The projects and articles presented here are written by SPARC members and are from articles past, present and future in the club’s Waves newsletter.
This post describes the build and test for a quad-band folded skeleton sleeve dipole antenna. For more detail on the design of the folded skeleton sleeve antenna, refer to my previous post. I wanted a quad-band dipole for 40, 20, 15, and 10M. I expected the 40M...
Recently I saw someone online mention the Folded Skeleton Sleeve antenna. This was a design that I'd not previously encountered, so my curiosity was piqued. The design includes two elements, the first (low band) is a partially folded dipole that is connected in the centre to...
A 'Track and hold' External VFO for tuning older ('boat anchor') radios by Jim Sosnin VK3JST...
This post describes the design and construction of a small manual z-match antenna tuner to compliment the (tr)uSDX transceiver. The (tr)uSDX is a small, inexpensive, QRP transceiver designed by PE1NNZ and DL2MAN. It is available as a kit or can be ordered pre-built. It has approximately...
The QDX is a 5W, 4-5 band (80, 40, 30, 20, and 60) transceiver that's manufactured by QRP Labs. It's available in kit form with the SMDs and ICs pre-soldered or fully assembled.It has a number of interesting features, not the least of which is...
Locking the Icom IC-9700 with the Leo Bodnar GPS locking system ...
This article describes my DIY attempt at building a manual antenna tuner. This is based on the plans for the ZM-2 tuner as sold by Emtech. My version suffers from considerable parts substitution, as I was building from whatever components I had available that seemed "near...
This is a simple "fox" transmitter and yagi/receiver that I built to use with our Scout group. It's designed to be very low cost (<$20), simple to construct, and robust enough to survive the rough and tumble of being handled by youth. The main components of the...
Two common, and often confused, types of "end fed" antennas are the end fed half wave (EFHW) and end fed long wire (EFLW or Random Wire). Both are single wire, multi-band antennas but they have one fundamental difference. This difference being that the former only...
Is it possible to combine the best parts of the flower-pot antenna design with a classic Windom / OCFD design? The idea is an antenna that's physically end-fed, but electrically off-centre fed. Then it'd only need a 4:1 balun to match, while also working on...
