A search of the mythical Ideal QRP Travel Rig For Vibration-Rich Environments has me, once again, pondering what's out there and coming to the same old conclusion:That the Elecraft KX2 - manyyears (yes, one word) after its introduction - still has no peer. Eight years old now - a virtual eternity.Like others, I watch the YouTube infomercials of the latest offerings, hoping to find my unicorn. But

 I finished building my QMX+ earlier today and now have to figure out why it doesn't receive on any band.Transmit is good on all bands, so I'm half of the way to being on the air with it...A close look at the circuit boards and a study of the schematic will be the order of the day later this week.If that doesn't pan out, there is the group.io and a guru in W1-land who has brought various

I was minding my own business this morning, drinking coffee and up to my knees in the pleasant (cough) task of toroid-winding, when what to my wondering eyes did appear - news of a new kit. More radio gear!The messenger is Thomas K4SWL and the kit is from Jonathan KM4CFT - the CFT1.The kit currently under construction is the QMX+. I'm 80% of the way through the build. As if the radio gods know

Click for largerIn a package significantly heavier than I would have thought, the QMX+ kit arrived today, shipped from a US address.I'm very anxious to get this kit together and on the air but all I'll be able to do for now is winding the many coils and transformers before leaving town for a while.I've built a lot of kits over the decades but few have made me as excited as this one, in terms of

As I wait for mine, I enjoy the rig vicariously thanks to Hannes and (soon) others:One interesting comment on the QRPLabs group: "Once SSB is implemented in the QMX+, will that make it a QSX?"The QSX description (5 years ago) was for a 10-160m, all-mode rig so it seems like the 6-160m QMX+ may fit the description - if firmware-driven SSB is a possibility with these rigs. Like the QMX, the QMX+

On 1 May, Hans G0UPL released new firmware for the QMX.The primary goal of the update was to suppress the thump on CW that many users experienced on several bands.In my case, 80m was the most affected band.I'm happy to report that the new firmware does what it was written to do. Even before enabling the thump suppression feature, the new firmware seems to have fixed 80% of the thump generated

This morning, from Hans G0UPL:I am pleased to announce the availability of the 60-15m QMX version, which has been requested multiple times by POTA and SOTA operators. Note that there will be a few days' delay; the Rev 4 QMX boards will allegedly arrive here today according to the cargo company contracted locally by FedEx. But there will be some work to pack kits and program bootloader etc. I

 A recent get-together of Central Florida POTA ops, led, of course, by Bill N4NYM, allowed me the opportunity of meeting a dozen or so kindred spirits at Lake Louisa State Park where I very much enjoyed seeing their set-ups and eating their food.One of those in attendance was a newbie CW op, Glenn KO4NTA, and somehow Glenn and I got to talking about QRP. He had several rigs with him but the

A thread currently running on the QRP Labs group discusses the "thumping" issue on CW.I received my pre-built QMX yesterday and was able to hear for myself how this it sounds on the 5 bands, 20 to 80 meters. As noted on the group, the issue is more pronounced on 80 meters and is present to a smaller degree on higher bands, although 40m seems the least affected.The sound is the same whether using

Ordered 7 months ago, my pre-built QRP Labs QMX arrived today.There is a much shorter waiting time for those who order the kit version of this rig. It's a 20-80m version and I will be putting it through its paces on CW over the next few days and will eventually configure it for FT8.I was happy to see that a test sheet was included, indicating the results of various parameters obtained before it