FCC-1 Assembled

FCC-1 Frequency CounterLast 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]

FCC-1 Hooked to the TenTec 1056Addendum: 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!

3 thoughts on “FCC-1 Assembled”

  1. Brock

    Update on my Tentec 1056 receiver and NS-40 transmitter combo. I was unable to get the frequency counter I purchased (a different one from the FCC-1 from NorCal) to work. I did see a comment section on another website with my comments and those of others, but did not see how to add more comments there. One ham said he could hear the NS-40 transmitter on the 1056 receiver when keying. I have them both in the same enclosure and am unable to hear it at all when keying. Just sound chaos. I can hear, however, a sound above and below the frequency of the NS-40 crystal and in the dead center ( using the coarse tuning knob) a sort of scratchy click in the unkey condition. This is the unkeyed oscillator of the NS-40 at work. I rely on a separate rig to hear both the keyed transmit tone and also the 1056 receiver oscillator to make double sure I am on the same frequency for tx and rx. If anyone can tell me how to hear the tx tone on the 1056 receiver, please do so. My email is ae4gm2003@yahoo.com . Also, what frequency actually reads out on the NorCal FCC-1 frequency counter?
    I’m having really good luck with this setup on the air right now since putting up my 40 meter dipole 20 feet high in the trees. Most days I get a response pretty fast, except when it is raining. The cedar trees seem to suck the signal right off the dipole. Hi!

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