| CT1HIX |
Rating:      |
2019-10-01 | |
| Fantastic Transceiver kit |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
It's a fantastic transceiver! Do not forget that it only costs about 50 €. It needs some experience and a good soldering iron to assemble it. The assembly instruction manual is excellent. You do not need any equipment to align or test it. I had a problem with LPF, a faulty capacitor, Hans gave me all the help I needed and sent me the replacement material. These things happen ...
Thank you Hans |
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| K4EES |
Rating:      |
2019-03-19 | |
| Excellent piece of equipment |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| This was my first radio build and I've built 2 of them for 40 Meters. The kits are very well documented and there is great support on a groups.io forum. The build is relatively easy, but you do have to wind torroids. This will get you over your initial fear after you've built your first kit. The first one took 2 evenings. The 2nd one was complete at one sitting. Lots of features including everything needed for alignment. Does NOT come with a case, but there are several options available. Does not come with an antenna (which I suspect is standard). I bought and use the QRP Guys UnUnAntenna and sometimes a random wire using 4-States QRP Antenna Tuner. Highly recommend. |
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| IT9AHH |
Rating:      |
2019-03-16 | |
| qcx 60 mt |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Fine piece of gear!
Solid as rock stabilty, vy good operating feeling after a bit of settings manual readings, very intuitive user interface too.
Some little troubles with my 3.5mm paddle jack, then fastly solved with another jack.
Some lost first digit whit keyer iambic on A, but cured by setting on the B iambic mode.
I'm only cw op...so always desabled the on screen cw translator...;;))...but...vy interesting optional on a only 49$ rig..
Ok here we come...well done Hans...vy gud job from yuo and your staff.
Now i'm planning to buy the 30 mt qcx and also to sell the ftdx3000...for sure the qcx is a true cw radio. |
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| KD8CGH |
Rating:      |
2019-03-15 | |
| Good performance, great value |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I built and operated the 40 meter version. I have also built an Elecraft K2 and KX1, hfsignals BITX40 and uBITX and a QRP LABS Ultimate 3S.
The performance of the QCX is very good and great for this price point. The build is well documented. I'm 70 and I wound the toroids with no problems. No mods are required, it just works. My only change was to use a standard coaxial power connector and I 3D printed a case.
Elecraft rigs deliver on performance promises at a premium price and then offer mods as options for continuous improvement.
In comparison the uBITX not only invites mods, but requires them to meet US regs, eliminate pop, operate in CW, have AGC, ... Great fun if you understand what your getting into, could be a nightmare if you're expecting an Elecraft type kit for 1/10 the cost. |
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| GM0HUU |
Rating:      |
2019-01-24 | |
| So good, I bought another one |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Since my initial review, I have used my 20m QCX for a SOTA activation. It worked just fine. I was able to work every station I could hear calling me.
I also bought another QCX kit at the end of last year which I recently finished constructing for 40m. Initially, it was outputting 10W on a 12V supply. Worried this was too much for the PA, I just squeezed the turns on the x3 toroids in the low pass filter and this brought it down to 5W.
There have been a few minor changes to the kit since the first one I built (e.g. C21 and C22 10uF electrolytic capacitors are replaced with 1uF ceramics to improve sidetone on TX).
Very happy with both QCX kits. On 40m CW the RX is amazing - very good sensitivity, very good S/N and surprisingly good rejection for a DC receiver. Most of the time the QCX rx on 40m sounds better than my Flex-1500 or Yaesu FT-2000. Yes, I am being serious.
Considering building a 3rd one now. Just have to choose which band!
Still 5 stars from me.
Hans Summers, the designer, puts a lot of work into reviewing feedback from constructors and providing help with any problems or questions. On top of all this, he has been developing the QSX kit. This is a transceiver along same lines as QCX but is capable of SSB/CW on 10 bands with 10W output. If this goes into production, I will be one of the first customers ordering one.
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Earlier 5-star review posted by GM0HUU on 2018-07-08
Big thanks to Hans for producing these kits.
I bought one for 20m band at the GQRP stand at a recent radio rally. I was aware of the kit that had been designed for YOTA but didn't realise just how high spec. this little single band CW transceiver was until my friends at the stand explained what it did. Couldn't believe it would do all these things at the price!
Construction was greatly helped by the superb manual. Though, as other reviewer suggested, printing it in colour and binding it in some way is a good idea. A decent temperature controlled fine point soldering iron was also a great help. Winding the toroids I didn't find too bad - and the supplementary drawing in the manual was spot on. The quality of the PCB and components in general is excellent.
The RX is nice and quiet but sensitive, 200Hz filter works a treat and it sounds sweet on TX. TX power does vary with supply voltage as per manual. I am getting about 3W out with 12V supply. With my TX power down to 1W, managed to work JA station using a simple 20m delta loop antenna. Haven't tried out all the features yet (E.g. CW beacon and WSPR Tx). However, very surprised at how capable the CW decoder is and features like split VFO and CW message memories are easy to use.
It even has built in test facilities to help you align it. You can build and align it without having to have a scope or signal generator. Though, I did find it useful to have a DVM and capacitance meter during construction to double check resistor and capacitor values, you could even get by without these.
I have put mine in an Eddistone diecast enclosure. I panel mounted the gain potentiometer and the tuning encoder. I also panel mounted alternative switches and phone/key sockets. The only slight "mod" I made was to bolt the 7805 5V regulator to the metal case (felt it was running a little hot).
Now have the aim of trying out my QCX-20 on a SOTA activation soon. It is smaller and lighter than my FT-817. So, if you don't mind being constrained to single band and CW, it makes for a very lightweight and compact QRP/P rig.
Already thinking I might get another one for maybe 40 or 30m.
Don't be fooled by the price - this is not a toy! |
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| WA5RR |
Rating:      |
2018-11-04 | |
| A+ for A1 Operators |
Time Owned: N.A. |
I built my QCX-20 kit about 6 months ago and made a few test contacts to verify proper operation. It took its place on the shelf for a few months.
So, ARRL Sweepstakes CW was approaching and I decided to do a QRP effort this year. About 8 years ago, I used a YouKits QRP radio to take #1 in NNY so I wanted to give it a go from my home in NTX.
My antennas were in poor repair so I threw up my portable end-fed antenna with a short counterpoise. The radio sprung to life with plenty of stations to work on 20m.
The 200-hz AF filter is just the right bandwidth since I normally run 250-hz on my 100-watt rig. Close-in signal performance is very good and even beats my Kenwood TS-480.
My only complaint, and shouldn't be one at this price, is the lack of AGC. A loud station can really beat your ears up. I have mitigated this issue by building a small amplified speaker box and use it instead of headphones in most cases.
This is a great and easy-to-build rig that works very well! |
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| SP2SWR |
Rating:      |
2018-09-25 | |
| Great CW trainer |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have other radios- TS-480, TS-590, TS-2000, KX3...but I have decided to spend some time to get QCX assembled and worked. All that effort for one reason. I chose a single band CW only, little QRP transceiver kit in order to raise my CW skills. And I worked. If you have SSB radio on hand, other bands, and all that bells whistles you more likely go of CW training. If you have only one CW band you are actually trapped.
Amazing low noise RX. |
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| K2IZ |
Rating:      |
2018-04-23 | |
| Well worth the cost and time spent |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| I happen to see one of the first ads for this kit, I put my order in and waited for kit#464/40 meters to arrive. I kept current on several mods and suggestions, replaced the final with a ZTX550, powered up and everything worked, ordered another kit for 40, this one I wanted to put in a case, kit 3552 arrived and I started the build, couple of parts different but not a major problem, Amazon has caps and resistors, the biggest problem was making the adjustments, turned out R27 was defective, hey this happens, ordered a replacement and everything worked, this one I put in a plastic case, there are a lot of cases that other builders have used. As everyone else has said TAKE YOUR TIME, CHECK THE PARTS AND PLACEMENT ON THE BOARD, CHECK YOUR SOLDERING AND HOW YOU WIND THE COILS. There is no prize for how fast you can complete the kit, other than major head aches. The CW filter is very narrow, no ringing and takes care of near by loud signals, several stations have commented on how good the keying sounds. Our club is looking forward to taking the cased radio out on QRP operating. |
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| K3MD |
Rating:      |
2018-04-03 | |
| Very nice kit |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have built 3 of these. The first had a problem with low output, and, in rewinding the low pass output toroids, I made an open connection, which blew the main IC and some other IC's. The second was easier to assemble, took 8 hours instead of 20, worked very well. Take care to check the impedance of the output toroids with your antenna meter. The third I made for 20M. Output is 2 to 7 W, depending on supply voltage. The third I built for 20M instead of 40M.
The unit is extremely feature-rich, with SDR DDC design, built-in alignment signal generator, easy-to-use contest keyer, code reader for receive and send, output meter, battery indicator, s-meter, beacon mode, provision for hookup to GPS frequency standard, and the like.
I have written a more comprehensive review for QRP Quarterly. Make certain you have a jeweler's loupe and a helping hands jig, as well as perhaps head-mounted magnifying glasses.
The next project is to get them in an enclosure for travelling or hiking.
It is impossible to go wrong with this kit! |
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| K5AX |
Rating:      |
2018-03-30 | |
| Remarkable Receiver |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Enjoyed all the nice reviews you have written and posted here. I bought the 40M version. Took my time assembling it. I bought IC Sockets for all the ICs. It works great. Puts out 4.8W with about 14.5V (Fluke 87 Cal Lab Cert expired in 2016).
The only concern I had was the T1 38T Primary did not fit on the toroid, so I wound it with slightly smaller wire. It peaks with about a 10% overlap of variable capacitor plates. I could adjust the turns on the S3 winding, but did not mess with it. The receiver is absolutely "crazy good"!
I wish it had a little more sidetone volume (I use a speaker). |
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