Great overview, thanks. I have a couple of these and have been enjoying them immensely. I've re-housed one and added a few bits, there's a few details on my YT. It seems the biggest issue is build quality, its bit of a lottery what you end up with. There's some good firmware updates available now too. Glad I discovered your channel, there's some great information in your videos which I am slowly working mybway through. Cheers.
I believe that PW555 is actually an I/O expander for driving the filter relays. The real receiver is, probably, based around an FST3253 as a sampling detector providing the I/Q signals to be processed by the Atmega. Really amazing what the original author managed to squeeze out of such a small microcontroller. It's a pity all these chinesium copies are overshadowing the original.
I was going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it. This is based on the QCX, which was modified to support SSB. The method of sending SSB with the class E amplifier of the QCX is very interesting. I would love to see a video discussing and showing how it works. Maybe comparing it's performance to more traditional methods of generating and amplifying SSB also.
Hi , can this radio be expanded and programed please with the following potential features? 1. Rtty fsk ft8 with a mini pcb internal circuit decoder tx rx. 2. accept a compact antenna tuner 0- 30mhz. 3. Swr sweep function. 4. Add additional mini arduino internally with usb to computer interface tied to tranciever arduino. 5. Programable frequency rx tx (26-27mhz) 6. High speed scanner with programable frequency sampling like a budget spectrum analyzer. 7. Telemetry hand shake between HF radios with blue tooth alert to mobile - missed call text. Radio is awesome with an entry level price. Would be very autonomous with above features. Thankyou for your video. From Andrew. New Zealand
Yeah, no kidding. My first QRP rig was a Ten Tec PM2. My first shirt pocket radio was a board & box off a Ham Radio Magazine article back around 1974. The latest is the (tr)uSDX that was built in Australia by a friend. The old man still dreams of playing QRP radio on a Caribbean beach ;-) The latest micro radios make it all the more possible . . . if there weren't a plague to keep me from traveling. 73 de W8IJN
I have one of those. I went through the AF circuit and put a mechanical/pot volume control on the edge of the board above the headphone jack. Makes a much nicer radio without having to use the menu AF gain, which I think sounds really horrible at AF gain settings below about 10. Pretty decent rig, really. In fact, I like it better than the X5105, even without the ATU & other fancy stuff. Perfect POTA/SOTA rig.
@@haramanggapuja According to Banggood I can expect delivery the end of June. Unit shipped yesterday, LOL. BTW I also got the little 100 watt ATU with it.
my radio... the same which you showed has stopped transmitting with anything beyond 1W... the Rx is working fine... what can be the reason for the issues with the Tx??
It’s a Chinese copy of the DL2MAN/PE1NNZ collaboration. There have been several variants and iterations over the past couple of years, and lots of buy groups. The original being the ‘sandwich’ with variants providing different band options. The majority of Chinese copies have been a hopeless waste of money, not worked properly and harmonics too high. If not operated into a properly tuned antenna, the class E amp ‘pops’…. The latest and protected version is the (tr)uSDX, a fantastic little transceiver the size of a credit card in area, and about 1.5 inches thick. I have several of the kits, if you want a ‘traditional; through hole build then Barb, WB2CBA also has several designs available with gerbers etc. All are awesome projects to learn….. and expand on your radio knowledge - G4UET
I thought that that would be a ZERO IF Transceiver using a switching I/Q Generator that drives the modulator and a switching I/Q decoder that takes it's signal from the mixer.
Could you please tell me if the Power Amplifier MOSFET has a short in between any of those three legs of the MOSFET. Please 🙏 request you to help me. My receiver output is not going above 1 Watt.
I just got one of these 2 days ago to take on a couple of vacations. I thought the rotary encoder should have clicked, and you showed it does, but my didn't. I just pull the knob up a bit, and it clicks, thanks. Now if you figure out how to get the CAT interface to work, that would be great. I've hooked up a protocol analyzer, and I see stuff going back and forth, but no joy when it comes to controlling the transceiver.
From what I have read the chipset uses TTL level serial data, not RS-232, so you'd need a USB to TTL data cable to get it going for computer control. They are out there. Adafruit has one that should work with this radio.
@@c0ldcity I know, right. Turns out my HP Elitedesk computer has a real honest-to-Pepsi RS232 serial port on the back, right on top of the legacy VGA port. Leave it to HP to keep us old guys happy.
Hi, I have a request for you , you can tell me the name of the semicircular black transistor,please. which is located next to a powerful transistor with cooling on the housing. I have the same transceiver, but the manufacturer messed up and put two identical high-power transistors.Therefore, my transceiver is almost non-working. Thanks.Nice video.
I would like to add, it's the right of anyone to buy this radio, but give some thought to the fact the folks who did all the R&D for the original radio, receive nothing from the foreign sellers of these small QRP rigs. If you do purchase one of these, you might think of donating a few bucks to the guys who did all of the hard work.
One of these days I may get back to Ham Radio, at least restoration of some old glass bottle radios etc. I had my first QSO from the south pole station 2007, which was a gas. NO1SE.
You should try hooking up the speaker output and measure the SINAD to find the actually RF sensitivity for 12dB SINAD to give a measurable value, the internal S meter can't be trusted.
The "radio on a chip" is actually just the Atmega 328 microcontroller. All of the little mixers, IF's and such that we old-timers are familiar with have all been replaced with software. The decoding and encoding of AM, FM, and SSB is all done by the Atmega 328 running sophisticated math algorithms. It is an almost entirely digital radio. Looking at the toroids, I'm going to guess that they are using identical, low-quality toroids for the class E RF output resonators and the output filters and not tuning them for optimization, and that's why the output just keeps dropping off as frequency increases. I watched a video of the designer of the original rigs take a 0.7 Watt output and tune it up to over 5 W just by adjusting the toroid windings.
This is a Chinese copy of the original version that is available for Creative Commons license and broke the license according to original authors while making it much worse. Also, it’s more than twice as expensive compared to what people get by ordering the original design through group buys directly from China.
@@galileo_rs I think the mcHF is the original, though it has a nicer screen. There are a few variants of the uSDX which might be the closest to this one. And the QRP Labs QCX is a respectable commercial rig of a similar lineage.
Did you purposely not test harmonic output on the higher bands? Its on the higher bands were this radio's harmonic output is shit. The lesson here kids is when watching youtube reviews, Listen to what they don't say and watch what they don't show
Only in the top bands from 15 to 10 MHz. So, make a filter to stop the bleed over in the harmonics for the top bands. I just wonder , how many pixies are used in scouts for cw or xtl radios , a lot still love them, did you do the testing or just quoting What the original maker said. They only made them for 80 or 40 m. I agree they not a rolls Royce but then, no one is filling the market that people are looking for are they, to correct it. Even the original maker said they were not in it for making money. I agree their should be a better effort for the price.
@@BubbaWarbucks I checked the legislation here in my country (Denmark) and it is -60 dBc outside band no matter what frequency. As this kind of legislation typically is regulated by EU I expect that to be the case everywhere in the European Union. It is quite possible different in the United States. Besides there clearly are higher order harmonics displayed on the spectrum analyzer at approximately -50 dBc and 50 MHz. That is no good even if the rules are as you say. For example take a look at the video at 20:26. The range is 5 to 50 MHz. There are 6 harmonics on the display and probably even more above 50 MHz. The peak furthest to the right is almost the same height as the one he is measuring, so approximately -50 dBc.
@@BaldurNorddahl I guess all I'm saying is that it meets or exceeds US standards as of now. When (and if) mine arrives I'll measure it on a spectrum analyzer
Great overview, thanks. I have a couple of these and have been enjoying them immensely. I've re-housed one and added a few bits, there's a few details on my YT. It seems the biggest issue is build quality, its bit of a lottery what you end up with. There's some good firmware updates available now too. Glad I discovered your channel, there's some great information in your videos which I am slowly working mybway through. Cheers.
I believe that PW555 is actually an I/O expander for driving the filter relays. The real receiver is, probably, based around an FST3253 as a sampling detector providing the I/Q signals to be processed by the Atmega. Really amazing what the original author managed to squeeze out of such a small microcontroller. It's a pity all these chinesium copies are overshadowing the original.
I was going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it. This is based on the QCX, which was modified to support SSB. The method of sending SSB with the class E amplifier of the QCX is very interesting. I would love to see a video discussing and showing how it works. Maybe comparing it's performance to more traditional methods of generating and amplifying SSB also.
Yes you are right the PW555 is relay drive...
I have one unit but I don't like the transmission audio in LSB and USB is to noisy...
Hi , can this radio be expanded and programed please with the following potential features?
1. Rtty fsk ft8 with a mini pcb internal circuit decoder tx rx.
2. accept a compact antenna tuner 0- 30mhz.
3. Swr sweep function.
4. Add additional mini arduino internally with usb to computer interface tied to tranciever arduino.
5. Programable frequency rx tx (26-27mhz)
6. High speed scanner with programable frequency sampling like a budget spectrum analyzer.
7. Telemetry hand shake between HF radios with blue tooth alert to mobile - missed call text.
Radio is awesome with an entry level price.
Would be very autonomous with above features.
Thankyou for your video.
From Andrew.
New Zealand
OH I HAD ONE ,,, UTTER SHIZEN ,,, jeffrey...
how about another video adding an 11-meter band onto this Rigg?
Nice review! A great budget radio for an introduction to the HF and 6 meter bands. Thank you for sharing.
amateur radios have come a long way since I started in the 90's. QRP options are just mind boggling, comparing 30 years of progress.
Yeah, no kidding. My first QRP rig was a Ten Tec PM2. My first shirt pocket radio was a board & box off a Ham Radio Magazine article back around 1974. The latest is the (tr)uSDX that was built in Australia by a friend. The old man still dreams of playing QRP radio on a Caribbean beach ;-) The latest micro radios make it all the more possible . . . if there weren't a plague to keep me from traveling. 73 de W8IJN
I started with a Heath Hw-16 and 3 40m crystals in 1979 lol. Now have a 3 band usdx sandwich the size of a pack of smokes . K0CXF 👍
What is the difference between versions 2 and 3.5. Thank you very much and useful information.
I have one of those. I went through the AF circuit and put a mechanical/pot volume control on the edge of the board above the headphone jack. Makes a much nicer radio without having to use the menu AF gain, which I think sounds really horrible at AF gain settings below about 10. Pretty decent rig, really. In fact, I like it better than the X5105, even without the ATU & other fancy stuff. Perfect POTA/SOTA rig.
Ordered mine today, de N4QM
@@BubbaWarbucks Email headed your way. Some night you wanna get on 75m I can try but I'm at less 'n 500W to do it.
@@haramanggapuja According to Banggood I can expect delivery the end of June. Unit shipped yesterday, LOL. BTW I also got the little 100 watt ATU with it.
my radio... the same which you showed has stopped transmitting with anything beyond 1W... the Rx is working fine... what can be the reason for the issues with the Tx??
It’s a Chinese copy of the DL2MAN/PE1NNZ collaboration. There have been several variants and iterations over the past couple of years, and lots of buy groups. The original being the ‘sandwich’ with variants providing different band options. The majority of Chinese copies have been a hopeless waste of money, not worked properly and harmonics too high. If not operated into a properly tuned antenna, the class E amp ‘pops’…. The latest and protected version is the (tr)uSDX, a fantastic little transceiver the size of a credit card in area, and about 1.5 inches thick. I have several of the kits, if you want a ‘traditional; through hole build then Barb, WB2CBA also has several designs available with gerbers etc. All are awesome projects to learn….. and expand on your radio knowledge - G4UET
I thought that that would be a ZERO IF Transceiver using a switching I/Q Generator that drives the modulator and a switching I/Q decoder that takes it's signal from the mixer.
Any ideals why my SWR is always 9.9 even using the proper antenna? Thanks!
Could you please tell me if the Power Amplifier MOSFET has a short in between any of those three legs of the MOSFET. Please 🙏 request you to help me. My receiver output is not going above 1 Watt.
I just got one of these 2 days ago to take on a couple of vacations. I thought the rotary encoder should have clicked, and you showed it does, but my didn't. I just pull the knob up a bit, and it clicks, thanks. Now if you figure out how to get the CAT interface to work, that would be great. I've hooked up a protocol analyzer, and I see stuff going back and forth, but no joy when it comes to controlling the transceiver.
I believe it may speak the TS-480 command set, OM
From what I have read the chipset uses TTL level serial data, not RS-232, so you'd need a USB to TTL data cable to get it going for computer control. They are out there. Adafruit has one that should work with this radio.
@@BubbaWarbucks Or possibly just a MAX232, if one happens to be in the junkbox (assuming the PC has a real serial port of course)
@@c0ldcity I know, right. Turns out my HP Elitedesk computer has a real honest-to-Pepsi RS232 serial port on the back, right on top of the legacy VGA port. Leave it to HP to keep us old guys happy.
@@BubbaWarbucks Wonderful! I have a lovely old CF27 toughbook that I covet for both those ports too :)
Hi, I have a request for you ,
you can tell me the name of the semicircular black transistor,please.
which is located next to a powerful transistor with cooling on the housing.
I have the same transceiver, but the manufacturer messed up and put two
identical high-power transistors.Therefore, my transceiver is almost non-working.
Thanks.Nice video.
The transistor is IRF 510. And mine also has two of them.
Check the soldering.I had the same problem and i fix it
@@pansim87 Thanks for the answer, I asked the name of a small black transistor, I think it's BS 170.
@@pansim87 Thanks)
@@digi4151 I have the same usdx and on mime is iIRF 510.You can check in yours what it is.
I would like to add, it's the right of anyone to buy this radio, but give some thought to the fact the folks who did all the R&D for the original radio, receive nothing from the foreign sellers of these small QRP rigs. If you do purchase one of these, you might think of donating a few bucks to the guys who did all of the hard work.
One of these days I may get back to Ham Radio, at least restoration of some old glass bottle radios etc. I had my first QSO from the south pole station 2007, which was a gas. NO1SE.
Output power is typical of non-rf MOSFET Transistors used in final RF Amplifiers of these types of radios.
Wich MOSFET is used? I´ve burned mine
I found it on 9:09 irf510 tkns
@@rodrigobuzatti IRF 510
What antenna are you using?
end fed wire
You should try hooking up the speaker output and measure the SINAD to find the actually RF sensitivity for 12dB SINAD to give a measurable value, the internal S meter can't be trusted.
The "radio on a chip" is actually just the Atmega 328 microcontroller. All of the little mixers, IF's and such that we old-timers are familiar with have all been replaced with software. The decoding and encoding of AM, FM, and SSB is all done by the Atmega 328 running sophisticated math algorithms. It is an almost entirely digital radio.
Looking at the toroids, I'm going to guess that they are using identical, low-quality toroids for the class E RF output resonators and the output filters and not tuning them for optimization, and that's why the output just keeps dropping off as frequency increases. I watched a video of the designer of the original rigs take a 0.7 Watt output and tune it up to over 5 W just by adjusting the toroid windings.
This is a Chinese copy of the original version that is available for Creative Commons license and broke the license according to original authors while making it much worse. Also, it’s more than twice as expensive compared to what people get by ordering the original design through group buys directly from China.
the fake parts are expensive also people need their crap
What is the name of the original (UA-cam deletes comments with links).
@@galileo_rs I think the mcHF is the original, though it has a nicer screen. There are a few variants of the uSDX which might be the closest to this one. And the QRP Labs QCX is a respectable commercial rig of a similar lineage.
@@ThinklikeTesla QCX is single band AFAIK and mcHF is a completely different architecture.
@@galileo_rs Look for (tr)uSDX from DL2MAN and PE1NNZ
at 5:50 near the top of the screen -- is that two unsoldered pins?
Yeah I saw that too, looked unsoldered to me.
it is the battery connector. Was soldered from the other side and did not wick through. the radio obviously works so guess it's fine.
Well it looks interesting but "Due to policy reasons this product does not exist" when I click the link
What policy, their all over the place from Alli to eBay.
Bangood will not sell these to EU states, they give no reason when contacted
Where do you find a manual?
Why all the " I think " ??? Why all the stammer and studder ? Either proceed with logic and details in order or stop !
what a wonderful idea, thanks
isn't the red button a second ptt?
Yes so you can hold it and press it to tx like an old hand held...even use it for CW keyer I think.
Did you purposely not test harmonic output on the higher bands? Its on the higher bands were this radio's harmonic output is shit. The lesson here kids is when watching youtube reviews, Listen to what they don't say and watch what they don't show
WWV is AM
ok i give not going to post my comment for the third time so be it...
If I remember correctly you need to be -60 dBm outside the band so -40 dBm is no good. This thing is not legal for sale.
Only in the top bands from 15 to 10 MHz.
So, make a filter to stop the bleed over in the harmonics for the top bands.
I just wonder , how many pixies are used in scouts for cw or xtl radios , a lot still love them, did you do the testing or just quoting
What the original maker said.
They only made them for 80 or 40 m. I agree they not a rolls Royce but then, no one is filling the market that people are looking for are they, to correct it.
Even the original maker said they were not in it for making money. I agree their should be a better effort for the price.
Below 30MHz the spec is -43dB, above 30MHz it's 60dB. According to this test, this particular radio meets the spec.
@@BubbaWarbucks I checked the legislation here in my country (Denmark) and it is -60 dBc outside band no matter what frequency. As this kind of legislation typically is regulated by EU I expect that to be the case everywhere in the European Union. It is quite possible different in the United States.
Besides there clearly are higher order harmonics displayed on the spectrum analyzer at approximately -50 dBc and 50 MHz. That is no good even if the rules are as you say.
For example take a look at the video at 20:26. The range is 5 to 50 MHz. There are 6 harmonics on the display and probably even more above 50 MHz. The peak furthest to the right is almost the same height as the one he is measuring, so approximately -50 dBc.
@@BaldurNorddahl I guess all I'm saying is that it meets or exceeds US standards as of now. When (and if) mine arrives I'll measure it on a spectrum analyzer