| ZS1FSX |
Rating:  |
2025-01-04 | |
| best HAM learning curve |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
This is based on the (tr)uSDX in the capacity of which it was intended as collaborative Group buy.
I tried to geta Group buy going but failed so ended up buying one, and then built an individually purchased one as well as built the Classic RF Boards.
In the Group buy option with 50 others each transceiver excluding 3d printed case would have cost under £47 in 2022 at your door for your to build.
Where the real magic/satisfaction comes, is in the building your own transceiver. Ive had so much enjoyment out the build Im going to buy another kit 2 years later maybe even try to geta group buy going again.
The learning curve is steep for the average Amateur Radio Ham, and building your own with a NanoVNA (or better) and decent soldering iron as an absolute eye opener but completely within the realm of anyone patient and follow the instructions. But afterwards you'll have gained a significant amount of knowledge far more than any other learning input Ive come across.
So here's the bottom line - it weighs under 160grams (5.6oz) Its output varies based on tuning efficiency and input power, with a max of about 15v giving nearly 7W and 12v giving 4w SSB, has a built in Microphone which is pretty good and is a 5 Band transceiver with the option for these interchangeable RF boards:
Lo 80-60-40-30-20
Classic 80-40-20-15-10
Hi 20-17-15-12-10
You need to make sure the SWR is very Low otherwise you'll blow the finals especially running at the 13.8V+15% max tolerance - (Ive taped extra finals inside my case for the Classic RF board)
Yes you can use the onboard speaker, and the audio quality is poor. Youre much better off using an external speaker or headphones and the audio is quite good. Ive adapted a Baofeng near speaker mic to fit the trusts and it works brilliantly.
The Rig is optimised for CW and produces a crisp CW signal on RX, Ive not uploaded the latest firmware where the CW decode I believe has improved.
Im not a contester so figured Id get the (tr)uSDX out and make the contesters work for their points and video'd it Have a listen.
https://youtu.be/Sla1OFh46oA?feature=shared
What the rig does is offer a back up transceiver to your backup can literally fit in a shirt top pocket and just be with you anywhere. I built a 1/4wave ground plane for 14mhz from 24AWG wire and a BNC banana pole, hung it off a tree and had a Transatlantic QSO on 4w - I dont think N2JE will ever comprehend how awesome that QSO was for me but 5,586 kilometres SSB was one of my favourite QSO's ever.
PE1NNZ has done an indcridble job with this transceiver and DL2MAn has been enthusiastic in ensuring that the project doesn't get commercialised by people offering poor quality builds: Only buy a pre-built rig from the www.dl2man.de approved vendor list, but that's missing the point of the rig: its enormous fun and will have you laughing with what it does |
|
| ROBERT27329 |
Rating: |
2023-12-31 | |
| Disappointed |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
The Good: Nice packaging, display and board design.
The Bad: Terrible speaker, no side tone, flaky CW (receive on LSB/USB then switch to CW mode then nothing) no support, attempting to register to forum fails, SSB is totally unreadable, goes into menu mode with no warning, no volumn and often has unexpected birdies.
I was hoping for something better. |
|
| DJ1WF |
Rating: |
2023-11-22 | |
| Tiny lightweight low power consuming device for portable use |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I am a just an SSB user and will leave some words to the SSB performance of this little rig.
First of all...it is no TRX which can replace a 1000 + x $ transceiver, but as a tiny lightweight portable device for being QRV from anywhere it is perfect. The power consumption ist low even in transmit mode, and so you can have a lot of fun for a long time even using a small battery. The receiver performance and the sensitivity is ok, and I did not notice any overload effects with my portable antennas I have used until now. The RX audio is weak, especially in a noisy environment the internal speaker is unusable and an in ear headphone is recommended.
A little con ist the SSB TX audio quality. The hardware the (tr)USDX is running on is very limited, and it is a miracle how the developers succeeded to make it SSB capable with a piece of software even if the hardware is so weak. For that reason the result is not perfect. The hardware is able to digitize audio frequencies up to 2.4kHz, not more. Frequencies above cause aliasing effects, which means, frequencies above are folded back around the 2.4kHz point and cause wrong parts in the TX audio spectrum. That's one reason for the limited quality. The other point is, the SSB signal is generated using the Hilbert transform. The last amplifier stage is fed with a phase modulated signal, and the power supply is switched by pulse width modulation. So the PA works in switching mode which makes it so efficient. Depending on phase and amplitude of both components to each other, an USB or LSB signal comes out. This signal synthesis is not perfect, because the limited hardware cannot handle it in a perfect way. In combination with the aliasing effects the SSB TX signal sounds rough and distorted if it is heard back with a local receiver. But if you are in QRP mode on the bands, your signal strength at the partner station's receiver is low, and so the distortions and artefacts are covered by QRM and band noise in most cases. But if you amplify the signal up to 100 watts and more, the distortions become audible again. That's one of the reasons this tiny TRX cannot replace an expensive state of the art transceiver. But all in all, the TX audio is understandable, and that's the most important thing. I got many honest 5/9 reports when operating from several portable locations. So I am really impressed about this little radio, especially regarding the very limited hardware it is running on. And with an additional Homemande microphone preamplifier, which increases the frequencies slightly by 2.2 kHz, the modulation becomes significantly clearer and more pleasant-sounding. |
|
| E78CB |
Rating: |
2023-09-16 | |
| Gives more than it costs |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| Nice SDR rig from DL2MAN/PE1NNZ. The project was planned to be a basic digital but still useful rig, getting roots from QCX unit from QrpLabs , but it turned out to became more than decent and very popular unit for QRP work. It has many nice features. This version covers 80-20m bands, but I figured out it can also work on 17m and even 15m but with diminished characteristics on RX and TX. Being so small and with internal keyer it is now my main rig for hiking and portable operation. Sure, there are more capable and more quality ones with similar size factor out there, but concerning it's price, it is a very nice and capable "grab an go" unit. |
|
| W6SSP |
Rating: |
2023-06-13 | |
| Very capable CW transceiver |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I've been fascinated with HF receivers, their design and
tradeoffs for over 50 years and have a decent collection
of high performance tube and solid state receivers over
the years including R-390 series, Collns 51J and 75A,
SP-600, Racal RA-17, SX-28, ICOM R-9000 and others. So until
recently never had much interest in acquiring an SDR
receiver, or in this case transceiver despite using DSP
techniques as an engineer a few times and being curious
about SDR performance.
A friend gave me a dead (tr) uSDX a while ago and
was able to fix it (broken trace). And while comparing
it to any of the receivers mentioned above is not fair,
I was rather impressed with it. While it was not very
sensitive and had many internally generated spurs
(aka birdies), especially on 20m, other features made
up for these short comings.
Notably the DSP filters in CW mode. Other very useful
features include; 5 bands, CW/LSB/USB/AM/FM modes,
internal IAMBIC keyer/straight key option, SWR/power
meter, two types of S-meter, RIT, useful CW reader
and built in AGC. All in a package the size of a deck
of cards! Nifty.
This seems to be designed primarily as a CW rig and
it works quite well in that mode. I'm getting 3.8 watts
out into a dipole on 20m with a low SWR with 12.4vdc
supply which is apparently typical. It does not do
well into an open or short as I found out the hard way
but the FETs are easy to replace.
In SSB mode the receiver works quite well but transit is
another story. Rather distorted even with an external
mic.
Some have mentioned a high noise floor in the receiver.
I haven't noticed that but perhaps because I'm using
threaded metal spacers between the PC boards,
providing a much better ground.
Things that could have been done better; seemingly
random (at times) button entries. This can get rather
annoying when trying to navigate the menus which
I have found to be logical once you get accustomed to the layout.
The display is tiny but bright and well laid out with
all pertinent info right there. And can be configured
many ways.
To summarize, this beastie has me hooked on tiny
SDR/DSP transceivers and are a bargain in the $100
class. Very capable and with some patience many
contacts can be made. Although it looks like it in the
gaudy orange case (IMO), this is no toy. |
|
| W4PUO |
Rating: |
2023-05-07 | |
| easy assembly with youtube video. Still in work |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I bought after reading May QRP Quarterly article and assembled in one day. Winding 13 torroids took most of my time. I still need to add firmware to get it on the air. Power up with UMB went fine. I need to locate a power plug to fit 3.5mm 1.3 barrel.
Now two days later and all is complete including the beta firmware just offered by Manuel. Heard ssb and cw stations using my 14.2 dipole but need to learn more about menus before I get it on the air -- practice cw too.
Most fun I've had for $100 since the Air Force. Thanks to the gurus at DL2MAN and PE1NNZ |
|
| W4RKU |
Rating: |
2023-04-18 | |
| Cool little radio |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| It is an amazing radio for the price and size. Very pleased. Use with both CW and Dig and no real complaints. Audio isn't rich but not surprising. What is surprising is how well it works! |
|
| K9EX |
Rating: |
2023-02-28 | |
| Excellent QRP Value for POTA or Home Use |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
The (tr)uSDX QRP delivers in spades - especially for POTA activations. Yes, the receiver and speaker tend to overload a bit but you can typically lower the volume and you'll be fine (see Tip below).
The selectable rx bandwidths are a nice touch - you can use the wide open 4K bandwidth as sort of a "poor man's bandscope" in the sense that it will let you hear more signals when negotiating a POTA pileup. (Try that with a QCX+/Mini or other fixed-bandwidth QRP rig.)
Throw in 5 bands, ATT and NR, the very small form factor, a fairly usable built in speaker, SWR and PO meter settings (use PTT button with Straight key setting to check SWR/PO), plus SSB with built-in mic and this little marvel is delivering way beyond its price point.
FYI, my unit draws about 0.15 A on rx and just under 0.5 A on tx so even a small 3000 mA battery will power this rig and its +5W output well past the point where you're either too hot, your hands are frozen or you're just tired of that hard park bench!
Tip: To help prevent receiver overload, I have been turning the AGC off (menu 1.8) and increasing the default ATT2 setting (menu 1.11) from 2 to 4. This quiets the receiver and will let you increase the volume - then it's easier to throttle overloading signals with the volume control. I also typically set the rx bandwidth to 1.8 KHz as that setting seems to provide the least noise to my ears while still allowing for off frequency callers during POTA deployments. |
|
| NB4M |
Rating: |
2023-02-13 | |
| $100 of pure fun |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Is it quirky as mentioned in pervious reviews? That's not been in my experience (CW ONLY). It performs all five bands as advertised and does a good job at it. Although it's probably best when using earphones, the experienced operator will easily find the performance limits of this little jewel (as with any) and enjoy a quality QRP experience.
Is it worth the cost? That and more! It's as good or better than any other QRP rig out there. Have two of these now and pleased with both.
Is it small, cheap and QRP fun? Yes. |
|
| W7ASA |
Rating: |
2022-12-09 | |
| Pleasantly Surprised |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I saw this reviewed on my friends' YouTube channel and decided to buy one from the 'approved' vendor from the PRC. It arrived quickly and worked immediately, though I did calibrate the dial so that it would zerobeat on WWV.
I'm primarily a CW hound, but the ssb voice capability using the built-in front panel mike has been tested, when I was able to check-in to the Maritime Mobile Service Network, with good audio reports. For me though, CW is where this rig really shines. Filters are adjustable from 4 KHz down to 50 Hz bandwidth and that is useful for me. Being a general coverage receiver allows me to listen to shortwave broadcasts using a sideband in zerobeat with the station. Audio fidelity is communications grade, definately not HiFi; if this is a problem, moce-on beause this is not the radio for you. For a toss-in-the-bag and go to the beach rig, this is excellent at this pricepoint. It has 80 meters, which for me is a must. Night time regional comms are important to me.
A few cons:
1. The audio is somewhat unstable, in that if you increase volume above 11 or so, the rig produces a howling noise. If AF gain is kept below this threshold, no problem.
2. Like most modern small rigs, the menus are usually less than intuitive and this is no exception, the difference is that this rig is a fraction of the competing QRP and /p rigs in its price range. Once learned, the menu is not difficult at all to use.
So - small batteries (I use an 8x AA battery pack [ Eneloops]) will power this for a long time . See the specs and do the math - it's impressive.
If you're thinking of buying one, I encourage you to do it.
73 / 72 de Ray ..._ ._ |
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