Project TouCans Makes its First Powered, Wireless Flight

When we talk about wireless we usually mean propagation. But what if a ham radio didn't even have a feed line!? Project TouCans has done exactly that!

If you're new here, the goal of Project TouCans has always been to have a simple, (I know, it doesn't look simple at the moment), radio that alleviates the operator from needing to think about feelines and SWRs. (Becuase I'm the operator and I don't like thinking about those sorts of things.) The first, very fruitful, year long iteration of this was to move the radio into the antenna. The rig still had wires descending to the ground for the keyer controls, power, and audio though. They all traveled along an Ethernet cable terminated in an RJ-45 jack at either end. There was RFI. It was not as cool as it could have been.

Over the last two weeks KO6BTY and I finally accomplished our ultimate goal: We got rid of the Ethernet cable!!!

A week and a half ago, we rid ourselves of the need for keyer wires by adding a Pico-W keyer of our own design to the rig. The Pico-W lives on the sides of the cans which block its WiFi signals otherwise. We ground-tested the keyer's field readiness in the Monzano Mountains of New Mexico. The results were promising.

Upon our arrival back home, KO6BTY got to work, and we tried out an incremental prototype Tuesday night with the remote/auto-keyer added to TouCans. We were immediately rewarded by spots in both Spain and Hawaii! And while we'd eliminated the need for keyer wires, we still had the Ethernet cable for power and audio.

Wedneday, we plopped the battery into a Progresso soup can and taped a bluetooth audio transmitter to that same can, and then wired and taped the assembly to the rig. Then? Then we removed the Ethernet cable. Project TouCans is now free-flying!

We're recording data on battery life and slowly making other refinements. No QSOos yet, but here's where the rigs been spotted.

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