10m AM Tenbox

UPDATE May 2021: Like many of my projects, this is on hold because of my stroke. I am just too wobbly to do much building. I really hope this gets better (probably not) as building and designing give me most pleasure.

The Tenbox 10m QRP AM transceiver is a higher power version of the Fredbox and Sixbox, but this time for 10m AM between 29-29.1MHz. The intended purpose is for local QSOs, within a few miles, rather than for DXing. I have in mind using the rig to talk to locals on 10m when the band is not open for DX, such as in the evenings or during the quieter sunspot cycle years in the daytime when 10m is dead.

I breadboarded the RX, a simple super-regen with remarkable sensitivity, and the TX which puts out around 250mW carrier (1W peak). I have range tested the breadboard over a few miles locally. The receiver was copying stateside (W and VE) AM stations at excellent strength when road testing with just a small mag-mount on the car roof.

As a fan of old Heathkit products, I quite fancy packaging the Tenbox a bit like a tiny version of the HW19, the 10m version of the old Twoer and Sixer.

The small black plastic boxes used for my 472/500kHz transverters would be ideal if mounted vertically with the top facing the front with a loudspeaker, RX tuning, mic socket and TX/RX switching.

With my poor health this has not progressed, but might make a nice club project especially if a PCB was done.