Tag Archives: etherkit

OpenBeacon In Production

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OpenBeacon

My apologies for being a bit neglectful of the blog. Since a few weeks before FDIM, I've been in a mad frenzy to get OpenBeacon kits into production, get the Etherkit website up and running, do a better job of completing OpenBeacon documentation, supporting the inevitable hiccups that come with a new product release, and start working on development of my next kit. Between that and taking care of two little boys during the day, I'm sure you can imagine that something has to give.

So I wanted to let my loyal blog readers know that the OpenBeacon QRSS/DFCW/Hell/CW transmitter kit is in full production and is available for you to order. Currently the kit is available on the 30 meter frequency of 10.140 MHz, but I am working on getting a batch of crystals ordered so that I can start to expand the band offerings. The slow-speed CW modes are an excellent way to experiment with propagation, and it's a lot of fun to see how far a QRPp signal can go with these modes.

Thanks, hope to be able to give you more content soon!

OpenBeacon Pre-Release Sale Successful

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After a marathon session of hacking firmware, writing documentation, fixing bugs, and setting up my Etherkit shopping cart software, I was finally able to get the OpenBeacon project to a ready-to-sell state. I had enough parts on-hand to make 10 kits, so I spent a good portion of Sunday night getting them all packaged up and ready to go. After a bit of nervous testing, I flipped the switch to the Etherkit store from "sandbox" to "live".

Once I posted a promotional message to QRP-L and qrp-l.org, I sold all of the kits pretty quickly (within about 12 hours, I think). I wanted to post to the KnightsQRSS listserv as well, but I never did get a reply to my email to the list owner to get permission to post my message. They probably would have went quite a bit faster if I had been able to post there.

There were a few folks who missed out on the sale. I apologize for that, I wish I had more kits to sell now. I did re-invest my sales into a large batch of OpenBeacon PCBs, which should be here in about 3 weeks. There's a small chance I might be able to sell some more before I leave for FDIM, but if not, I will have them back in stock when I return.

In the meantime, I am working on the component changes needed to get OpenBeacon on 80 meters. I also have a request for a quote on custom crystals out to a vendor, so hopefully I can start expanding the bands fairly soon. I'm looking forward to trying to adapt OpenBeacon to 500 kHz, it should be a perfect kit for the band once it's available to us US amateurs. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

Which band would you most like to see on OpenBeacon other than 30 meters?

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OpenBeacon to ZL-Land

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My single HF antenna (a ZS6BKW) is pretty good for multi-band use, but it is fairly lacking in the 30 meter department. So any 30 meter OpenBeacon captures that I've been getting have been pretty exciting to me, given that I'm running 300 mW maximum power out of the transmitter. God only knows what my EIRP is. So far all of my captures have been from North Amercian grabbers, so I've been craving that magical "across the pond" capture from a far away land (as a side note, why does there appear to be virtually no functioning grabbers in Asia?).

Tonight, I finally got that capture. Two days ago, I implemented QRSS and DFCW (dual-frequency CW) modes with a very long dit time of 120 seconds. This is to allow a very weak signal to be integrated over a long period, such as the 6-hour grabbers available from the few fine hams who provide them. Last night, wasn't able to get any coherent signals from the most reliable grabber for me, the W4HBK "Pensacola Snapper", but I could see traces of my signal present. Tonight I turned on my OpenBeacon a bit earlier in the evening and was rewarded with a very nice capture from ZL2IK after waiting about four hours.

You can see my DFCW signal right in the middle near 10.140.000 Hz, with a bit of upward drift as I opened the door to my shack midway through the transmission. As you can probably tell, all of the other visible signals are meant for much shorter capture periods, so you can't distinguish any callsign information from them in this long capture.

For those folks with actual decent antennas for their band of choice, this mode will allow them to really push the limits of QRPp. The OpenBeacon output power can be adjusted to somewhere around 20 mW, and with in-line attenuators, the noise floor is the limit. It will be fun to see if some people take up the challenge of very QRPp operation when OpenBeacon gets to market soon.

30 Mar 2012 Edit: Here are some more captures from today. The first is from N9VN (thanks Vince!) and the second is from the Pensacola Snapper.

Birth of a Company

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EtherkitI'm pleased to announce that I've filed the appropriate paperwork, and that my new open source amateur radio company is born! The logo links to the new domain, but there's nothing on the web yet.

I've also given "Project X" a proper name. It's now going to be known as the CC-series of transceivers (with the current 40 meter beta units being CC-40 models). The beta PCBs are in the process of being manufactured, and are due to get here by the end of January. Once the boards come in and I can build a working beta unit, the real beta test will be on; with any luck by early February. It's not quite as fast as I had hoped for, but you can't rush certain things.

In the meantime, I'll be working on getting the online store functional and navigating the maze of bureaucracy to make sure that I don't run afoul of some obscure regulations and get shot down before I even take off. The blog updates will pick up again once the beta testing gets going.