Ugly VFO works

After a couple of hours of drilling, winding and mostly soldering, the "ugly construction" VFO and buffer amplifier is working. The output on the oscilloscope is fairly stable and the tuning range is roughly what I calculated it would be.

The frequency is on the low side (6.7MHz rather than 7.0MHz). When I tested the toroid inductor before putting it into the circuit, I noticed that the inductance varied greatly depending on how close or wide I pushed the windings. However, since I don't actually plan to use the VFO on the 40m band, I am not too fussed about this. I didn't build any trimmer capacitors into the circuit.

Here are a few photos of the VFO in its current state. I will add details of the circuit in the next post, plus I want to do a proper test of the stability and tuning range. Then I will build and add the Cumbria Designs X-Lock "huff and puff" stabiliser that I have in kit form and see how that works.