{"id":8686,"date":"2014-05-31T12:27:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T02:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2014\/05\/31\/harvs-minima\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T01:06:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T15:06:56","slug":"harvs-minima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2014\/05\/31\/harvs-minima\/","title":{"rendered":"Harv’s Minima"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Good Evening Bill & fellow Solder-smoke friends,<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Well, I\u2019m following the pack. I began gathering items for the Minima Transceiver back in March 14. <\/strong><\/span>There had been a good bit of strong back-N-forth discussions on the Minima Blog about what works and what doesn\u2019t work. <\/strong><\/span>Some circuit refinements had been agreed upon while other were left to individual preferences. <\/strong><\/span>So, I decided to just be silent an learn from the experts. As a result, I did several months of observing before I took the plunge. <\/strong><\/span>While my efforts are not nearly as aggressive as others, I decided to forge a much slower path to success.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
In my own quirky way of doing things, I kitted each module, measured all the parts statically, laid out the components, and finally built & tested each assembly before going to the next.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
As a result, the learning\u2019s were great and the performance of each section equal or better than my expectations.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/strong><\/span> <\/div>\n
I went the Manhattan Style this time but, I have purchased several sets of Minima PCBs to use in the future. <\/strong><\/span>As I see it, there is a lot more solder melting ahead. <\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/strong><\/span> <\/div>\n
Bill, building radios is NOT DEAD yet. That desire to get back to the golden days of home-brewing still lives on. <\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
At the end of the Memorial Weekend, this is my current Minima progress\u2026<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>Construction of all 3 Audio Stages now complete (see photos)<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>The Microphone Pre-Amp is now awaiting voice testing<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>Audio Amplifier and Final Amplifier have been tested together<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>The results of audio testing has been superb for all stages thus far <\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>3 complete sets of Micro Relays have been order and I\u2019m now awaiting their arrival<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>24 \u2013 various ferrite and powered iron cores arrived several weeks ago, these are the heart of the front-end RX\/TX stages<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>100 – 20 Mhz. crystals have arrived and await characterization<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>25 – 8\u201d Male to Male SMA Cables have arrived this weekend, will need to order 15 \u2013 4\u201d Male to Male SMA Cable Assemblies next<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>5 \u2013 12\u201d X 15\u201d Copper Clad Boards have arrived this weekend<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00b7 <\/span><\/span>25 \u2013J310 N-channel J RF Power FETs were ordered and arrived this weekend, these are used in the Mixer Stage<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Final Audio Stage<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Audio Amplifier Stage<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Microphone Pre-Amplifier Stage (see microphone connector mounted at rear)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I\u2019m ready to begin kitting the Side Tone Oscillator and RX\/TX Relay Stages. <\/strong><\/div>\n
The largest and most intense modules are yet to be tackled.<\/strong><\/div>\n
The Bi-Directional Amplifier has 34 parts alone. So far I have installed over 40 parts in the three modules <\/span>I\u2019ve completed\u2026 <\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
I realize it is just a start but, I\u2019m motivated to see this one project through to completion. <\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
73\u2019s & Happy Soldering<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Harv -=WA3EIB=-<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Albuquerque, NM.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Our book: “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics” http:\/\/soldersmoke.com\/book.htm<\/a> Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http:\/\/www.cafepress.com\/SolderSmoke<\/a> Our Book Store: http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/contracross-20<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good Evening Bill & fellow Solder-smoke friends, Well, I\u2019m following the pack. I began gathering items for the Minima Transceiver back in March 14. There had been a good bit of strong back-N-forth discussions on the Minima Blog about what works and what doesn\u2019t work. Some circuit refinements had been agreed upon while other were … Continue reading “Harv’s Minima”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,343,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-farhan","category-minima","category-ssb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8689,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8686\/revisions\/8689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}