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Saturday, June 30, 2018

Tom Swift had The Knack


Thanks to Richard for alerting us this important piece of Knack history.  Not bad for 1910.  You can see Tom's shack and antenna in the cover image (above).  I don't think he was going for a fan dipole.  He built the kind of multi-wire antenna that was in fashion in the early days of radio. 

The full text of the book is avaialble free on-line.  The radio fun begins in  Chapter 20: 

Bless my door knob, this was a lot of fun! 

Bill, 

I am certain I missed the origin of “the knack” as used on your blog. I, wonder, however, if in your youth you read Tom Swift novels? Although now they seem somewhat politically incorrect, I feel that the word may have, for our purposes, evolved there.

In the first novel, “Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle” (sic) Tom repairs a butter churn’s “system of  cogs and handles.” When praised for his abilities he declares, “It’s just a knack.” Stick with me.

In a later novel, written around 1910, “Tom Swift and His Wireless Message” Tom is shipwrecked on an ebbing volcanic island. He saves the day by constructing a transmitter and receiver from the wreckage of his plane,  even though he “did not have the magnets, carbons, coherers and needles” needed. He strings “ wires from the top of the dead treed, to a smaller one, some distance away, using five wires, set parallel, and attached to a wooden spreader, or stay. (Fan dipole?) The wires were then run to the dynamo, and the receiving coil, and the necessary ground wires were installed.” Then,”once the impulses, or electric currents, are sent out into space, all that is necessary to do is to break, or interrupt them at certain intervals to make dots, dated and spaces.” He sent “C.Q.D. (come quick—danger) even though a “new code has been instituted for them, but I am going to rely on the old one, as, in this part of the world, the new one may not be so well understood.” Needless to say, a ship hears, responds and rescues the crew.

That”s “the knack", alright!

Never give up, and 73.
Richard, KD0NPM


Friday, June 29, 2018

Two Videos from Other Kinds of Workshops -- Dobson Makes a Telescope, Peter Builds an Airplane


Above you can watch a video showing the legendary John Dobson making a big telescope. Born in Beijing, Dobson is the former Hindu monk who left the monastery to show people how to make big telescopes out of shipping tubes and port-hole glass.  Think of it as the BITX of amateur astronomy.  Dobson is the founder of the "sidewalk astronomy" movement -- that's when you set up your 'scope on an urban sidewalk and show the wonders of the universe (or at least the solar system) to passers-by.  We did this in London with Saturn.  (Some of the cynical Londoners couldn't believe it was real -- they thought I had a transparency in the scope tube.) Dobson developed a very simple and popular method of mounting telescope tubes -- the "Dobsonian" method.   

More on Dobson here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dobson_(amateur_astronomer)

Below you can see a short update on Peter's homebrew airplane. 

Monday, June 25, 2018

Dust Storm on Mars


Damn.  Just as Mars gets close enough for me to see something with my 6 inch reflector telescope, a massive dust storm hits.  I was out there this morning at 0430 local.   Mars was bright and red in the southern sky, but when I got it in the telescope's field of view it was like looking at a red version of Venus -- just the disk, with no surface features visible.  The before-and-after pictures above (taken with far better equipment than mine) shows the extent to which the dust has obscured things on Mars. 

But Sky and Telescope reports that the Martian skies may soon be clearing.  Hooray!  


Sunday, June 24, 2018

On Field Day: The Marine Corps Antenna Manual


Don't let it be said that SolderSmoke made no contribution to Field Day!   Here is the USMC Antenna Manual.   Looks like there is lot of good info in there.   

https://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCRP%208-10B.11.pdf?ver=2017-03-15-092827-423

Saturday, June 23, 2018

SolderSmoke #205 Solstice, Mars, Antennas, Displays, Phasing Fix, VFOs, Lexicon, MAILBAG


June 23, 2018

SolderSmoke Podcast #205 is available:  

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke205.mp3

-- Summer solstice.  Mars Observations.  Graduations.  Internships.  Fathers Day.

-- Antenna Angst:  Pete's tribander and Bill's Moxon.  Insulation and resonance?

-- Pete's work on color displays. 

-- Bill goes back to fix up older projects:  

-- Fixing the Frankenstein Phasing RX.  Found an open choke!

-- Tightening up the HRO Dial. 

-- Achieving Juliano Criteria stability on a BITX20 VFO. 

-- Lexicon additions:  "Scratch Built"  "Hardrock Radio"  

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/39551/where-does-the-saying-made-from-scratch-originate

-- PastaPete:  http://www.pastapete.com/

MAILBAG: 
Bob Crane W8SX Corrspondent at FDIM
Ralph AB1OP  Building LBS
Bruce KC1FSZ  Digital Pot
Jason W5IPA uBITX in Juliano Blue
Rogier KJ6ETL  ON THE AIR WITH A uBITX
Special thanks to Tim Walford for 25 years of Hot Iron.  






Thursday, June 21, 2018

"Hot Iron" #100 -- Thanks Tim Walford!


Tim Walford, G3PCJ has put out issue #100 of Hot Iron, the Journal of the Constructors Club.  That my friends is a long time publishing a quarterly.  25 years!   And it is a wonderful publication, filled with ideas and inspiration.  

Tim tells us in #100 that he is passing the baton (the Hot Iron?) to Peter Thornton, G6NGR who will keep the iron hot from here on out.   Peter is looking for contributions for issue #101.  Please try to help him out.  

Thanks again to Tim.  Good luck with the farm and the house moves.  


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