Last Thursday, while being at the radio club OH2K, I built a Pixie radio kit V3 (generously given to me by one of the regulars).
The Pixie radio is a low-power (about 0.4W when we measured), morse only radio that can only operate in the 7MHz (or 40 meters) band. Its main appeal is that you can build it from anywhere from €2 to €5, which makes it a really easy option to get.
The finished thing looks like this:
Given it was my first time building such a thing, it took me around two hours to build. It took that long because I mistook some components for others, and had to de-solder them.
Another issue I ran into was when using it at home. This board takes between 9V and 12V of power, so naturally, I fed it using my switchable power supply.
That’s where the first error came in, this introduced so much noise I thought the board broke during the transport from the club to my place.
Luckily, lazily soldering a wired barrel jack connector to a 9V battery solved the issue, and at night, I can hear really, really faint morse code in the background.
I’ve tried transmitting a bit, but so far, no response yet. I think it’s going to be hard getting anything out of that thing given my conditions aren’t close to ideal either (densely populated area).
I’ve also ordered a V4 board on AliExpress to see if it’s any better (but given the simplicity of the board, I doubt it). In any case, it’ll make for good soldering practice.