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Reviews For: Hendricks BITX20A SSB Transceiver Kit

Category: QRP Radios (5 watts or less)

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Review Summary For : Hendricks BITX20A SSB Transceiver Kit
Reviews: 14MSRP: 82
Description:
The BitX20A is a board and parts only kit that is based on the BitX20 designed by Ashar Farhan. Dan Tayloe, Jim Kortge and Arv Evans designed a pcb version was stable and would meet United States F.C.C. Specs. The Hendricks kit includes a commercial quality, plated through, silkscreened, solder masked board, all board mounted parts, the polyvaricon main tuning capacitor, and dual IRF510's as finals in a push-pull arrangement.

This radio puts out about 10 watts PEP of clean SSB, has sub 1 uV sensitivity, and a 4 pole crystal filter.
Product is in production
More Info: http://qrpkits.com/bitx20a.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00144.4
G0EBQ Rating: 2008-01-26
Bargain Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Thoroughly recommended.Worked all round Europe in a couple of hours with just an indoor antenna.Receiver is superb.
Do be careful though when you adjust the tx pots especially the drive,they are very sharp.
Great fun,proper radio and a bargain especially for European hams.

Nigel G0EBQ
KD7QGS Rating: 2008-01-04
A Great Educational Kit Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My kit arrived on December 29th. I had not downloaded the manual, and was surprised how small the box was. After reviewing the contents of the kit, and reading thru the documentation I have come to several conclusions. In my lifetime I have built many kits. From a Heathkit GW-12 in 1963 to a K2 in 2006. Those kits came with everything you would need to get on the air (for the exeption of a Mic on the K2). This kit is the bare bones of the essential radio. You need to supply the Microphone, Speaker, Chasis, a digital frequency counter, etc. What this kit makes you do is to learn how a QRP rig is built, and how it works. There is no description of how each circuit works in the kit documentation, but there is lots of info on Yahoo in the discussion group including videos. I suggest this kit for any Licensed operator that wants to learn radio theory, enjoys researching data, and enjoys building electronics. Jeff KD7QGS
M0WYM Rating: 2007-11-30
The Kit Kicks :) Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Warning: This review is entirely subjective and is limited to the kit and the receive section of the transceiver (I will return when I have the TX up and running).

First of all the kit: My kit was something like number 150 of the first 200 and assembly instructions were evolving as the kit wended it's way across the Atlantic to Southampton, England. (As an aside, this kit is a fantastic bargain for anyone in Europe but particularly the UK due to the low dollar.)

My kit arrived in a box not much larger in area than the PCB and my first reaction was one of pleasure. The PCB is very well made, the components of good quality and gave me an impression of professionalism.

The contruction manual is downloaded from Hendricks as a PDF file and it is well worth printing out. Each stage is clearly defined with tick boxes for each component and simple function tests performed as one goes long.

Before assembling the PA I decided to hook up the external components for the VFO and get the receiver up and running. I found my obligatory component errors and then the RX was up and running on 20m after I had taken some 4 turns off the VFO coil. Quite honestly I was bowled over by the sensitivity of the RX and after adjusting the BFO and balanced mixer (by ear) did some comparision tests against my Icom IC703 with it's DSP off.

The 20A is very sensitive and any station that I could resolve on the 703 I could also resolve on 20A. The xtal filter seemed to be comparable with that in the Icom. My XYL stated that she found that stations on the 20A were 'much easier to understand'. (This seems to be due to the 20A having more 'top' which helps it cut through the QRM.)By the way, the LM386 output IC happily drives a 4 inch 4 ohm loudspeaker.

Drawbacks? The obvious one is AGC and I will be adding some form to the 20A. It's a valuable lesson in how much we take AGC for granted and in how much QSB there really is! There are other things 'missing' such as Frequency display, S meter, etc, but they do not detract from the fact that this is a very good receiver!

Finally, who is the kit for? In my case, it has been some twenty years since I have been involved in electronics professionally and a year since I had come back to Amateur Radio after a 40 year hiatus! After all that time I have found the process of building the kit empowering and know that I will go on to construct other projects. (I suspect that I will become more of a builder than operator!) I would say that it is not a kit for someone who is new to the hobby or unfamiliar with electronic construction. However, it would make a great group or club project and there is lots of support and knowledge in the BITX20 Yahoo group.

It's a great feeling to turn around and see the RX on the bench and realize that I built that! Finally, I would like to give a big thank you to all the people involved in the development of this radio and the genorosity of spirit that makes this a fine example of Amateur Rdaio 'open source'.


Charlie.
M0WYM


Charlie.
M0WYM
VU2UKR Rating: 2007-11-27
Hat's off VU3ICQ - For the Transceiver Design Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is a General Review of BITX.

The transceiver "design" by Ashar Farhan VU3ICQ is Simply Superb.

It's just the begining of a New Revolution in the field of Amateur Radio Qrp Communications.

The Quality of the Transmitted Signals are real good. I happened to have had contacts with stations using BITX on 20 meter Band.

There is more room for Add-On's, that's left to the homebrewer as such, the Core Radio is simply Superb.

Great Job Farhan [ VU3ICQ ].

73
Sunil.U.K
VU2UKR /New Delhi - India