The Bitx20 is a 20m QRP SSB Transceiver kit. It stands apart from the multitude of other kits, though, by being originally designed for people living in countries where the likes of Maplin and Radio Shack are not commonplace, and parts, therefore, are not always available. The basic idea of the Bitx20 is that it be buildable from readily available parts, or parts with readily available substitutes. I first heard about the Bitx20 from Bill M0HBR on the excellent Soldersmoke podcast.
The original design was created by Ashhar Farhan in 2004. Since then, the design has been modified and refined, noteably by Doug Hendricks of QRPKits, who's kit can be purchased here. The version I am going to build is a design by
Sunil Lakhani, another Indian ham, whose blog documenting many Bitx builds is here. Sunil also provides a simple frequency counter kit with his. Only the Hendrick's kit provides all the parts necessary for the build. Sunil's provided the main PCB and a linear/PSU board, the BPF coils and a number of discrete devices, such as transistors and relays, along with a few ferrites. All the necessary parts for the Frequency counter were included, even the five 7-segment LEDs. A full parts list to complete the kit is also included, as are many build notes. Very good value at $35 including postage to Ireland. For an extra $5, you can get the board and parts list for the Avala SDR, so I went for that also, and will document that build when I get round to actually doing it.
The Bitx Yahoo Group is very active and I imagine will be the source of answers to my many questions during this build.
