I put my antenna in the front yard originally but had a hum or buzz on strong signals due to AC inductance from the mains coming into the house. I'm curious if you had the same issue? Is your mains coming overhead or underground?

A great part of the learning experience and well presented. I have two pixies to build, one will be standard and the other will have a few mods, so I can compare.

I’m new at this, I read one hazard was the weight you throw up a tree can wrap around a branch instead of falling down the other side.

I have 3 pixies so I can experiment. I love listening to them and trying to pick out all the different QSO going on. It’s like 4 people talking at once. I love that. I assumed it was due to know filtering. I wonder it is actually pulling in harmonic from 20 meters. I also love the occasional am broadcast that fades in and out while I’m listening.

Thanks for posting. I learned straight key just to use my pixie. I don’t have a stand alone keyer. Started at 15 wpm. C is the hardest character for me. Anyway I made a contact 79 miles away. I am now into practicing straight key. I learned morse code strictly on iambic keys. I stopped at 32 wpm since I don’t want to get faster than that. Learning at a fast rate makes it difficult to slow down. But the pixie forced me to learn slow straight keying.

I bought one of the deluxe Pixie's already assembled and it came with a hand full of different crystals. It was fun to play with but I was never able to make any contacts on it. So it just sits in a box in the closet. I like my Xiegu X6100 though. Think I'm going to donate the Pixie and some other radio equipment to Handy Ham.

I just ordered one.

Thanks for a great instructional video!!! I'm looking for the winding experiments/tests suggested by K0SR - can you share a link or more info? I will start with 2:5 and see what happens but was curious about the 3:13 windings, as well. I only have 1 core to experiment with.

Big deal! I think ever since Kenwood released their TS440 the transmitters have made hardly any advances. Receivers come with more than bells. Listening to the IC7600 was a rather low value for money, the IC7300 become the new vanilla and the IC7610 is overengineering with old tradition, for that money I would expect some regular firmware updates for proper ham use and perhaps a HDMI output. Tapping the notch 3 times I could live with that. Buying an Icom is like getting a Lexus car, some engineer is making all them traditional decisions for you.

have you worked his computer ???

Have you worked him Scott??

thank you very much for your video dear friend 73' Freddy F5IRO - team FT4GL - ft4gl.blogspot.com/

At least clipperton is a little more of an island than the joke of scaffold reef a few years ago. That was crazy.

What are you using for a mast to support your yagis? Is it aluminum or perhaps a steel tube?

WOW! That's quite the "pileup"". Crazy the difference one day can make, right? Congrats on the ATNO! 73 ..

ATNO to chase! All right! GL in the chase ES VY 73 DE KA8SYV

You may find that the coupling capacitor between the oscillator and pa is too large a value. The original version called for 100pF, not the 10nF/100nF that you find in these kits.

I just built one to see if it has a better noise level than my NVIS 40 meter inverted V. Mine is 60 feet of wire with 15 feet per side in a perfect square configuration. I only use QRP so my transformer is only rated at 15 watts. Does it work? Well, yes definitely on 40 & 20 meters. Have not tried above 20 meters yet. Not good for 80 or below. But, while noise level is definitely deceased so is the signal strength in spite of having a reflected power indicated by less than 1.5 on my Nano Vna in SWR mode across the entire band of interest. I'd probably like it more if I increase its size to pick up the lower bands as well as it picks up 40 meters. On the other hand while the operator may not like the result of transmitting into it because of propagation issues I really don't think doing so, if reflected power is very little, will damage the radio anymore than transmitting into a dummy load. Also if your transformer can handle the power it should be OK too. It might be actually kind of interesting to give transmitting a go on the lower bands because I suspect it will behave exactly like NVIS antennas which I have in the past laid directly on the ground.

They had an AMAZING signal that day for sure. Peaked here at -5 also! Soooo happy to get them in the log. Big 73!

QSL! I always enjoy your videos. Thanks for sharing technical detail like fox and hound operation, splitting FT8 streams, and a potential WSJT-X upgrade. All very helpful, 73!

Thanks for your video, finally I built my own. And yes.. no smoke also in the Metrodome.. 😊. Regards 73 de YDØARY

I got them with 100w and an 80m dipole... You can get them too!

Man I thought you died. Just turns out the bands went poopy. 😂

no smoke.. no smoke.. a good start at least.. :)

The 7610 uses a tiny relay to switch the receiver and pin diodes to switch the transmitter. Using a relay for the receiver prevents IMD that diodes could generate. Icom did an excellent job with QSK in the 7610. Not only is there almost zero relay noise but there is no switching artifacts coming from the speaker. In fact, this rig is quieter than anything TenTec ever produced. Tentec used a reed relay in their early models. Some were pretty noisy. The Omni 7 had a mechanical relay and it was very loud. The Elecraft K3 even had a tiny click about the same as the 7610. I never did trace down the source of the K3's click however.

Well done and informative. The phone cord comparison was spot on. Nice kit.

Excellent video. Could you offer info on where to buy the plastic caps? Thanks.

NE9U Op.

I’m bummed you didn’t implement auto mode. An otherwise perfect build video.

Foul language and non sensical outbursts of non related comments.

Great video- thank goodness I was not left to myself with the "destructions"~

Another good review, outstandig job my friend! 73 from PY2DS

Great video you have inspired me to buy one!!!

Why such a complicated control box?

Vry loud!! de AA3R

Hello i took down the vertical at beach and replaced with 160m loop Much stronger but just as noisey as vertical I worked ve6sz the other night on 160m with 100w Im going back to beach on tuesday Watch the spots for me Im going to kyrgyzstan 14 march Btw could you hear 7q6m on ft8 I.e. his tone when he was sending? 73 bob Du7et Ex0et wt3a ve5te g0wet

I'm enjoying your videos! They are exceptional. Your narration is first class!

I like the Pixie, simple yet effective. Be aware there seem to be several manufacturers of the Pixie. When plugging in the headphones my audio shorted to earth and I had to cut the copper track to prevent it shorting. I destroyed the jack socket when removing it to confirm the problem. I put mine on 5.262 MHz. Best dx so far 180 miles with a SWL report for that QSO at 220 miles from Utrecht. 350 mW out. G4GHB.

Cdx this weekend for ARRL DX CW were terrific...hit 2.5 meg...160 was fantastic de AA3R

Just toss an LM317 on a small piece of metal for a heatsink. Then hook it up to a 12/14V battery and dial its output down to 9 Volts. There's no reason to burn up expensive 9V batteries, especially as many of them these days that say "9V" are only specifying the form factor of 9V, and they only put out a bit over 8 volts. Besides, the internal battery resistance causes a voltage drop when you key, which causes the frequency of the oscillator to drift. A stiff supply voltage from a lead-acid or Lithium and a voltage regulator will help stabilize the Pixie's oscillator and provide a cleaner CW note. I'm an Extra, but I figured the odds of many other Extras hanging out on that frequency listening for a slow, weak, dirty-sounding CW note wasn't all that high. On the other hand, that is the only frequency that a lot of these kits are crystalled for, so if there are any other Extras willing to work a Pixie that's exactly where they'll be listening. The signal that you have radiating on receive is due to the RF output transistor also being used as the receive mixer. It leaks out quite noticeably. That was a problem for years with regenerative receivers. You can block it by adding a low gain receive preamp in line with the antenna, and using relay switching between Xmit and receive to bypass the preamp. The beauty of the Pixie lies in how bad, but functional it is. Because it works, but it has such glaring problems that it inspires the builder to fix the problems, one at a time. For instance, the AM broadcast interference can be solved by simply adding an LC in series to ground using a tunable capacitor or inductor to ground on the antenna lead-in. Just tune until the Am station goes away. Use 2 or more such circuits and tune out each offending station. Or simply look up a passive BCB blocking filter circuit online, build it and stick it in the antenna lead-in. There are simple, inexpensive mods all over the web to fix or minimize most obnoxious Pixie problems. I even added an SI-5351 circuit to mine, and a frequency display with TX/RX offset, (after I got the noise out of the display to make the Pixie happy.) That allowed me to cover the entire 40 meter band with digital frequency accuracy and stability. That should allow me to even use it for digital modes, especially since I built a board using a crystal oven reference, though I haven't tried it yet. I suspect there are hams who have managed WAS Awards on Pixies. It just requires a few small mods, RF knowledge, a good antenna, and some patience. You might try building about a 3 foot diameter tunable mag-loop with a low RF resistance, (fat tubing.) That will boost the Q and make the antenna very narrow-band, and solve a lot of bleed-over problems from high-power stations. I suggest to all of the hams I Elmer that they build Pixies when they get their General license. They cost less than $10 to build, and solving all of the irritating little quirks quickly teach the noobs all sorts of things about radio, and leads them to start experimenting, which has always been the heart and soul of amateur radio, (not to mention what the FCC intended for the service when they authorized it). I wanted more frequency agility on my Pixie, so I added an SI5351 circuit in place of the crystal, along with a display, which was noisy, so I had to figure out how to quiet the display.Lots to learn in the ham radio hobby. Plugging in $15,000 worth of appliances and talking around the world is the smallest facet of the hobby and entirely lacks the satisfaction of a 4,000 mile QSO between 2 hams running modified Pixies. I tell my students that after they've played with their Pixies for a couple of months and solved some of the problems with them they will have a much better idea of what attributes they might want in a more expensive rig if they decide they want to buy or build one. I learned on the unlicensed 1750 meter band that I could blanket 1/3 of the lower 48 states every day with an ERP of 5 mW and a 25 foot vertical, a lot less power than a Pixie. I just needed to know what I was doing. So now my 100 Watt HF rigs and amps just sit and gather dust and I build and modify little rigs built from junk-box parts, and I have a ball with them. 73

Thanks for the Video, great to see my pileup from the other side. 73, Sven DJ4MX at 8R7X

Nice job man! All my antennas suck equally on 160 here. Ha

Hustler more quiet than log? Snow qrn?

Good stuff! Unfortunately no 160m here... I might have to go portable and try another day... Did you catch 8R7X on 17m FT8 today? Six streams all day, and loud! Unfortunately the pile was massive and I never made the QSO. 73 VE3GKT

Cool video!!73!!

I missed them on 17m yesterday, the signal eventually faded out as the MUF went below 15MHz 3 hours after our sunset.

I think it was DJ4MX Sven at the station

The local guy that is usually active is a $$ collector, does reply to QSL's I needs lots of slots but only home from Hospital after Cancer surgery so in to much pain to try yet, hopefully they will still be there when next week I hope to be active,

Only took me about 3 hours to get them. Like you said he was moving 1-2k after each log. Finally picked me out while I was brushing my rigs hair with my left hand 😂

They're doing a great job so far! This is a group of four young guys from Germany and the UK. Just worked them on 30 cw myself, with a decoder and FLDigi keying for me. Was 100% remote from the basement with the radio upstairs! Unfortunately I forgot to turn on Split at the beginning, but someone sent a reminder and I figured it out. 73 VE3GKT