Further to earlier thoughts about keeping it simple with respect to the PJPT20, I got distracted by a Soldersmoke episode covering Bill Meara's "Green Hornet" CW beacon, based on a design from Doug DeMaw called the "Lil' Slugger".

The distraction deepened: I found used copies of DeMaw's QRP Notebook and Design Notebook. I wish I had read these books sooner. Definitely recommend them. Some day I'll add a bibliography section, but today I'll just spin up a new project page for the Lil Slugger CW beacon.

All the hubris about "first project is going to be a SSB transceiver" evaporates. I will focus on building a transmitter with ostensibly five submodules: the oscillator, two amplifiers, the keyer, and the power system. Add to this: learning KiCad, procuring components, building the circuits, learning how to use the handheld scope and signal generator to debug, learning how to use the NanoVNA for about a million things, learning better CW, building a sidetone oscillator, building a CW controller, etc...

I'll come back to the PJPT20 later.

-73, WA1ANT.