Ham Radio Help Desk

Last fall I purchased a QRPKits.com DC40A QRP transceiver. At around $40 it is a no brainer purchase for any kit builder attempting to keep in practice. I really wanted to try an Elecraft, but budgets are budgets. I have my main rig now so I finally decided to take the built and tested DC40A board and house it. During testing I soldered a piece of coax straight to the antenna points on the board. The center conductor broke at the board pretty quick. I was motivated to tie that antenna signal to a bulkhead BNC.

I have several of the peanut cans around so we washed one up, laid out a plan of installation and wound up with this single channel QRP transceiver…

QRP in a Peanut Can - Batteries Included

It’s no Altoids Transceiver, but I like it fine. Here is a view of the installation…

Inside the QRPeanut Transceiver

Yes I will replace those two wires with a piece of coax.

The only thing I have to finalize is why the transmitter shifts frequency just a little after the initial dot or dash. It is all part of the fun.

Parts include:

• Bulkhead Solder BNC Connector – Digikey
• Eight AA Cell holder – Radio Shack
• Switch SPST – Radio Shack
• Nylon Board Spacers and Hardware – Digikey
• Drill bit to extend the red switch out of the lid – temporary I promise
• Can of Harris Teeter Select Super Extra Large Peanuts

My kid will use this to learn code using a 100 foot piece of wire out his bedroom window and an old Heathkit low power antenna tuner I had laying around.

Tags: can, dc40a