a QRP SWR meter as all mine start at 25-30 watts. I haven't made any contacts on it but probably will later today/tonight.

There's not a lot of user info on it but not surprised. There is an .io group for these types of transceivers so I joined that....once I figure out which questions to ask, I go back and peruse that site. The setup menus are pretty easy to navigate. I had the menus figured out in just a couple of minutes...there are a couple of parameters I'm not sure what they do or what to set them at so I'm just going to use the defaults for now...I'm hoping I can get that from the .io site

 

[ToddDubya]

Boy the description for that is all over the place.

"All mode HF SSB"
"SSB/CW"
Mode: SSB/CW
Full mode support: USB, LSB, CW, AM, FM (SSB mode has good receiving effect, but poor transmitting effect. AM and FM mode are gift power, poor effect)
FT8, JS8, FT4 and other digital mode software control

This sounds interesting. I wonder how hard/effective it is to boost the power.

It can reach 3-5W power in 8 bands, and reserve SOT-223 and TO-220 package pads for upgrades.

I'm interested to see how well it works for you, and how you use it.

 

[ToddDubya]

P.S. I was making fun of the listing on BangGood, not the radio.

 

[timbo]

OK...well, so far so good. I've left the radio on since I received it hoping to get it past the "infant mortality" time period. Usually if a piece of electronics can make it past the first 72/96 or so hours of use, it will survive a lot longer...the operative here is "usually".

I think I am going to pass on the auto tuner, at least for now. I need to get a QRP meter. All my meters are >100 watts or better. I thought I had a 25 watt 2-30 Bird slug but it appears I don't. Unfortunately 25 watts is the lowest power HF slug made. They are pretty expensive so unless I can find one cheap, I'll just pick up an inexpensive QRP SWR meter.

I've been watching some YouTube videos concerning this radio and the question came up in one of them about different output FETs or adding more, The guy in the video, Ed Fong, said that adding more/different FETs for more power would see negligible power increase. Ed is a pretty smart EE and is well known in some ham circles. He does a deep dive into the inner workings of this particular radio and is fairly impressed with it.

I still haven't figured out what battery I'm supposed to use but for now, I'll just run it off a12V 3A supply I built many moons ago. Eventually I'll figure it out. There are some case grounding (RF) issues that I need to take care of but that's easily done with some sandpaper or Dremel tool and conductive copper tape. It's in an anodized case and of course, the anodizing is pretty much an insulator so I need to scrape away some of the anodizing on the inside of the case so the copper tape will make contact with the base metal. Several other places on the enclosure will need the "scrape anodizing" treatment as well, especially where the enclosure ends are screwed to the top and bottom halves. At the end of this exercise, all the metal parts should be electrically bonded together and the ground plane on the circuit board needs to be bonded to the enclosure as well. Today, I'm hoping to get some time to do this grounding, etc.

The last company I worked at built a lot of stuff in these anodized boxes and the individual parts of the case really needed to be grounded to each other...when you're trying to measure femto-amps (really!), good grounding throughout the system is imperative.

 

[ToddDubya]

^ Stuff like this is what I didn't appreciate about ham radio when my neighbor at work would talk about his boring ass radio stuff. He'd become my Elmer years later and now we talk radio stuff pretty much everyday. I always give him a hard time for not getting me into radio sooner .

I've been looking at this basic SWR kit. It's no cross needle meter, but it'll give you a gross Go/No Go/Maybe Go reading if you just want a warm and fuzzy. I know you're looking for a power meter, not SWR, but this might be useful too.

N6ARA MiniSWR – Kit – N6ARA

n6ara.com

 

[timbo]

^ Stuff like this is what I didn't appreciate about ham radio when my neighbor at work would talk about his boring ass radio stuff. He'd become my Elmer years later and now we talk radio stuff pretty much everyday. I always give him a hard time for not getting me into radio sooner .

I've been looking at this basic SWR kit. It's no cross needle meter, but it'll give you a gross Go/No Go/Maybe Go reading if you just want a warm and fuzzy. I know you're looking for a power meter, not SWR, but this might be useful too.

N6ARA MiniSWR – Kit – N6ARA

n6ara.com

Thanks, I'll take a look at the kit...