I am celebrating an anniversary. I started the SW40+ QSO a day on February 12 this year. That was one month ago and I have made a daily QSO at 1.5 watts since.
There were plenty of casual activities on 40 meters this weekend. No real problem getting a QSO a day. The SKCC -WES- event, OK, ID, and WI QSO parties. I got WI & MO today as new states. Thanks to NS9I & KC0M for that! 22 states worked so far!
I thought I would show the SW40+ with it's top off. It sure looks like a mess of wires! Others I have seen did a much better job routing the hookups. If a topless radio is offensive overt your eyes. This is the first radio kit I built after I got my amateur radio license. I still remember building this radio. The component leads are not cut as close to the circuit board as they should be. KB9BVN gave me some of the parts like the 10 turn pot, on/off switch, and power jack.
I have had a small share of trouble and added to it as time has gone on. Early on, the receive was intermittent. I took it to my friend Don/W9DEW to help me. Don and his wife N9TTT introduced me to the hobby. As I worried, he poked and prodded and we found I didn't have the insulation stripped from the magnet wire wound on the toroids well enough. That took care of the first big problem. Later I added a capacitor mod to add more bandwidth. The freqmite is a huge luxury. I can push the red button and it reads what frequency I am on in morse code. As I used it more and more I discovered more small issues. Last year I went through all the circuit board pads to combat cold solder points. I changed out the internal antenna connection wire and with that I accidentally melted off the solder pad for the antenna. I bypassed the pad and it seems to work fine. The idea was to use it portable. Then I bought a Elecraft KX1 and the SW40+ got thrown back into the drawer.
In February when I wanted to lower my power from 5 to 1.5 watts I again got the radio out of the drawer. It is so much fun to use on the air. You have to get used to the things it doesn't have like RIT, AGC, and the relatively wide bandwith, 600hz I think. Recently I added more. The LED power light (I love the green light on the radio) and the dimpled knob on the VFO. It has become a very fun little radio.
So as I celebrated a month straight on 40 meters with 1.5 watts I feel how nice this project has been through the years. Sometime I am sure it will get thrown again back into a drawer and wait until the next time I want to experience simple stuff.
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