Availability of Bemicro CV boards

[Malcolm G4DMH]

Fellow Hermes-Lite builders.

I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread for this, or even report it at all, because I am not sure that anyone else did what I did:

I placed a back-order with Arrow.com for 2 Bemicro CV boards at the end of January, as I reported on this group.
I was quoted a lead time of 17-18 weeks, and when the boards had not arrived at the end of June, I enquired at Arrow.com and was told:

"Hello Malcolm,
I have been advised as of right now there is no estimated ship date at this point
unfortunately they are halting production and do not have an eta of when they will start again. Would you like to cancel your order or keep as is."

So I cancelled the order.

The problem that I now have, is that Arrow.com have shown no signs of refunding the up-front payment that they insisted upon, and have stopped responding to emails. I have had to start a disputes procedure with PayPal.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think the project has moved on from these boards.

I should have waited for V2 :-(

Best wishes

Malcolm Horton  G4DMH
Doncaster  UK

[Freeman Pascal]

Malcolm, Arrow has the CV A9 board in stock. I don't know if that will work for you. I ordered my CV A9 last week and received it on Friday. A quick check today showed 19 boards in stock.

https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bemicrocva9/arrow-development-tools?utm_source=arrow&utm_medium=npi&utm_content=bemicro_cva9&utm_campaign=bemicro_is

-Freeman, N5FPP

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Malcolm,

Thanks for the update. Unfortunately, the less expensive BeMicro CV and SDKs are very hard to find now. As Freeman said, you can still buy the CV A9. Sometimes you can find a CV or SDK on e-bay. I did a quick search and didn't find any CV or SDKs, but did get a hit for Hermes-Lite v1.22 boards being sold from Russia! See this.

73,

Steve

KF7O

[Malcolm G4DMH]

Just a quick update.

As soon as I escalated the PayPal dispute to 'claim', Arrow refunded the money paid.

Needless to say, this will be invested in H-L v2 when it is ready.

This leaves me with:

a set of unpopulated PCBs 1.22 + 1.0 front-end + DP83848 ethernet board soldered to the swizzle board

and a completed, but (obviously) untested v1.22 board with connectors + the 1.0 front-end board without RF transformers, but with BNC connectors, + DP83848 ethernet board soldered to the swizzle board.

Rather than leave these in the junk box, if any *UK* based builder would like to take all/any of these off my hands, please contact me, *off-list* and not via GMail, but at 'mycallsigninlowercaseatyahoodotcodotuk'

Best wishes

Malcolm Horton  G4DMH
Doncaster UK

[Malcolm G4DMH]

I can now report that the spare H-L v1 boards etc. have been sent to a fellow builder, so I am now left without a project until v2 is ready.

My 'interim' project while I was waiting for the Bemicro board to arrive was the excellent Austin QRP club Vector Impedance Analyser (known as the AQRP VIA) kit, which I came across by accident, by reading a mention of it on another group. That's not the first time I have stumbled upon a worthwhile project that way.

Best wishes

Malcolm G4DMH
Doncaster  UK