S-pixie 40M QRP Saga

 I heard about this radio in August 2022 and ordered it in September 2022. I tried using a Bernzomatic gas soldering iron to assemble it and quickly realized that wouldn't do the job. 

I ordered a proper soldering station from everyone's favorite online retailer and set to work after that came in. 

The assembly instructions are really straightforward, and once you have decent equipment it goes together quickly. My kit came with crystals for 7.023 and 7.050 so I put the 7.023 away for the future and used the one for the technician and general portions of the band. 

I powered it up for the first time and immediately blew the 16V 100uf smoothing capacitor. It went back on the shelf for a few weeks while I waited on a multipack of capacitors to come. Once those came in I replaced the capacitor and it went on the shelf until I could get an antenna put together.

I slowly gathered the parts and pieces for a 49:1 end fed half wave antenna and got that built in February this year. I used 67 feet of 26 awg silicone insulated wire for the aerial and got it up in a tree today. I hooked up the NanoVNA and it has <2:1 SWR in 40-10 meters! Jackpot! 

With everything finally together I took it all outside, powered it up, and immediately blew the 16V 100uf capacitor. I took the radio inside, took the case off and replaced it with a 16V 470uf capacitor, because overkill is sometimes warranted. 

With the new higher value capacitor in place and the case put back together, I went back to hook everything back in and hit the power button. It's alive! I started hearing faint morse code that I can barely understand. It's time to get to work learning morse code so I can actually communicate with this thing. 

The audio is very quiet after years of being stupid with my hearing so I'm going to look into a small headphones amplifier, let me know if you have any recommendations.