I have been doing POTA activations for a few years now. its great fun and encourages us amateur radio operators to develop off-grid communications systems. If you haven’t heard of POTA, its a somewhat new thing in the world of ham radio. The best thing you can do is go to their website to get the whole scoop. Its parksontheair.com.
So in planning a vacation with my daughter, I wanted to do POTA activations however there wasn’t going to be any room for my regular POTA gear. This “required” me to look into a new rig. Lo and behold, i stumbled on to QRP-Labs’ QCX-mini transceiver. Man is it tiny! It measures 3 3/4″ x 2 1/2′ x 1 3/4″. Don’t let the size fool you, this thing packed with all kinds of features!
The QCX-Mini Features
- Easy to build, two-board design, (if you are an experienced builder) board with main circuit and connectors, display panel board with LCD; all-controls board-mounted on a press-out sub-board. No wiring, all controls and connectors are board-mounted.
- Professional quality double-sided, through-hole plated, silk-screen printed PCBs
- Choice of single band, 80, 60, 40, 30, 20 or 17m
- Approximately 3-5W CW output (depending on supply voltage)
- 7-14V recommended supply voltage
- Class E power amplifier, transistors run cool…
- 7-element Low Pass Filter ensures regulatory compliance
- CW envelope shaping to remove key clicks
- High performance receiver with at least 50dB of unwanted sideband cancellation
- 200Hz CW filter with no ringing
- Si5351A Synthesized VFO with rotary encoder tuning
- 16 x 2 yellow/green LCD screen
- Iambic keyer or straight key option included in the firmware
- Simple Digital Signal Processing assisted CW decoder, displayed real-time on-screen
- On-screen S-meter
- On-screen real time clock (not battery backed up)
- Full or semi QSK operation using fast solid-state transmit/receive switching
- Frequency presets, VFO A/B Split operation, RIT, configurable CW Offset
- Configurable sidetone frequency and volume
- Connectors: 2.1mm power barrel connector, 3.5mm keyer jack, 3.5mm stereo earphone jack, 3.5mm stereo jack for PTT, 3.5mm stereo jack for CAT control, BNC RF output
- Built-in test signal generator and alignment tools to complete simple set-up adjustments
- Built-in test equipment: voltmeter, RF power meter, frequency counter, signal generator
- Beacon mode, supporting automatic CW, FSKCW or WSPR operation
- GPS interface for reference frequency calibration and time-keeping (for WSPR beacon)
- CAT control interface
- Optional 50W PA kit
- Optional aluminium extruded cut/drilled/laser-etched black anodized enclosure