KR4CYF

By the end of summer I was ready to decide on a first HF transceiver. Looking for SSB and digital modes and the possibility of portable/battery operation, but at the lower end of the possible budget for such things, I'd narrowed my search to either the QRPLabs QMX+ or HFSignals sBitx. Being a long-time linux user, the sBitx ultimately won me over for the 25W transmit power and active open source community and having a “full” computer (Raspberry Pi 4) tucked inside.

I ordered just as tariffs and global shipping went haywire in August, with their shipper DHL pausing all shipments to the US. But a month later it arrived suddenly, and like that I was on the air.

My antennas turned out mostly reasonable for TX, with SWR below 1.6 on 20m and 80m, and 1.2 on 40m at 6-12W as reported on the sBitx. Once I get to testing them with a NanoVNA I'll have more confidence in driving a bit more power, but I've been quite happy with the QRP-esque experience of making global contacts on a little power.

I soon swapped the firmware for the 64bit community release for a few niceties in the remote web interface (which I don't actually use much), and got it minimally setup with rigctl to sync radio information with my self-hosted Cloudlog instance. And after waiting on a postcard from the ARRL, I was able to link these to LOTW. Convenient to do this all on the radio-with-a-web-browser.

As anticipated from forum discussions, the included PTT microphone is really pitiful and I was initially unable to make any successful SSB contacts. But I fell in love with the built-in FT8 mode of the sBitx interface, and have made most of my QSOs that way this year. Late in the year I replaced the microphone element and was able to join a random net (OMISS ) on 20m to confirm it was working. But POTA pileups on SSB continue to intimidate hanging on to be heard.

The DX experience with FT8 has continued to be a joy, in 2025 I made 57 QSOs (40 confirmed QSLs by LOTW), a couple every week or two this fall, including to Italy, Greece, Belgium, France, Dominican Republic, and Cuba on 80m, 40m, 20m, and 15m. A good start!