It has been tremendously dry and that leads to wild fire conditions around here, so even though it messes up my radio time, it gives me more comfort that the state won't burn down. I had burned spots in my lawn, and a pumper truck parked next to my house in '98 so this is something I take very seriously.
I have all the surface mount done on the softrock without any lost little bits or solder bridges. If you choose to do this I suggest a flux pen and some of the .015 silver solder from Radio shack. Not much is worth anything at RS anymore but this stuff is good stuff. I haven't built something like this for a while so this is a lot of fun to do. There are a lot of building options where you can do a bunch of testing and step by step as you go, but I am doing the "terse" method where you just stuff the board and then test. I hate winding toroids so that will be the only downer of the deal. I'm exactly at this stage
(from ayoko's site)73
