Building a 6 meter transceiver for fun

[Spider255]

Hi all,

I've been thinking about cheap ways to get onto the 6 meter band and there are actually several ways to do it. The 6 meter band is rarely open so I don't want to invest too much into it but it could make for a fun cheap budget project to get onto the 6 meter band.

I live in the UK so transceivers such as ex-business PMR transceivers that cover 50 MHz are quite rare and expensive if one does show up for sale bearing in mind they'll normally be very old and have old electrolytic capacitors that need changing and radio programed and aligned providing programming software is still available for the said radio but if one ever did show up at a Ham radio sale or somewhere else for cheap I'd be sure to buy it right away.

A CB radio 27MHz to 50 MHz transverter kit is another way and you'd probably need a small 50MHz RF amp about 20 watts output would be fine but 50 MHz RF amps are also not common or cheap but I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to build one.

There are the super cheap CW pixie kits, although I've not found any that cover the 6 meter band I think you can convert them to do other bands with a few component changes and then you'd have a Morse CW kit on 6 meters... I want to get more into the Morse code side of things and the 6 meter band could be a good band to practice Morse code, because the band gets very little use, its not going to annoy anybody with those who want to find an unused frequency to utilize, arrange and set up a Morse code practice group evening. I also think its important that we as Hams make use out of dead bands and frequencies because there are a lot of bands in the VHF/UHF range now sitting silent. We are very privileged to have all these bands, modes and frequencies and I think its a shame that many do not get used anymore and setting up evening groups for things like Morse code practice could be one of many ideas to utilize some of these unused bands.

There is the Raspberry Pi which sounds a lot more interesting and you could also cover a range of other bands and modes and cut out 90% of the work which would also offer plenty of new things to learn along the way when building it. You'd only get 10mW output but that can be enough to drive a homemade a small RF amp. I've not fully explored what it involves to build a transceiver from a Raspberry Pi but I have a fair idea of whats involved.

Any thoughts or ideas and advice would be appreciated.

 

[K4EET]

Hi @Spider255. I have an HF transceiver that covers 6 Meters and I have yet to explore that band. I recently got an HF vertical antenna that also covers the 6 Meters band although a horizontally polarized antenna is generally used here in the States. I’m looking forward to exploring the 6 Meter band.

That said, I’m really interested in this thread as a DIY builder of ham equipment in my younger days. It is great to see that you too are interested in building your own equipment for ham operations. That is the true spirit of ham radio! If I come across something or have a good idea that you might be interested in, I’ll certainly post it in this thread. You have gotten me interested in looking at some equipment/system designs for getting on 6 Meters with a small budget. Brings back memories of one tube/valve transmitters of yesteryear. Best wishes on your quest!

73, Dave K4EET

 

[W4AXW]

Hi @Spider255. I have an HF transceiver that covers 6 Meters and I have yet to explore that band. I recently got an HF vertical antenna that also covers the 6 Meters band although a horizontally polarized antenna is generally used here in the States. I’m looking forward to exploring the 6 Meter band.

That said, I’m really interested in this thread as a DIY builder of ham equipment in my younger days. It is great to see that you too are interested in building your own equipment for ham operations. That is the true spirit of ham radio! If I come across something or have a good idea that you might be interested in, I’ll certainly post it in this thread. You have gotten me interested in looking at some equipment/system designs for getting on 6 Meters with a small budget. Brings back memories of one tube/valve transmitters of yesteryear. Best wishes on your quest!

73, Dave K4EET

As a regular participant on 6m SSB here in the States, I can say that with exploration of 6m, on a day to day basis, one will most likely find a dead band. The very few and far between Es openings can be fast paced "Magic", allowing strong signals domestically and sometimes DX to South America and points in between. They just don't occur very often. I've had some decent success using two and three element, horizontally polarized antennas and 100w during said openings, but they are rare. I've only been licensed for a few years and have yet to witness a F2 opening on 6m but I'm hoping to see one before assuming room temperature. Unless you're lucky enough to have some local operators in your vicinity you may not hear much, if anything. I hear very little CW also. Unfortunately, it seems the majority of traffic has migrated to digital.

The one 6m bright spot for me is Meteor Scatter Mornings on 50.145 each morning from 06:30ish to 08:00ish. It's not a net, just a group of 20 or so operators who love the band and take advantage of whatever Tropospheric Ducting/Meteor Scatter propagation can be had each morning. It is most definitely weak-signal work with short QSOs. The players with bigger power and multi-element beams have the best results, but some mornings I can work Florida and the Gulf coast, New England and as far west as Minnesota from SE Ohio. Most of the stations are east of the Mississippi. I am in the final stages of homebrewing a 5el LFA Yagi with the hope it will allow me to hear and work the weak signals better than I can with my current 3el Yagi.

It can be dead but when it works 6m can be a blast and without the noise that the HF bands experience. Come join the fun!

7 3

 

[VK3RX]

I worked 6m SSB & CW back in the day and have 50-something countries up, but these days it seems all FT8 digital. Down the bottom end of the band 50.313 & 50.323 is regularly quite alive using that mode.

So for your planned purpose for CW practice 6m (say above 50.5) sounds good, and being EU you might also stir up some CW activity, because of the widespread ownership of HF + 6m transceivers.