The KN-Q7A - A new 40M SSB 10W transceiver kit

Amateur radio kit builders have had greater opportunities to construct high-end equipment thanks, in part, to more economical production processes. Online services allow kit manufacturers to farm out circuit board production to large workshops where jobs are batched together into larger production runs with significant cost savings. A number of suppliers are now willing to sell in smaller amounts while maintaining low costs due to automated on-line processing. The end result has been an increase in the number of kits available of significant complexity including rigs with using sideband, digital signal processing and software defined radio.

One new SSB rig kit is the KN-Q7A available from Adam Rong BD6CR/4, designed by Shi Ke BA6BF. The KN-Q7A is a 40M SSB transceiver in a compact case with VXO tuning and 10W power out. This style of rig would be ideal for back-packing, camping or as a compact emergency transceiver.

It would be interesting to see how this would pair with the NUE-PSK Digital Modem for a ultra-compact portable PSK31 station if the VXO could be made to tune to 7.035 MHz

The KN-Q7A - 40M with VXO SSB 10W

The KN-Q7A is available directly from http://crkits.com/ or from their US distributor http://www.qrvtronics.com/HAM-Radio

Price for the KN-Q7A kit is $125 USD, a suitable microphone is available for an additional $25 USD.

Specifications

• Dimension: 153 mm x 97 mm x 40 mm, not including protruding features
• Weight: 500 g or 1.1 lbs
• Power Supply: 12~13.8 V, 3 A
• Current consumption: 30 mA in RX and about 2 A in TX @ 13.8 V
• RF output: about 10 W PEP @ 13.8 V
• Spur suppression: better than -43 dBc
• Sensitivity: better than 0.5 μV at 10 dB SNR
• IF filter: 6 pole crystal ladder filter + 1 pole post IF amplifier crystal filter
• IF bandwidth: about 2.0 kHz
• IF frequency: 8.467 MHz or 8.192 MHz, depending on the selected tuning range
• Frequency tuning range: about 20 kHz in VXO type. Five options: 7.050~7.070 MHz,
7.080~7.100 MHz, 7.145~7.165 MHz, 7.200~7.220 MHz, or 7.280~7.300 MHz
• Connectors:
• Speaker output: 3.5 mm connector, mono output
• Microphone input: 8-pin, can be configured to be compatible with electret
microphones
• Antenna connector: SL-16 type (M or SO-239 type equivalent), rear panel mount
• Controls:
• IF Gain Control: act as volume control
• Tune Control
• On board RF Attenuator trimmer to eliminate broadcast interference