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Reviews For: Oak Hills Research DD-1 Digital Display

Category: Ham Radio Kits

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Review Summary For : Oak Hills Research DD-1 Digital Display
Reviews: 10MSRP: 100 plus shipping (Mar 2010)
Description:
Six digit programmable frequency counter which can be used as a digital display on any transceiver.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.ohr.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00104.7
VE3JMX Rating: 2017-03-27
Works well Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The kit is well organised and similar to Heathkits. The kit was short one resistor so not a big deal and I resorted to my stock supply but I guess if you didn't have access to a source of parts it would be very frustrating.

Easy to build and it worked immediately with no issues and it's currently plugged into my 509 Argonaut but I suspect it will see service in my Heathkit transceivers and maybe my FT-101.
YS1RS Rating: 2017-03-12
Excellent product! Solved my HW-9 problem. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Built and installed my DD-1 by the recommendation from NG9D, the first reviewer of this product. Also followed the video from EA5BLP on how he installed this kit on his HW-9. Well, I installed it on my old Heathkit HW-9 QRP transceiver that has the original HWA-9 WARC bands upgrade installed. It is an excellent rig, but as you know the analog dial is not completely accurate and while the transceiver is warming up frequency moves a little too. The HW-9 only works the first 250 Khz of each band and the dial is marked from 0 to 250, so you need to add the number shown on the dial to the band starting frequency to have an idea which frequency you are on. Easy on all bands except for 17 and 12 meters that start on 18.068 and 24.890 respectively.
The DD-1 solved all my problems at once cause I now have a direct reading classic rig. It takes 12VDC from my shack central power, can be used on different radios as is configurable and if needed can be removed easily.
Recommend it with my eyes closed.
73, Rob
YS1RS
KM4IXK Rating: 2015-06-28
Works great. Went together well. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've purchased several OHR kits including this one. My whole rig is OHR kits and I'm very pleased with them.

The soldering can be a bit tricky with this one because the solder points are quite close together but if you have a sharp soldering iron tip and take your time it's a pretty easy kit to build.

I didn't have any fancy test equipment or a frequency reference so I had to get inventive with a raspberry pi, a SDR, and the w1aw bulletins to align the counter. I've since bought a bitscope micro and it turns out I got well within the 100hz of accuracy the counter supports using the above tools to align the counter with. Actualy much closer to 10hz accuracy because the 100hz frequency increases properly when changing frequency from xxxx.x4 to xxxx.x5.

Also, the company is a pleasure to work with. When I had questions, they were there to help.






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Earlier 5-star review posted by KM4IXK on 2015-06-28

I bought the 40m version of this radio. It is my first radio. Not my first kit.. My first radio.

I've built other electronic kits before and this one was a little advanced but I took my time with it and it went together well. There was a problem with some of the supplied chips but they sent me new ones and Marshall Emm is a wonderful person to work with.

So the radio is on the air and I've been using it for several months. So far my longest contact is 4460 miles to france! WOW.

I'm running mine on a car battery. 12.8v gives me 5w. I'm almost never at 12.8v on the battery so my output is usually closer to 4w most days (11.8-12.3v)

The only complaint I have about this radio is.. When I'm answer someone's CQ call I've probably already looked at their QRZ page and saw something interesting about this person that I wanted to chat about but most people only want to talk about this wonderful little radio that is giving a 599 report 1000 miles away on only 4 watts.

K4JPN Rating: 2014-05-16
Great Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Built one many years ago for my OHR-100A, I liked it so much I built another for my HW-8, with the HW-8 it made operating a pleasure. I came up with a simple interface for use with the HW-8 which can be found at http://www.thewinstonator.com/images/PDF%20Files/hw8counter.pdf
WA4FOM Rating: 2014-05-16
Nice little kit and display Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This kit is great for a beginner who may want
some practice before diving into, say, an
Elecraft K2. Mine went together without
incident and has been functioning nicely
ever since.
WB3T Rating: 2014-05-16
No more OHR for me. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I can't believe OHR charges $10 if you misplace your manual. Everybody else's are online. Also, mine came with a bad DC cable/plug assembly. It was replaced, but with another bad one. Then OHR wanted me to spring for return shipping and instructed me NOT to simply put it in an envelope forst class, but to send it Priority, so they could get a refund from the vendor. That would mean I'd spend $6.50 so OHR could get a $1.00 refund. (allelectronics.com has this same plug/cable for $1.00).
KG4LLQ Rating: 2014-01-20
The DD-1 is Great Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I put my DD-1 together & calibrated it in 2 1/2 nights (I'm 67 years old & my eyesight isn't what it use to be). Then I aligned & set it up with my OHR-100a (40 meters). This is a fantastic kit and an essential shack accessory. The folks at Oak Hills Research and the quality of their products are the best. Now my DD-1's job is to align my trusty old HW-8.
72, Ken
WB0FDJ Rating: 2014-01-01
A great accessory Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I do a lot of QRP operating. My main rig is an Argonaut 509 and for casual operating it's still a wonderful radio. But it's really tough to know, with any accuracy, what frequency you are operating. After a lot of homework I ordered the DD-1 Digital Dial from OHR. This a great kit. It arrived quickly. All the parts were there. The instructions are very clear and it went together without a hitch and comes with an attractive enclosure.

I tapped the output of the oscillator subassembly with a 47 pF cap, ran a short piece of coax out through the bottom of the rig and soldered on a phono plug. The DD-1 plugs in to sample the LO frequency and memory channels will add or subtact the IF freq. (If you already have an OHR radio, the phono plug is built in). I like to sit on the QRP watering holes and this lets me be spot on.

For those of us who regularly use these older rigs this is a great accessory. I would highly recommend it.
AA4K Rating: 2011-01-21
Excellent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Like all ohr kits, DD-1 is great. It is easy to assemble, but I don't think a first time kit builder should attempt this one because of the narrow spacing between solder pads. I have a 20M OHR100A with the 10 turn pot, OHR WM-2, and now the DD-1. They are an excellent combination. I had a little problem with missing parts but this was quickly corrected.





NG9D Rating: 2010-04-03
Great Accessory for Analog Rigs Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Building this kit, wiring VFO connections in four Ten-Tec QRP radios and programming DD-1 took about a day. There was only one part that OHR was short (2N3904) and they offered to send it to me, but I lucked out and found one in my spare parts bin in the meantime.

The instructions are clear. Voltage checks are provided before inserting the integrated circuit chips into the sockets and final adjustment and assembly. Fit and finish is great.

The DD-1 has five programmable memory channels so you can use it with various different radio intermediate frequencies. For example, my four Ten-Tec QRP rigs all have differing intermediate frequencies (some with reverse counting). I show this in a demonstration video at
http://www.youtube.com/user/NG9D#p/u/6/AZUJlJUJDxI
The offsets are push-button selectable from the front panel.

You can set it for either 100 Hz or 1 kHz resolution and for a digit blanking battery saving mode that comes to life when the frequency changes. The anti-jitter code works.

The unit is supposed to work up to 50 MHz. I have used it from 3.5 to 14 MHz and it works fine for me, without introducing any noticeable noise into my Ten-Tec T1300 series QRP transceivers.

73 de NG9D