brainwagon

Back in October of last year, I was eagerly putting together one of Doug Hendrick’s DC40b kits, a nifty little transceiver, complete with a nice metal case. Here’s where the assembly got to prior to today:

brainwagon » Blog Archive » DC40B, Day 4, and stupidity on my part….

Yes, I didn’t install a chip backwards, I merely screwed up and swapped the op-amp (8 pins) and the Atmel chip (similarly 8 pins). At the time, I sent an email to Doug and he kindly sent me replacement parts, and they sat in my “box o’ radio stuff” for quite a while. Until today.

Today, I dusted them off, and then tried to figure out where I left the rig. In the end, I just plugged in the new chips, hooked up a set of ear buds, and fired it up.

This time, and voila. The AVR is running! I hooked up paddles, and the keyer seems to work fine. I can hear the QSK thump in a little bit when the receiver kicks back in, but all seems well. I’ll drag out my oscilloscope and test voltages and the like: when I left it last time I thought the oscillator wasn’t actually oscillating, but now that things are hooked up, maybe all will be better. Now, all I need to do is find the two parts that I need to finish it: the BS170 that serves as the final amplifier and the BNC connector so I can hook my antenna to it.

And then, I’ll have to brush up on my CW. I found my Gordon West CW CDs too. 🙂