Sunday, Dec. 8, 2019, midnight — For the last few nights I’ve been using a little QRP transceiver I picked up a year or so ago, its the Chinese RS-918 HF SDR transceiver, which is a clone of a kit project created by M0NCK.
Make no mistakes about it — the Chinese either duplicated or reverse-engineered M0NCK’s work, and mulitple vendors now sell clones of his original transceiver. Is it fair? Not really. But I couldn’t build the kit version and just don’t have the time or eyesight to try it.
So I didn’t mind springing for a Chinese clone, given the success many of the users are having.
MY EXPERIENCE. I really like this transceiver. It has features that “bigger” radios (i.e., my Yaesu FTDX-3000) have in such a small package.
I haven’t made the first contact with mine, but I have done a great deal of evening monitoring with the rig. The tiny built-in speaker is indeed tinny sounding, but thru headphones the audio rivals most more expensive HF rigs.
Why no contacts? For starters, I’ve jury-rigged the antenna cabling because the rig employs a BNC output, and my concern is frying the finals with an intermittent antenna connection during transmit. If I can find a BNC adapter I’ll put the rig on the air sooner; I have some parts on order that should arrive this week.
I’m interested in digital and CW on this rig, though I’m not sure 10 watts is going to get me thru to my 80 meter CW net. But a variety of digital modes are ideal for QRP, so we’ll see how it goes.
BAND CONDITIONS. The conditions on 80 meters CW is noticably improved of late, and I’ve been successful most nights when I check in to the Georgia CW net. Nice to hear the improvement, too.
I’ll report back when I get the transmitter online, we’ll see how well 10 or 15 watts does.
73 es CUL de KY4Z SK SK …. dit dit