Status: Building · Started: July 2026

Overview

The Lil' Slugger CW Beacon is my build of Doug DeMaw's Lil' Slugger CW Transmitter, ultimately intended to run as a CW beacon rather than a keyed transmitter. My goals are:

• Successfully build a homebrew ham transmitter from just the circuit diagram
• Understand the circuit from the ground up
• Build modularly, so I can extend and elaborate over time

The build-log posts on the blog will capture the build as it happens; this page holds the current (and at some point final) state of the design: references, open questions, decisions, and eventually schematics, board layouts, and test results.

References

Bill Meara N2CQR's blog post with his build of the Lil' Slugger: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-green-hornet-my-visual-and-10-meter.html

Doug DeMaw published the Lil' Slugger CW Transmitter in his "W1FB's QRP Notebook" and "Q1FB's Design Notebook", both ARRL publications. PDFs are online, e.g. here.

Open Questions

(To be added — transcribing my notes soon.)

Decisions

Answered questions land here, newest first.

(None yet.)

Schematics

(Not yet — will appear as design work starts.)

Board Layouts

(Not yet.)

Build Notes

(Not yet — module-by-module notes will go here, with links to the relevant build-log posts.)

Test Notes

(Not yet — measurements, scope traces, and on-air results.)