A Versatile T/R solution for SDRs and vintage radios
Inexpensive Software Defined Radios offer excellent performance and value for hams and SWLs, but they lack key features that are needed for actual use on the air:
Provision for automatically muting the speakers when transmitting, to eliminate overloading and audio feedback.
A sidetone to monitor CW keying. SDRs do not provide a CW sidetone, and even worse, the time delay resulting from digital signal processing (“latency”) makes it impossible to monitor one’s own signal as can be done with a conventional receiver.
A convenient means of switching the antenna between the transmitter and the SDR receiver and protecting the receiver input during transmit.
The VERSA-TR was designed to address these shortcomings of SDRs, but also makes it easy to put low-power vintage and conventional radios together to create an integration station with automatic T/R switching, muting, and CW sidetone. Only the antenna connections need be made since RF sensing eliminates the need to wire up relay contacts and muting circuits. Regular or amplified PC speaker muting is plug-and-play.
The VERSA-TR can be used in a variety of ways with transmitters range from < 1 watt to 100 watts output, for CW, AM, SSB or other modes. Watch this site for application notes showing various configurations and applications.
The VERSA-TR is available as an easy-to-build kit using all through-hole components from our friends at Hayseed Hamfest:
https://hayseedhamfest.com/products/ran-technology-versa-tr-switch
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I know many of us who enjoy restoring and repairing vintage gear look forward to winter when there is less competition for time and energy, and a chance to really make a dent in our "to be fixed" piles. A couple of years ago I set time aside for "Heathkit Singlebander Week" and went through every one of them I had, with the result that they're all working ... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 01/19/2023
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Leo Meyerson had been in the ham radio retail and manufacturing business for over 25 years, and by 1970 he was ready to retire. His son took over the WRL distribution and retail business but the Galaxy Electronics manufacturing operation was sold to his long-time friend Andy Andros WØLTE, founder and president of Hy Gain Electronics in nearby Lincoln NE. The CB radio eleme... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 11/26/2022
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Most of the articles on this site are about hams, or ham radio. This one is not about a ham but about a man who built as much a reputation through HF radio as any ham on top of the BPL ever did. Don Taylor is one of those rugged independent-minded people who thrive on a lifestyle most of us couldn't even imagine - as a trapper in Canada's Yukon wildernes... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 10/31/2022
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Most radio fans know the history of KDKA but maybe not "the rest of the story".In November 1920 the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company began operation of a radio broadcasting station, KDKA, in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, often described as the "Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World." KDKA is generally considered to be the first commercially... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 09/09/2022
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The microwave network constructed by AT&T Long Lines and other telecommunications companies in the past 50 years were engineering masterpieces using state-of-the-art technologies and some were designed to withstand nuclear attack during that Cold War era. This is a non-hardened site on top of a mountain in upstate New York that existed long enough for graffiti taggers t... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 09/08/2022
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In 1917 a missionary named William Cameron Townsend went to Guatemala to sell Spanish Bibles. But he was shocked when many people couldn’t understand the books. They spoke Cakchiquel, a language without a Bible. He believed everyone should understand the Bible, so he started a linguistics school (the Summer Institute of Linguistics, known today as SIL) that trained people to do Bible ... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 07/02/2022
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Visitors to the Elgin National Historic area along the Fox River in Elgin Illinois may not realize they are at the site of a famous shortwave radio station - W9XAM - the time signal station operated by the Elgin Watch Company.Elgin was the only watch company maintaining an observatory that observed, recorded and broadcasted time from the stars correct to the hundredths of a second. Located a... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 05/09/2022
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The Mosley CM-1 receiver is quite well known and not especially hard to find in the US even though it was the only radio produced by the company that has been well-known for antennas since 1939. Or is it...?A full-page ad (advert for you on the other side of the pond) appeared in the RSGB Bulletin in 1963 for a nice looking and very capable SSB transmitter called the "Commando II&... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 04/15/2022
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DIY DEG - Homemade Droplet Energy Generator works!Producing electricity from flowing waterCategory: Technical
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 03/30/2022
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When I was first licensed in the 1960s in Nebraska, two groups of hams were commonly heard on the air before those with jobs got off work - other teens like me and the disabled hams. Some of my earliest Novice ham buddies were blind students at the Nebraska School for the Blind in Nebraska City, and there were many other visually-impaired hams, all of whom were exceptional operators, e... READ MORE
- Robert Nickels (ranickels), 03/21/2022
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