In the march to new technologies, amateur radio has gone from spark to tubes to transistors to ICs, followed by microprocessors and the latest technology, software defined radio, or SDR. The QRP Labs QDX digital modes transceiver is a great example of how far we have come in kits, having a pocket-sized SDR. With that leap in technology comes a tradeoff. The surface-mount components necessary to perform SDR tasks do not lend themselves to easy construction by the average kit builder.
In the Penntek TR-35 4-band CW transceiver kit, a lot of surface-mount parts are already installed as well as in Microcontrollers Editor Jack Purdum, W8TEE, and Al Peter, AC8GY. The Four State QRP Group, led by David Cripe, NMØS, is making this innovative radio available in kit form with all the surface-mount parts pre-mounted. Like my previous series of columns on updating the SB-200 amplifier kit, this kit will be deserving of more than one column devoted to it. It isn’t often we hams are treated to such a high technology and feature-filled kit.
