As I said in the earlier entry, I didn't buy the case that's made for this particular radio. So I decided to make one of my own.

The first attempt was made from Cintra plastic. Unfortunately, this stuff is about 3/16" thick so when I pushed the power button, it disappeared behind the face plate. So I discarded this and decided to go for sheet metal.

By the way, there was no cost here because I've got scraps of Cintra, sheet metal and screws from other projects lying around in junk boxes.

Faceplate design using InkScape

None of the project cases sold by "America's Technology Store" were quite the right size so I decided that based on the design of the ones they sell, I'd make a custom size one.

If you're looking here for instructions on how to make a precision sheet metal box, you're making a mistake. I kludged together enough of a box to work. I'm discovering that flat black spray paint hides a multitude of sins. I just made a pattern with card stock, test fitted it then used that as a template to make the final box.

When I drilled the holes for the knobs and buttons, I was way off. So I cut out most of the face plate and hid it behind a custom face plate.

I also found that having a small anvil and wood blocks that fit inside the custom box really help with shaping.

Up and running!

Well, here it is! It's 100% operational and soon I'll be ready to start receiving and sending CW transmissions.

I've already listened to lots of signals but my copy isn't quite as fast as it could be so I'm going to practice by just listening for a while. Watch this space for my first actual contact (or, in hamspeak, QSO).

Incidentally, if you look to the right of the little radio (which is much smaller than the speaker on the left), you'll see my key. Yes, that's a home-brew Morse code key made from a door hinge and a cabinet knob. This project was in a recent issue of the ham magazine QST which is put out by the ARRL, the Amateur Radio Relay League.

Throughout this project, I made some minor mistakes. Most of them seemed designed to convince me that I'd destroyed the project before I could finish it.

The first really dumb mistake had to do with the standoffs to hold the circuit board above the ground plate. I couldn't find four matching standoffs so I had three Bakelite standoffs with brass inserts. The fourth was an aluminum computer case standoff. At this point, everything was working well. Then I found a fourth of the Bakelite standoffs and used it. Suddenly, it all stopped working. Using a continuity tester, I found out that the brass inside these standoffs didn't go all the way through so I was insulating the ground plate from the ground buss on the radio.

Next, I was doing a test and couldn't get any sound out of the speaker at all. I started to panic until I realized that I'd hooked the speaker to the wire for the key rather than to the wire for the speaker.

The mistakes I made in the assembly are documented in other entries in this plog.