Welcome to the VE3AB BUILDING PAGEs.
I like electronics and radio equipment.
Back in 1973; when I had my first licence; I started working qrp stations on
CW. One fellow had built his transmitter in a pop can!- I became hooked low power weak signal
work. In 1974 I bought a Ten Tec Argonaut 505 and began working qrp in ernest. I now have
an Argonaut 515,509 and 505. Im working on building test jigs and hope to eventually build my own
transciever or transmitter/receiver combination. In 74 I joined QRP ARCI and subscribed to the
Milliwatt magazine. I have many projects on the go and I tend to flitter around from one to another.
TUBES!!??! - back in my college
days of 1979 to 1980..I said to
myself..Im going to get rid of all my
tubes and go totally solid state.
NO MORE OBSOLETE STUFF FOR
ME!!!


Well that hasn't happened. I still
have my tube tester and tubes that
Ive gotten from people who are
either getting out of the hobby ..or
who have gone to that big ham
shack in the sky!

I sell the odd tube here and there
to someone building or fixing
something. My prices are good for
all the parts I sell and I test them.
ve3ab@personainternet.com or
ve3ab@rac.ca works too.
I started building this Experimenters VFO awhile ago. Didnt
get it finished. It is my first real attempt at soldering and
working with small surface mount components.
I was quite intimidated by the very close spacing of the
small Advanced Micro DDS chip.
I spoke to several people who worked with this stuff and
they told me that in industry they solder these types of
devices in and then wick up the excess solder with solder
wick. The small little chips are pretty rugged. This winter I
will find out if it survived when I put power to this unit.

The soldering iron is a 15 watt grounded tip Radio Shack
model. I use cheap but effective magnifying type glasses as
per the photo to help my eyes when working with these tiny
surface mount components.

The blue matt is anti static and a ground lead can be seen.
Below on the bench working on an old HW16.

Bench instruments now include a 100mhz leader scope, a sweep generator and an HP Spectrum Analyser.

I modified the HW16 with a new type of crystal socket. I used a loud speaker connector from an old stereo.

I am thinking of adding a push button preamp to the hw16 which will disable the key circuit at the same time. This would allow a push
button preamp to be switched in to allow the HW16 to hear much better and I can then copy weak signals to get the gist of the message.
The HW16 is cw only. I do like operating it..but the receiver does have some shortcommings. Still, it used to be used in the very busy
crowded novice bands of the 1970s (where I did some serious operating when i was cw only in 1972/1973. I worked quite a few fellows who
were using the HW16.
My homebrew receiver project. The receiver main board is a printed circuit board I bought
from FAR CIRCUITS in the U.S. The little DDS unit shown has quit on me but I am building one
up. The filter board is only partly built but the filters seem to work ok.
the filter board..band pass front
end filters (work in progress)
the main circuit
board
containing the
rf stages and
mixer stages
and audio amp
stages
the HP Spectrum Analyser shown below. I did some
analysis of the spectral purity of my FT301D using this
instrument. It will certainly come in handy. I just got it last
year. Still learning how to use it (more or less).

Above that is a WAVETEK Sweep Generator. Havent used
it much but hope to use it for aligning Argonauts and
checking the responses of my band pass filters that I am
building for my HF receiver project (also shown on this
page).
My HF receiver is a circuit from
Doug Demaw (W1FB) SK. I have
followed Dougs work since the
early 70s. I really enjoyed his hw7
modification articles. I have
several old HW7s and I hope to try
making a new receiver front end
for it.
For my NEXT page
OF BUILDING
PICTURES AND
INFORMATION

CLICK HERE TO
VISIT>>>>>>>
The road to hell is paved with good intentions!! or so it has been said! -- I am the absolute KING of
unfinished projects.

Maybe some day ..I will cobble them all together and make a time machine! Remember back to the future and
Professor Emmet Brown! He did it and so can I!
This hw16 now has the modified connection
for the crystals. I can use wire lead crystals of
almost any configuration.
LINK TO COME HERE SOON.
click here for HW16 page I have
created.(Imgoing to build it soon Mid March
2010).  The HW16 used to be a very popular rig
in the 60s and 70s. I still like using it. Here is a
page I created concerning this radio. click hr
I used to use this old Heathkit q meter. It
was useful for measurements but I tend
to be lazy and also Im short on space so I
bought a couple of modern small
handheld digital readout meters for
working with coils and capacitors.
Its cluttered. One thing I read..was you can tell alot about a person by looking at his work
space/bench or desk!! OH OH!!!!!
Pictured here..HP Spectrum analyser..a real nifty piece of gear that I like to use for rf
measurements and to see what kind of outputs and harmonics my projects put out. I
recently built an N3ZI version 2 dds vfo and it was surprisingly clean output.
TUBES ARE STILL BEING USED IN BRAND NEW AUDIO GEAR.
Not in commercial ham gear (ie radios). I bought a brand new
guitar amp and it has a pair of 6L6s in it.
THIS IS A PROJECT THAT I did finish. It is the N3ZI version 2 dds vfo. YOu can see more
on this project at this page I have created...click here
It would be interesting to put a dds
vfo into the HW16. One problem is
the vfo would interfere with the
receive signal and a switching
system would have to be
developed. Probably could be
done.

I might try it when I get some time.