Site Information and Links



The QRP/SWL Homebuilder site is owned and maintained by VE7BPO. The purpose of this website is to promote experimentation with relatively simple radio electronic circuits. Please keep in mind that I am a novice, lay person experimenter, not an engineer. There are many other electronic web sites if you require more exacting design information and support. As technology advances, there can be only one reason to continue designing and building basic, discrete component designs; fun!


My special thanks to Wes Hayward, W7ZOI for his generous support and elmering over the years.

Although, all the schematics have been built and tested, please accept that there maybe errors in the material presented. No liability arising from the application, use, or misuse of these projects that results in direct or indirect damage or loss is assumed.

I pay full price for all of the parts I use and no monies were or are received for promoting any products or companies on this web site. Any ads, hyperlinks or mention of commercial products or companies is out of courtesy only.

Information Regarding the Compression of Schematic BMP Files

I see many electronics web authors compressing black and white schematics as jpg files. This results in distortion of the schematic. Schematics are best compressed using the lossless LZW algorithm which means converting the file to a .gif, .png or even .pdf format. The files sizes will typically be smaller than .jpg compression, have no distortion and can be edited easily. Thank you.

Most Often Asked Question Link:   How I do my schematics and some component information

Some Experimenter's Web Sites

  1. Esteemed QRP mentor - Wes Hayward's, W7ZOI web site
  2. The VE7SL Radio Notebook  Awesome web site from my home province. Thanks Steve!
  3. Markus Hansen, VE7CA  A venerable Room 19 Radio School graduate. He has authored for QST. Antennas and more. See his receiver featured in QST for March 2006 ! Another experimenter from my home province.
  4. David White, WN5Y has an innovative web site.   His Electroluminescent receiver kit is way cool. Great experiments and references are presented.
  5. The excellent radio experimenters site of Takahiro Kato, JA9TTT/1.   A translated version of his web site is available by clicking on the Machine Translation link.
  6. Steve "Melt Solder" Weber, KD1JV  is a great inspiration to me.
  7. Very outstanding radio electronics web site of OK1DPX.   Petr is editor of the Czech magazine OK QRP INFO.
  8. Jim, K8IQY's   2N2222 transceiver innovations. Fabulous Site!
  9. R.A.S.O.N. Projects Page.   Mike Martell N1HFX has built some fabulous projects. Great schematics!
  10. 7N3WVM - Good homebrew site from Japan.  ** Some VHF projects.
  11. JF1OZL - Another amazing homebrew web site from Japan.   ** Some VHF projects.
  12. EI9GQ - Yes! Some great projects with great schematics.   ** Some VHF projects.
  13. Amateur Radio Construction Projects   John Seboldt, K0JD.
  14. VE3DNL provides some excellent theory and schematics  Part of the Elmer 101 project.
  15. S57NAN amateur radio pages.   Great Homebrew site.
  16. A Short Wave Regenerative Receiver Project   By Charles Kitchin presented by Ian Purdie on his great site.
  17. John Cumming VE3JC   Does a beautiful job of the W7ZOI and K7TAU spectrum analyzer.
  18. Great homebrew site   Francesco Morgantini, IK3OIL.
  19. Hans Summers   Wonderful Site
  20. Peter Parker   VK3VE has some great home brew projects.
  21. PY2OHH   Has a good site.

Stuff I Like

  1. KE7HR's Cave Radio Site- Great homebuilder!  Check out his version of Wee Willy-75M DSB.
  2. Aren’s Attic  Excellent Dutch Homebuilder !
  3. Listen to "Solder Smoke"  MP3 compressed RF Construction conversations by KL7R and M0HBR.
  4. Stan, AK0B
  5. Micro Power Communications web page
  6. VE7KPB- Ken's web page

Clubs and Organizations

  1. QRP Canada   New QRP-Canada Reflector 
  2. ARRL technical articles archive.   Many downloads require ARRL membership.
  3. QRP-F   A Forum For QRP'ers that can be browsed online and does not require a list server membership.
  4. QRP Amateur Radio Club International  They publish the QRP Quarterly Periodical.
  5. Flying Pigs QRP Club International  Check out their great on-line quarterly periodical; Bacon Bits.
  6. American QRP Club  They publish the QRP HomeBrewer Quarterly.

Recommended Web Instructional Articles

  1. W7EL Balun tutorial
  2. A great antenna web site by W4RNL

Learn Basic Electronics

  1. Dave Cutcher's Evil Genius book and web site.  Dave's book {McGraw-Hill/Tab - 2005}  provides a complete curriculum for beginners in electronics. Dave is a school teacher from my province and his concepts and projects are student tested.
  2. Introduction to Electronics - The Scots Guide to Electronics.

Miscellaneous and Non-English Web sites

  1. Nick, RA3TOX has a great web site in Russian Cyrillic
  2. West Crystal Company-->Fine Western Canadian made crystals used in many of the projects on this web site.
  3. Many companies datasheets for the 2N3904 Transistor

The hand drawn image bitmaps on this web site (logo etc.) are by Rod Adams.

Coilguy