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write your own review of the Pixie2.
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N2EIK
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Rating: 4/5
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Jul 24, 2010 03:37
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A project
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The Pixie IS do-able. It can be junk-boxed but for ten bucks I'd give the kit a try. HSC has the kit for 9.95 plus shipping, Rocks not included. I had a gazzilion colorburst xtals laying around and that would be fine for starters but decided to bite the bullet on the HSC bag-o-rocks too.The kit NEEDS tweakiing and TLC. Its NOT ever going to be your "main rig", its an experimentors dream. Im not going to give a blow-by-blow but I want to say this:
1) subscribe to the minimalist qrp yahoo group
2) google and read-read-read
3) HAVE FUN with it! dammit! , the answers are out there.
(hint: put ferrite beads all over the place, put a 10ufd cap from pin 7 (lm86) to ground and put the damn thing in an altoid can, it NEEDS a groundplane to help cut down on BC interference)
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KA6KBC
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Rating: 5/5
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Apr 15, 2009 09:24
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Fun Kit Radio
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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This is a Fun little kit. I do agree that for a first timer it might be a little harder, but with some help you can make a working Radio.
You need to be able to solder and trouble shoot a little, but it’s worth the time. Also you need to know a little about reading a schematic as some of the instructions could be clearer.
It is a cheap kit - The $10 price is not completely correct. $10 for the PCB/Parts then $3 for the Crystal (I put a socket on mine as I have a collection of “Rocks”). Then you have to buy connectors/Wire/Sockets/Solder/enclosure. I would guess in a box with the connectors/Switches you will be closer to $20.
I had to cherry pick transistors, but can get about 400 mW with a 9V Cell. Also some beginners might have some trouble as the Radio does not have a SideTone so you just hear clicks while sending CW. Also the RIT is limited, but you can do a limited freq shift with a switch and a cap.
I have really had fun with this "Radio" - It works. I can Transmit and Receive. However I must say at this point I have not yet made a QSO, but still working on it.
73's
Bill - KA6KBC
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N1IG
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Rating: 2/5
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Mar 29, 2009 05:34
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nothing spectacular
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I was looking for an easy kit for my son and i to complete as our first go at kit building. the pixie2 from halted fit the bill for inexpensive and not very complex. the 2 kits arrived 3 weeks after i placed the order and one of them was missing a 820pf cap, but that pixie2 worked (kind of) anyway. the instructions were easy to understand and it only took about an hour to put it all together. one kit had an awful lot of clicking at first, but that was corrected by fixing a few solder joints. the radios are marginal and one of them seems to warble more than click on tx. all in all it was ok as a first build experience, but nothing i'd really expect to ever use on a regular basis. will make a great paperweight and novelty item to show people, that's about it.
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KB5JO
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Rating: 3/5
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Jan 29, 2009 06:36
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Cheap fun
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Have built four of various flavors for 40 and 80M, none from kits. Three manhattan style, and one using a PCB from Far Circuits. Cost from 10-20 USD. One of mine "ticked", corrected after fixing a bad solder connection. Easy to troubleshoot, there isn't much fix. All of mine produced from 200-400 mW output, easily made QSOs.
I've had fun fooling with these little transceivers, they're not K3s but quick gratification to build and operate. Enjoying the diversion from stuffing parts into a kit.
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VA7AAX
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Rating: 2/5
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Oct 29, 2008 20:41
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ok for practice building...
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I built this from parts in my junkbox. I couldn't get it to work. The only thing I go working was the oscillator. The Lm386 kept "ticking". Never ever experienced such a thing from LM386. Probably I messed up my wiring, but will never know...
You are much better off with the QRP kits Tuna tin II kit. For $25, you get the all the hardware and parts and everything!
or you can also get the $17 one with only the parts and circuit board.
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W8ZNX
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Rating: 0/5
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Aug 9, 2008 01:42
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don't waste your money
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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was given another dead pixie ll
played with it for a hour or so
to get it working
if you want to call it working
local am broadcast stations
overload / wipe out the receiver
even after hooking it to a high pass filter
that ive used on hb simple dc receivers
the broadcast stations make the receiver unuseable
come on
any old tuna tin
with a TenTec any band DC receiver will run rings around it
don't waste your time and money
there are lots of better dirt simple
cheap lash ups / kits out there
mac
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G3YUH
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Rating: 3/5
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Aug 24, 2007 05:34
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Good fun
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Just received my Pixie2 kit from the USA had to wait three weeks for it but worth the wait, quite easy to build, the transmitter is real fun I get about 200mw output, just using the transmitter I have worked across Europe furthest is the Czeck republik about 1200km from the UK using a dipole antenna, But the receiver is pretty bad, had it used an SA612 in front of the LM386 it would have made it so much more usable and still simple, how about that in Pixie3 :)G3YUH
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NS6Y_
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Rating: 2/5
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Sep 15, 2006 21:12
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Get an SST or NorCal40
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I have had a few of these, .... some kinda worked... sorta,... the most interesting one TICKED. Tick, tick, tick..... It's a nice single-sided board but then you have to add a jumper here and a resistor there.... I don't know, the fiddle-to-fun ratio just is not there for me.
If you're going to sit down and built something, and want it simple, get a Wilderness Radio SST. If you want to build something simple/fun/educational, get a Wilderness Radio NorCal 40A and the book that's used with that kit to teach a college course in radio.
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KB3GZW
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Rating: 1/5
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Sep 15, 2006 17:02
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Not something I would recommend!
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I bought the kit thinking it was going to be something cheap and easy just to get myself into kit building before I bought a Rockmite or a Wilderness Radio SST. Well, I was right on one part. It is cheap. The board is not very professional and the traces are not very hard to burn off. I never even got mine working. I would suggest that you put a little more money into a kit than $10. Hopefully I will have more luck with the Rockmite.
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PY2PBB
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 25, 2006 11:59
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Nice project
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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This is the best and simple project I have ever built and it is my principal Rig in my shack. I every weekend operate it, make some regular QSO without problems, in distances around 1000 km, with 700mW on 40M. RST normally received is 569, not bad...I nowadays have only two Pixiels in operations; My VHF, My other radios are in the shelf....In portuguese: O pixie2 dá de causae vergonha nos outros rádios...". 73 to all...
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