The Midland Amateur Radio Club has adopted an active role in providing assistance to members in the construction of projects. These pages will not necessarily be a complete reference for any project but will be a means of providing general assistance to home construction and some specific projects.
Please send the Club an email if you discover something of value to you.
PIC-A-STAR - The inaugural Centre Victoria RadioFest held at Kyneton, Victoria in April, 2007, saw a mini-lecture presented by Paul Engler, VK3XDE. His PIC-A-STAR subject demonstrated how it is possible to build an all-HF band transceiver that at least rivals today's commercial offerings - at a much lower price. The project is the culmination of many years development work by Peter Rhodes, G3XJP, and published in the RSGB journal RadCom.
The images shown are from the original published documents created by the designer, Peter Rhodes, G3XJP, and published in the RSGB journal RadCom.
The Club arranged for Paul to present the project in June, 2007 and this was attended by quite a few interested amateurs. As a number of amateurs expressed an interest in building this transceiver, the Club committee has decided that the Club should provide a co-ordination point to help members and others in construction.
A Direct Digital Synthesis control module provides all the required frequency generation for the transceiver as well as frequency readout, status indication, bandswitching, filter setting, etc., even simulated stereo audio. Although the transceiver is cutting edge technology, it is relatively easy for amateurs to homebrew and its performance rivals the current commercial offerings - and you can build it yourself. Performance upgrades/enhancements are accomplished via software downloads - similar to the Ten-Tec Orion and Elecraft K2.
Its design and software is open source but is subject to free registration with the Yahoo Forum and is not available for commercial gain. Facilities include: SSB and CW detection and generation, a bank of high-performance Rx filters, impulse noise blanking, non-coherent noise reduction, auto-notch heterodyne(s) removal, variable AGC time constant, synthetic stereo audio reproduction, adjustable RF clipping on transmit, very fast VOX and QSK operation and the flexibility to change.
Although some surface-mount components are used, there is nothing really difficult about mounting the components or making the circuit boards for home construction.
The PIC-A-STAR project has an Internet support/development forum and there are many of them being built around the world with around 7 in Australia. There are at least 2 planned for construction in Bendigo. The project itself specifically provides everything except the output PA and the very front end. You can save costs by using a second-hand PA or front-end stages or design or build your own if you want to.
In the words of Peter Rhodes, G3XJP - For me, this is Amateur Radio. Not the passive process of swapping money for a radio, nor the passive process of sucking up free software. Rather the active process of getting involved collaboratively in designing and making one. And only then, the pride and pleasure of using it - which you can't buy for any money.
The general barrier to home construction of such things has been said to be design information, part availability, surface mount components and inherent difficulties in making circuit boards and even mounting the close-spaced-pin components. It can be done a lot easier than you think and there is only one way to find out.
Click this
PIC-A-STAR link to go straight to our project page.
