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SW-3B Update: After waiting four months, my SW-3B finally arrived in a plain cardboard box. Actually I didn’t expect much more than that. The ‘manual’ was a few pages and most of the English translation was understandable.

So far I have had the rig on the air a couple of times. Connecting it to my G5RV without a tuner got me a couple of 559 SKCC reports from PA. Read more about my SW-3B findings over on my QRP Blog. 72 de @KE2YK

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I have not been doing much with Ham Radio in the past few months. Personal responsibilities have become a major distraction.

Finding time to fire up the 7300 and hunt for POTA stations has been about it lately. The Parks on the Air program is something I have always enjoyed being a part of.

 Unfortunately I have not has the opportunity to activate any local parks this year.  I’m hoping I can at least make it to field day.

After recently selling my last piece of TenTec QRP gear (40-30), I thought I’d place an order for the VENUS SW-3B transceiver.

The SW-3B covers 40, 30 and 20 meters. After reviewing a bunch of favorable YouTube vlogs on the rig, I know that I can’t go wrong spending less than $200 on this fun 180 gram SW-3B.

Although I have little use for SSB, the SW-3B works both CW and SSB and the receiver has auto-switching filters for both modes ~400hz for CW and ~ 2Khz for SSB.

The SW-3B runs on 8 to 15 volts and output will vary based on supply voltage. The rig includes a built in adjustable speed Keyer, CQ calling memory, RIT/XIT control, 8 memories on each band, RF gain control and more.

This should be a fun rig for the bucks! Stay tuned for updates.

Update June 2022:

Approximately 2 months have passed since I placed my order so I got a bit curious about my order status.

Others who have contacted the company have gotten quick responses to their questions and concerns.

So, I thought I’d give it a shot and ask. In less than 24 hours Dale told me there are about 120 orders in the pipe now and I should receive my SW-3B within 14 days or so.

Thanks for the quick response Dale!