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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
DK3QN Rating: 2003-06-26
a real CW TRX Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have built the 40 m version. Had to swap the original crystal with a paralleled pair of other crystals to get down to the European CW band.

This kit is real fun. It's easy to build and takes probably 4 to 5 hours to finish the kit. So you don't have to wait too long until you see the red LED coming up and listen to other station's signals.

Front end selectivity on 40m is not good enough to avoid intermod problems in Europe during evenings/night. The rear side ATT var resistor brings the little box back to it's appropriate MDS level during such band propagations.

The built-in crystal CW filter was a nice surprise. It's rather narrow, which I like.

It's still an ongoing surprise for me to see what you can hear and reach with this little box and just 2 watts of output power. Perfect for back-packing.
KC8UTV Rating: 2002-10-24
service is super Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My first kit in 30 years -- very robust construction, able to withstand my hamhanded soldering & snipping -- & when I managed to cause a problem, the service could not be any better. I'll probably buy another one just to do a little experimenting.
G3XYS Rating: 2002-10-16
SST-20 & SST-30, Easy all the way! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Easy to buy, Easy to build and Easy to operate. Wilderness SST-20 and SST-30 are fun rigs to operate - alot of satisfaction. Having read many reviews on QRP rigs I put my assessments into practice and bought an SST-30 9 months ago and an SST-20 last week from QRPproject based in Germany. The kits are quality throughout. Supported by an excellent manual. If you are a little rusty in kit building read the manual a couple of times, sort out the components and get stuck in. For the SST-30 I added a switch for both varactors which gave a VXO spread from 10.100 to 10.120 and only used a single varactor for the SST-20 for a frequency span of 14.056 to 14.063 which is a little narrow but still OK for the FISTS and QRP calling frequencies. It is a tradition with me to always use dil-sockets, which is the only deviation from the manual I have made. Both rigs took 5 minutes to align as described in the manual and contacts made within minutes (G to 9A, 1250 miles with 2 watts and a dipole). Output power is 2 watts on both rigs. The receivers have a sharp passband and working stations is easy. I can recommend the SST and congratulate Wilderness for a superb package. Great! A very good 5.

Best Wishes - Mark (October 2002)
DJ5CW Rating: 2002-01-02
This radio rocks Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The SST 40 was one of my first QRP-Radios I built and after a little ´modification (the VXO range is unsuitable for EU, so I took a 2nd XTAL in the VXO, parallel to the original one which widened the WXO-range by several khz), I really enjoyed it. It's been used in real /p - Operation successfully but it's also a fun to operate it from home. Compared with my FT-890 the receivers performance is really great and I especially like the full QSK feature which can hardly be found at any of the modern solid state RIG's (most rigs have qsk that works well up to ca. 20 wpm, but for those who like it fast, the SST makes excellent QSK even at 60 wpm ..).
Now i consider buying a second SST for 20m for /m operation on the bike (don't have a drivers license ;) ...

K7FD Rating: 2001-09-17
Oh What Fun! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I finished building my second SST last month, this time for 30 meters. After 28 straight days of QSO's (83 so far), including Germany and Finland, I must say this rig is the most fun per dollar of any rig in the shack. The receiver is hotter than a firecracker...super quiet and very sensitive. The 'SST Thirty' is the pride & joy at K7FD:

http://home.teleport.com/~cqdx/sst.htm

Up next, a 40m SST!

73, John K7FD
WB7QQR Rating: 2001-05-11
Simple quality Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This was my 3rd electronic kit since I was a teen in the 70's. Definitely easier than expected. Smoke test revealed that I had cheap headsets yielding low volume. With that remedied I found the sensitivity to be very nice. Weak sigs are picked out of the noise well. On xmt I got some clicking with the key, but that was easily fixed with a resistor. First qso's (from So. Cal) were TX, then OH, and AK. Since this was my first QRP rig I can't really compare it to others, so I'll just say that it was great fun to build, and has really spurred my interest in building more. Now that it is finished the KC-1 keyer/freq counter is in the mail.
NJ3K Rating: 2000-12-31
Great Radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Santa gave me one for Christmas, and I was able to get it together on 12/30/00. I put the KC1 in and it makes a great radio. I had one problem, with a background tone when keying. A phone call latter and a connection to the mute line took care of that. I plan on using the radio not only here at home but also camping and from motel rooms. I have not come up with a good antenna for a motel room yet? The construction was very straight forward. The parts and PC board are tops. I would recomend this radio to anyone who wants to try portable QRP work. Mine is on 40 meters. The audio is fine and the RF gain is great.
K8NY Rating: 2000-12-28
SST _ Super Sophisticated Transceiver Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
A very high quality, easy to assemble kit that works!
I was able to construct the kit in 5 hours, spanning 2 evenings. Finished last night. Peaked up the receiver and was keying the transmitter with two pieces of wire on 14.060 when I decided to call CQ very briefly. I jumped out of my chair when Tom, N5TW(QRP)in Texas, answered me! After turning the beam on him, we were both 599.
The kit includes everything, construction is simple (just ensure you have a low wattage, small tip pencil iron), the components and PCB are high quality and the instructions are right on.
The receiver signal quality is unbelievable (just like the big boys), a very selective crystal filter helps with QRM, reduces noise and helps pull out weak sigs. The transmitter produced 2.5 watts of power with 13.25 VDC applied.
I connected my old Ham Keyer today and now I can use my paddles.
If you're looking to get into QRP, this rig gets you there quickly and inexpensively.
PS - Made about ten more contacts today, all great signal reports!
EI2IF Rating: 2000-11-06
SST SIMPLICITY ITSELF Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is the easiest kit I have ever come across to build . Everything is easy about it and
it took me 5 hours to build and I worked 2 G stations from Ei on my first cq call .
There are a few coils to wind and they are really the easiest part of the whole project .
My rig tuned from 7.032 to 7.039 so I got an inductor ( with emailed instructions from
qrp Bob ) and hey presto it now tunes from 7.023 to 7.035 . Just perfect for
our European frequencies .
I would highly recommend this kit as being Simplicity Itself .
KC4TXR Rating: 2000-04-21
Great Radio!! Just a BLAST to use, super receiver Time Owned: unknown months.
I put together the 20 meter version in about 4 hours... worked perfectly! Filter bandwidth and sensitivity is just right for QRP. Mine puts out 2.5W but I've throttled it back to 1.5W. Added a mini speaker and whipped up a DC-DC converter using the National Semi LM2621 along with 4 AAA batteries. It all fits inside and I get about 6 hours of battery life. High quality board, components, case and manual. Top notch rig!