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Reviews For: Wilderness SST

Category: QRP Radios (5 watts or less)

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Review Summary For : Wilderness SST
Reviews: 34MSRP: 85,00
Description:
2-watt, ultra-portable CW rig w/superhet RX
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.fix.net/~jparker/wilderness/sst.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00345
N4QY Rating: 2007-12-29
Well Pleased Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The kit arrived quickly, complete with all parts, and the instructions are very good. The quality of the parts and PC board are great.

Both varactors and the DPDT optional switch were installed. It tunes from about 7030 Khz to 7045 Khz. It puts out about 3 watts when powered at 16 volts DC. It makes a good camping rig when used with a miniature antenna tuner and enough double A cells to get 16 volts.

The selectivity with the 3 crystals in the IF filter is quite sharp and great for CW. The QSK circuit works quite well, and certainly allows full break-in operation, unlike some of the competition. It also has an AGC circuit. Some other kits do not.

When used at my home station, I usually use a small external audio amp that avoids the necessity of using headphones as well as giving a bit more audio amplification which is useful.

I am amazed at the results achieveable with this little 40m transceiver. My 80m extended double zepp at 75 feet helps too. When first built 2 years ago, I used the SST quite a bit for several months, then put it on the shelf and used other rigs. Recently, when another rig broke, the 40m SST went back into service is doing a fine job.
KB1NSB Rating: 2007-11-08
K1KUZ-- Great high quality radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I chose this rig because of all the positive reviews, and ordered a 30 meter SST. This kit is very well done, with a superb manual and nicely layed out PC board. The fit and alignment of all the parts was great! and the rig fired up first shot. I have'nt QSOed with it yet,still making up an antenna for it, but I see no problem there. I like this rig so much I bought one for 20 meters! Great stuff Bob! Tnx es 73, K1KUZ/QRP
KO6Z Rating: 2006-08-27
Nice rigs - great service . Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently built the 20- and 40-meter SSTs for mostly portable use. They haven't left the shack or the patio yet, but I've been having lots of fun with them. Performance is pretty amazing for such a tiny rig. I needed some help with the 40 meter version (my mistake). QRP Bob was great. Highly recommend both the rig and Wilderness radio.
K3MD Rating: 2006-07-28
Excellent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Extremely cute radio, built on vacation. Had diode in backwards, very friendly and easy service for not much money (unlike some other QRP companies). Works very well.
KB5JO Rating: 2006-02-22
Impressive! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I selected the SST-20M because of the low parts count, and only needing to wind 4 toroids. This was my first attempt building a transceiver, having previously built a marker generator and tenna dipper. The instructions are first class, the kit is very well designed, comes with everything needed to completely assemble the transceiver. After about 4 hours, I connected a 12V gel cell, straight key, dummy load, and headphones. Alignment involves adjusting two trimmer capacitors and one potentiometer. I adjusted the output to about 1.5 watts, connected up my antenna, answered a W7 in Washington State calling CQ, and received a 549 report. I have nothing but good to say about this little rig, the performance is pretty awesome for something this small and easy to construct. It's a real kick to QSO using something built on your own bench. I’m looking forward to taking it on a field trip.
NN1F Rating: 2005-04-11
great first rig Time Owned: more than 12 months.
this was the first rig I built.I built the 20 meter first and then ordered the 40 meter. Made many contacts with it. I used it for my summer place on Marthas Vineyard. Ran a Gusher antenna for 20 meters in my attic and made many DX contacts. I refuse to sell this rig. I hope to pass it on to my son when he gets his license and maybe we can talk to each other when he is in school and away from home. Highly recommend! Easy to build. Worked first time.
KA4AXS Rating: 2005-04-11
Great first kit Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My first transceiver kit and I’ve never soldered on a board. Although overwhelmed when I first looked at the bag of parts, I took my time, followed the exact directions and it took me one weekend to complete. I started on a Friday night which took me 3 hours to inventory all the parts and identify them and by Sunday night I had made 2 QSOs which were over 600 miles away with 1.75 watts. Here are my suggestions from a new guy to kits.

1. Inventory the parts by taping them to several sheets of white paper. Keep all the capacitors and resistors etc together and label them IAW the parts list. I had to use the magnifier on my Radio Shack “Helping Hands” to read most of the parts. In addition, I used an Ohms meter to test the resistors to confirm the proper part.
2. Search the web and find a good photo of the finished board. I had a color photo, which helped me find the location for each part faster than looking at the black and white diagram.
3. I bought all my supplies at Radio Shack and everything worked fine for this kit.
a. 15 watt soldering iron with pencil point
b. High tech rosin core silver bearing solder
c. Helping hands with magnifier – a must if you want to be able to see and have the board secure while you work on it.
d. Small wire snips and needle nose pliers
e. BNC to 239 connector for the antenna
f. 12 volt, 500 mAh power supply
4. My technique was to put no more than 2 or 3 parts on the board at one time. After several parts are soldered on the board, it can be confusing trying to locate the place to solder. I would only snip one side of the part for 2 or 3 parts, then solder, then snip the other side, one at a time in order to locate the spot. The board is very high quality and I never had a problem with the solder running. I was nervous for the first few parts but once I got the hang of it, it was fine.
5. My radio worked the first time and with the 12 volt power supply, I put out 1.75 to 2 watts of power into my short G5RV antenna (30 feet up) which is tuned to 1:1. The receiver is very quiet and the controls are smooth. I turn down the volume to key the transmitter and then turn the volume back up to listen for a response.
6. This is a great first kit and gives you confidence that you can actually do something of this nature and get it to work the first time. After 27 years as a ham, I was pleased with this kit.
WA9NPS Rating: 2004-04-05
Great portable QRP Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought and built my SST40 about 5 years ago. Added a simple mod yesterday to eliminate howl with strong signals. It's even better than excellent now to operate! It cover approx 7.038 to 7.045 with a very selective reciever. The crystal filtering is excellent. I use mine with a MK-64MB paddle, phones or speaker, and 8 "AA" cells or pwr supply. It's a great little rig for the price! Very low current draw and weighs only about 7OZ. Making it perfect for hiking, backpacking, camping, or general use.
K8EAB Rating: 2003-08-24
Lots of performance for the cost ... Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
"QRP BOB" of Wilderness Radio was in the middle of a move from Cailfornia to Missouri ... he dug through the boxes that his moving van delivered and kitted an SST-30 and sent it to me ... I got the kit Saturday and assembled it in about 5 hours on Sunday ... less than hour after completing aseembly, I had a nice 20-minute QSO with W9GHT in Wisconsin (just under 800 miles) ... my RST was 539 ... a hot receiver, full QSK, 2-3 watts out, and 15 to 20 KHz of band coverage in a very small package ... lots of fun, and you can't ask for a nicer guy/company to do business with than "QRP BOB" ...
DL2NEP Rating: 2003-07-31
The best QRP-Rig ever Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Very good Receiver. I worked JA, W, HS, RA9, ...
from Germany with this rig (2Watts out). Very easy to build. (abt. 4..5h). I´ve added a small PK3 keyer unit to make this rig "perfect".