Today, I finally got my QRP Labs QMX transceiver on the air, making my first contact with AB9CA, Dave, at park US-2259 in Indiana.
The QMX is a five-band QRP transceiver. It supports CW, or single-tone digital modes (like FT8). When running off a 10.8 volt battery pack, it produced 4.3 watts out on the 20 meter band.
The kit is priced at $95 for the 80/60/40/30/20 version (what I have), or $105 for the 20/17/15/12/10 version. A very nice metal case sells for $20.
For those of you that dislike winding toroids (like me), be aware that this kit has a bunch since it is 5-bands. There are 7 toroids to be wound, as well as two binocular cores. Some of them are multi-tapped. Plus this is a pretty tight assembly. The good news is most of the components are surface mount and already installed.
The QMX is about the size of a pack of playing cards. It is hooked up to a dummy load and one of my paddles for testing.
Be aware that it does not have an internal tuner. SWR protection has been added to recent versions to avoid blowing out the finals. Because of this, I was unable to tune my Elecraft T1 Automatic Antenna Tuner, until I inserted a 6 dB attenuator in the output of the rig. With that attenuator in place, the rig sees a SWR of less than 1.5:1 no matter what the load is.
Hey Bob,
Just passing through again.. How ya doing?
I got a QDX going the end of 2022 – got to do some debugging to find a design deficiency in the receiver – you got the benefit of that — enjoy! ;). I like the QDX just fine and have been thinking about getting a QMX to add CW to a single box. Sometimes I leave the FrankenQDX running overnight on 20M WSPR — about 250mW into the coax, It’s a real trip to see what it can do. Give it a try sometime with your QMX.