Last week I got my FCC-1 kit from the Norcal QRP club. It’s a nifty little PIC based frequency counter, and is quite inexpensive. It’s not very hard to assemble, but I still managed to have a couple of minor problems. Hint to anyone assembling the kit: REMEMBER! The switches are soldered on the wrong (component) side of the board. I thoughtlessly soldered the first one on the wrong side, and had to dig out my desoldering tool and resolder it. When I first powered it up, I didn’t get a proper display. But a quick inspection of some of the soldered joints for the digital display revealed a couple of pins that looked a bit spotty. A quick touch up with the iron, and voila:

I haven’t gotten it hooked to a radio yet, but I will eventually get it hooked to my TenTec 1056 receiver that I’ve been ranting on about for the last week or so. I also need to find a good case to mount it in (I don’t think there is a good place to mount it in the TenTec case, and besides, I might want to move this counter around as I complete other projects.

[tags]Amateur Radio,FCC-1 Frequency Counter[/tags]

Addendum: I couldn’t resist actually wiring it into my TenTec 1056 receiver, even though I didn’t have the proper coax or connectors. The good news, it appears to work! Woohoo!