Sparrow Overview

The Spatz (German Spatz) is a small monoband CW transceiver kit designed by DK1HE and distributed in kit form by the German QRP Project. Despite the small size and relative simplicity of the kit, the Spatz is a quite advanced transceiver featuring goodies like DDS with RIT/XIT, 8 pole Cohn Filter with 400Hz bandwith, AGC with high dynamic range, heavy duty PA, built-in keyer and full QSK. The kit can be bought with DDS ready built and tested and is available for the 80, 40, 30, 20 and 17 meter bands.

Read more

Tuning the 40m Coil

With the current settings on 30m (26cm 2.5 turns shorted), fc on 40 shifted to 7.188 MHz – even with 8 turns shorted. Moving the shorting strap to 7 turns, fc shifts to 6.988 MHz. With 7.5 turns shorted fc = 7.039 MHz.

Read more

Butternut HF2V for the 160-30 meter bands

After my DX-88 died in a winter storm, I have decided to give the Butternut HF2V a try. This antenna is a 10 meter long vertical for 80 and 40, with extensions available for the 160 and 30 meter bands. I was rather curious about it since this is the only vertical antenna that provides the four lower bands in one package. Moreover, having used the HF6V previously, I had quite high expectations to this one. Although rather expensive, my success with antenna have been very satisfactory so far. As a bonus it even works well on 15 meter band with flat 1.2 SWR between 20-22 MHz.

Read more