Pebble HF – a great QRP Radio Kit

The Pebble HF in use, screen lit and connected to an antenna.
The Pebble HF on my work surface.

After being on the waiting list for an opportunity to buy the Pebble HF since April of this year, I received an invite to purchase one about a week and half ago.

It arrived a few days back, and Friday night I put the kit together. It wasn’t difficult, and it was actually quite a bit of fun. My soldering skills have never been great, so if I can do it I’m pretty sure anyone can.

The parts of a Pebble HF radio laid out and waiting to be soldered onto the board.
The parts of a Pebble HF radio laid out and waiting to be soldered onto the board.

I have seen several people mention a fear of winding torroids, and though I profess no great skill at it, I also don’t overthink it. Looking at mine closely I probably could have wound that wire a bit tighter on them, but they do their job perfectly fine, as is.

A closeup of the wound torroids on the Pebble HF's mainboard.
Winding the toroids seem to worry a lot of folks.

After an initial problem with the screen showing all black boxes, I visited HamRadioDuo’s Pebble HF Discord channel and found the problem was likely due to poor soldering connections on the LCD I had installed. I went back, reheated those, and added a bit more solder and things worked properly the 2nd time around.

The Pebble HF resting in an open hand.

I am *very* happy with the finished product. The Pebble HF has no internal speaker, so you have to plug something appropriate into the audio jack to hear anything, but the little transceiver is otherwise fairly full featured for such a low cost device. The exposed switch on the lower right side of the unit doubles as a CW straight key or a PTT button, when in SSB.

I don’t yet know CW, so I have been using the Pebble HF solely for SSB contacts, in the little bit of time I’ve played with it. It works amazingly well.

I have two separate 5000+ mile contacts into Slovenia on it, and several 900+ mile contacts here in the states, as of this evening. These were all done when paired with my “home” ZS6BKW antenna @ 46′. I will be ultimately be building a 20m dipole for the Pebble HF, for the best efficiency.

My logbook showing low power QSOs made with the Pebble HF.
A map showing QSOs made by the Pebble HF

Using Polywatch to remove scuffs and scratches from radio displays.

A collage of photos showing the scratched display of a VX-6R.

I have a Yaesu VX-6R with very, very little actual use on it. That said, I had worn it on my belt to my club’s Hamfest late last year, and while we were carrying tables and such I somehow managed to brush against a brick wall and badly scratch the display. It’s scratched up to the point that the scuffs cast a shadow deeper into the display, actually making it difficult to read.

I have used Polywatch in the past to polish scratches from acrylic watch crystals, so I had a feeling I might be able to work them out with it. About 10 minutes of elbow grease and they’re mostly gone… and they’re completely gone where it really matters (the usable area of the display).

A collage of photos showing the restored display of a VX-6R.

If someone else has this issue, just know that Polywatch, along with some time and elbow grease, can really restore the display to near perfection. There’s a kit on Amazon that comes with a couple of tubes and a nice polishing cloth for $10 US.

On a side note, the VX-6R is a really good little radio, but it has just never meshed with me. I find it too small for my mitts, and it’s menu system is just frustrating. I’ll readily admit that it’s probably a “me” problem.

That said, it’s display is flush with the radio’s outer case, and that’s a really poor design choice.

*this is condensed from a Reddit post I made a couple of days ago.

Home for a ham

I’ve had a lot of websites over the years, built for different purposes. They tend to come and go as the need or interest waxes and wanes.

Ham radio has become a pretty big part of my life in the past year, and it seems to be one of those interests that has stuck, so I’m thinking that maybe it’s time for a website to help document my journey through the hobby.