Chris Thompson - AC2CZ - Amateur Radio Station

A simple 40M CW Transmitter from Chapter 1 of EMRFD

First Transmitter

This is my version of the "First Transmitter" that is described in Chapter 1 of EMRFD. I built it into a Radio Shack Aluminum Project Enclosure, which I loved for these types of simple projects, but which is sadly no longer available.

I used two crystals. One for 7030 and one for 7040. They are soldered right on the back of the toggle switch. I also added an IRF 510 FET as the final PA, which gives 3-10 Watts as the supply voltage is varied from about 12 volts to 18 volts.

I built a side tone oscillator, which is on the small vertical board at the back. In an effort to build a clean sine wave oscillator I built a transistor oscillator. It works OK, but the tone is pulled slightly as the rig is keyed and does not sound great. It needs a buffer stage! In hind sight, I probably could have built a simple audio oscillator with a 555 timer.

I had not been active building electronics projects for about 15 years. This was the first project that I built to get me back into the right frame of mind. I deliberately approached this thoughtfully, taking a lot of measurements and learned a huge amount.

There are some helpful extra notes about this on Wez Hayward's Website.

First Transmitter First Transmitter

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