Simple enjoymentSimple enjoyment

I have just finished building a Small Wonder Labs SW+ 20. Nothing spectacular in that but using it for QSOs yesterday took me back to my first brush with radio.

Around 50+ years ago I discovered a box of crystal set parts in my grandfather’s shed. After much haggling I was allowed to have them. As I remember there were some old coils,capacitors and other bits he had used to build his crystal sets. The end result was that I was hooked and built a ‘modern’ crystal receiver.

Building the SW+ 20 kit brought back some of the thrill of the early days. What helped was the antenna I used for the first contacts;an end fed half wave which stretched from a first floor window to a post used for the washing line. It is never more than around 3.5m high and slopes to 1.8m.  (Click image to enlarge)

The first QSO was over 1000km and others during the day were near 2000km with an output of just 1W. Again this is nothing exceptional but I got more of a thrill from it than using modern commercial rigs at my maximum power of 100W.

In these days of ever increasing complexity of radio equipment,not to mention the expense,it is good to go back a few steps and rediscover what real ham radio is like. I will box up the kit,make a new EFHW tuner,go /P with this mini rig and have some fun!

Small Wonder Labs