"Ben's Hobby Corner" is a Web site and a Weblog run by Ben Zijlstra. Working with Theo Kleijn, PA0KN, they have come up with some interesting electronic projects, including an 80, 40 and 20 meter transceiver based on the BASCOM AVR embedded electronics system.

Ben also has other projects, but the transceiver is the showstopper in this niche of the technology world (and the red PC board is an eye catcher, too). I admire stuff like this; in the past, I built stuff like this, usually from kits, sometimes from scratch. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they did not. When they did not, I blamed the builder, not the designer. And so it went.

Some people (like me) can't get enough of this stuff and I am forever reading about do-it-yourself projects. Besides reading about homebrewing on the Internet and in the pages of QST and QEX, I also subscribe to Make Magazine. Whereas QST and QEX are ham radio-centric, Make covers a lot of ground (occasionally even radio) and the variety makes for some interesting reading. Besides the magazine, the makers at Make also have a very cool Web site that features an abundance of online projects including this list of radio-related undertakings.

Thank you Paul Laing, VK2YIL, for suggesting this week's topic.

Until next time, keep on surfin'!

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, sometimes builds things that actually work! To contact Stan, send him e-mail or add comments to his blog.

Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor