My Extroverted BITX40 — On (but not in) a Box

I was going to put the BITX40 Module in a box today, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. That board looks too good to be hidden inside a box. So I put it topside. That’s the analog VFO to the right. You can see a fan off to the left — that is perhaps temporarily in lieu of a large heat sink for the final. You can see the two Gel cells in the background. I am indeed running 24 volts to the final, and am putting out about 20 watts. I had three nice contacts today on 40: WB2RON up on Long Island said I was “20 over”. Later I worked W1SJ in N. Vermont — I was 5-9. Then — icing on the cake — DK1NO in Stuttgart. I was 5-8. TRGHS.

I kind of like this arrangement — it has the “three dimensional” feel of an old tube rig. This obviously wouldn’t be good for portable operations, but I am not planning on going portable. There is a lot of room under the chassis. I could put a digital VFO in there and put in a switch so that I can easily go from digital to analog.