Party Line 80 First QSO
A great milestone
As Project Yamhill nears actual physical implementation, it’s time to start building some more real-time, two-way communication. We’re starting to get some beta testing and discussions going! If you’d like to participate in Project Yamhill chat, please click on the link below. Thank you!
A short yet sweet post for you today to let you know about the first QSO with the Party Line 80 QRP CW transceiver that I’ve been developing.
Equipment List
Party Line 80 QRP CW transceiver prototype (5 watts output power)
EtherKeyer Mini
Begali Simplex Paddles
Chameleon EMCOMM-II end-fed antenna
Anker Soundcore Mini amplified speaker
After a few aborted attempts to make skeds for the inaugural on-the-air contact for Party Line 80, I was finally able to arrange a QSO with a ham in the vicinity on a local ham Discord group. Zach W7LHT graciously agreed to listen for me on the rockbound frequency of 3581.5 kHz last night at 9 PM local. At first neither of us heard the other calling, but I persisted in calling a few more times and W7LHT was able to finally hear me. The QSB was very bad last evening, but we managed to exchange the minimum information in order to complete the QSO. I’ve posted a video of the tail-end my operating time, capturing the successful exchange:
NB: The thumping on keying is caused by a few different factors, namely because I was using a prototype of EtherKeyer Mini that didn’t have the correct keying transistor installed, and the fact that I was overdriving my Zoom recorder a bit so that I could hear well enough from the Anker SoundCore Mini connected to the recorder passthrough. With the right keyer and with headphones connected, the keying is quite nice.
Here’s a video graciously provided by W7LHT in Vancouver, WA, showing how my signal sounded at his end:
This is what I was really looking for. It’s well enough to check all of the parameters of your new transceiver on the bench, but the real test is in how it sounds to you and the person you’re communicating with. The transmitter sounds stable and I don’t hear any chirps or clicks.
In the spirit of “eating your own dog food”, I’m definitely looking for more QSOs with this rig, so if you’re on the US west coast and want to try for a QSO some evening, please get in touch.
Now that I know that the rig design is in a good state, I’m going to be ordering revised PCBs for it soon (along with revised PCBs of other projects, many of which I’ve mentioned in previous posts). Once those come in, I’ll be looking for beta testers, so if that sounds interesting to you, please keep an eye on this publication for news on when that opens up. This radio is relatively complex given that it’s rockbound, but it’s no “toy”. However, all of the components are discrete, so it should be within the capability of any kit builder with at least a little experience with past kits, and it will be relatively inexpensive as well. I think Party Line 80 could be a really fun group project for a bunch of hams in a region to build and put on the air.
Congrats! First contact is the radio equivalent of “Hello World”. 😊