It's "up"... Too bad Viaga couldn't have made it easier...

The other day, I finally got my little radio kit.

Before I went through winding the inductors, soldering, etc....

I did an inventory of all the parts, and ensured that they all fit into the holes drilled on the PCB. (Printed Circuit Board)

There were three holes that I had to clean up.

Then I went through and wound the inductors and the one transformer.

Winding inductors & transformers is actually pretty easy and calming.  People often tie flies to relax, so this is similar to me...  Although, I won't display them, I'll install and use them.

This radio has a double-sided circuit board, which meant that I had several of the parts that needed to be installed on bottom while all the others were on top.

With the "complexity" of construction, this was actually very easy to work on and relaxing to do...

You'd think I was winding this all up to be easy and fun...

Then came installing and putting together the case/enclosure..

HA!

I suppose I should've tried to put the case together first of all!

The holes of the front/back plates didn't match the holes of the top/bottom/sides.

Let me step back...

I didn't know they didn't fit at first...

Using a phillips screw driver to put things together wasn't just going to cut it...

The screw heads were threatening to strip out.

Since I was a PC builder from way back, I had a small peanut butter jar of PC screws.

The smaller M3 screws are the same as the screws that came with the kit.

As noted, using a phillips screw driver was going to strip the heads, so I used a socket to twist the screws in...

That wasn't enough!

I also had to go and get my metric taps, so that I could get a good starter hole going so that I could use the PC screws & socket wrench.

Let me recap a bit here...

I had all the soldering done in about 2 hours.  This I expected.

Working on the case... well..

It took me more than 2 additional hours to finish the case, and that's even wolfing down my dinner and going with Ellie's blessing so that I could finish things.

With the radio finished, I hooked up a buddy's Antenna tuner, as he said it'd work as a signal generator...

I generated a lot of shit to hear on the headphones, but it did provide me with feedback the little radio was able to pick up some signals.

At last, I finally hooked up an antenna to the little radio.

First off...

Compared to a little Pixie 4.1 kit I bought and have used for the past 4-6 months, this was VERY quiet!

It also was able to dial right in on the frequency of a signal I picked up last night!

Playing with the RIT (Receiver incremental tuning), I was able to tune onto the frequency of the remote station for transmission, then flip back over and tune/adjust the signal to a tone that I could easily hear/listen to.

This is what I wanted this little box for!

Something more robust with features that will allow me to enjoy working with CW (Morse Code).

I'll post more info how my radio contacts with the new radio are going...

Last night, I was tired by the time I was done, and didn't have patience to play with it.