I renewed an outdated HAM license in February 2025. I’m now KR4BAD and licensed as a General. With this old hobby startup, my itch to make my own radio was strong. I had built a TenTec HF receiver and a CW transceiver years ago, but these were very simple and they were kits. I need to build my own HF radio.
I’ve played guitar since I was four years old and I’ve already made my own electric guitar tube amplifier about 10 years ago. Now that I’m doing DX and POTA hunting on the front porch, I’ve been itching to create my own radio and use it to talk to someone far away. Enter the idea for the Freedom7 HF Transceiver.
The Freedom7 HF Transceiver will provide SSB operation for 7 HF bands, 10m, 15m, 17m, 20m, 40m, 80m, and 160m. It will be designed and built by David L Whitehurst or KR4BAD, Johnston County Amateur Radio Society (JARS) member of Fuquay Varina, North Carolina. It may be built by others as I share my journey and others help me test and improve components.
I am currently using a Arduino Nano R3 and an Arduino Mega 2560. These microcontrollers are doing things like band selection, band switching, RX/TX switching, VFO specification, and TFT operation display. I am designing things using KiCAD and sending Gerber/Drill files to a manufacturer for my PCBs.
I have a lot to do but I still wanted to share my activity and let you know that I have a plan and it’s happening. The Freedom7 HF Transceiver is being designed, built, and tested one piece at a time, just like Johnny Cash sang about. Please consider leaving your email on the main page. I’m gathering emails so I gauge interest in what I’m doing. And, don’t tell everyone, but I might offer kits for the components after I get a better cadence on progress.
My About page provides the background of my project, the Freedom7 HF Transceiver.
If this story resonates, comments are welcome. You can also reach me at david [at] kr4bad-dot-communications. no com
And if you believe understanding matters more than black boxes, you can subscribe to my WordPress https://kr4bad.com/?subscribe=1.
73 KR4BAD David
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