Time for something completely different. As a kid, I lusted after the ROBOT SSTV systems that were advertised in QST. Yesterday, on a lark, I downloaded this program, tuned my Mythbuster transceiver to 14.230 MHz, and put the podcast microphone in front of the speaker. BOOM! SSTV signals started pouring in. The program automatically set the kind of SSTV format that was coming in, so there was no need for me to try to figure out if it was Scottie 1 or Martin 1 or whatever. I've done this before, but this program made it easier. The invention of SSTV by Copthorne MacDonald (another GREAT ham radio name!) is really interesting:
Sometimes the YouTube algorithm gets it right. This morning it sent me the above video from the Computer History Museum about Jim Williams. The video is 13 years-old, but that says something about the enduring impact that Jim Williams had. I especially liked the references to the need for understanding of analog circuits. As many have noted, Jim was very good at explaining this stuff.
As always with Dave's builds, " 'tis a thing of beauty." His photographs and documentation make it even better. Please go directly to Dave's site and enjoy his look at the SolderSmoke HOMEBREW Direct Conversion Receiver:
The Bob Pease book that KD4EBM gave me led me to the Jim Willams book entitled Analog Circuit Design -- Art, Science, and Personalities. I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, but I can already tell that it is great. Get this book. Make room on your shelf.
Jim was the editor, and it is a collection of contibutions made by a many different analog luminaries. Curiously, none of the bios show that there are any hams among them (but the articles of many of them seem to hint at ham radio backgrounds). MIT shows up a lot in the bios. Jim notes in the very first line of the preface that "This is a weird book." He talks about how it came together -- he met with the contributors and each of them pledged NOT to consult with the others about what they would write. Jim notes that the result is "a somewhat discordant book," that "Hopefully would lend courage to someone seeking to do analog work." " The single greatest asset a designer has is self knowledge." "Take what you like, cook it any way you want to, and leave the rest." Indeed.
I found that Jim's own contributions were among those that I liked the most. He writes about "analoggery" and "digital fakery" but then acknowledges that this is a "good natured" controversy. He notes that "no true home is complete without a lab" (a shack?) and that "no lab is complete without an HP series 200 oscillator." His bio reveals that he lived in California with his family and "14 Tektronix oscilloscopes." In a chapter entitled "Should Ohm's Law be Repealed?" Jim describes the very early influence of a neighbor, Dr. Stearn, who owned a Tek 535. It allowed them to see into circuits: "You knew the excitement Leeuwenhoek felt when he looked in his microscope." But that was not always enough: Jim tells how Stearn once successfully troubleshot one of Jim circuits simply by running moistened fingers over circuit while watching the scope.
Tom Hornak also really struck a chord with me. He writes of things that happened in the year "10 BT" (Before Transistors). He talks about how he and a childhood friend had trouble understanding the differences between voltage and current. "We found someone who knew the right answer, but he did not help us too much. Instead of using a simple analog such as a phasor diagram, he started to talk sine and cosine. We accused him of not knowing the answer either, and covering up his ignorance my muttering mumbo-jumbo." Tom explaines: "I know that trying to 'understand electricity' early in life had a lasting benefit to me. I got used to 'seeing electricity' in analogs and I am still seeing it that way. I believe every electronic circuit designer could benefit from thinking in analogs, and it is never too late to start. This belief made me write this chapter."
Barrie Gilbert -- the man credited with inventing the Gilbert Cell (the heart of the NE602) -- has a chapter in the book. He writes of circuits "laid out Manhattan-style" and "built on softwood bases." He hombrewed a very early TV receiver. He tested AF amplifiers "by placing a finger on the grid of the first tube." (We recommended something similar with the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion Receiver, but some builders seemed not to believe that this would work!)
It is undoubtedly a tragedy that we lost both Jim Willams and Bob Pease in June 2011. Jim died of a stroke at age 63; Bob died of a possible heart attack or stroke while driving home from Jim's memorial service. But here we are in 2025 still talking about their work and their books. In a certain sense they live on through their writing. This is a lesson and an inspiration for those of us who sometimes get a bit down by the vagaries of AI and the algorithms: We never know when -- perhaps long after we are gone -- someone might come across something we have written and find inspiration there.
First off, what a great name. It is a real ham radio name. Grote Reber. And he was indeed a ham: W9GFZ. We don't have names like that anymore. But we should.
Second, Grote Reber's mother was also the teacher of Edwin Hubble. Hubble was the guy who discovered that there were OTHER GALAXIES in the universe, and that they were all moving away from each other. That was a BIG discovery! Later, Grote's mom also had her son in her class. Both students were from Wheaton, Illinois.
Lest there be any doubt about Grote's dedication to radio, consider the following. (Much of the following comes from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_Reber)
When he learned of Karl Jansky's work in 1933,[5][6][7] Grote Reber decided this was the field he wanted to work in, and applied to Bell Labs, where Jansky was working.
In the summer of 1937, Reber decided to build his own radio telescope in his back yard in Wheaton, Illinois. Reber's radio telescope was considerably more advanced than Jansky's, and consisted of a parabolic sheet metal dish 9 meters in diameter, focusing to a radio receiver 8 meters above the dish. The entire assembly was mounted on a tilting stand, allowing it to be pointed in various directions, though not turned. The telescope was completed in September 1937.[8][9]
Here is a really great article from Sky and Telescope magazine (July 1988) about Reber's homebrew radio telescope:
He was limited by the size of locally available 2X4 lumber. Neighbors thought he was trying to control the weather or to bring down enemy aircraft. Between Wheaton and the NRAO site in West Virginia, Reber's telescope spent some time at the National Bureau of Standards site in Sterling, Virginia. I was in Sterling just yesterday. I wonder if there is a plaque or something noting the telesccope's stay in that town. I note that at age 15, Reber had built a ham radio transceiver.
AND THEN HE MOVED TO TASMANIA
He did this because of propagation and low noise conditions. (This reminds me of how we sometimes said that very few people have actually said the words, "And then we moved to the Azores.")
Starting in 1951, he received generous support from the Research Corporation in New York, and moved to Hawaii.[12] In the 1950s, he wanted to return to active studies but much of the field was already filled with very large and expensive instruments. Instead he turned to a field that was being largely ignored, that of medium frequency (hectometre) radio signals in the 0.5–3 MHz range, around the AM broadcast bands. However, signals with frequencies below 30 MHz are reflected by an ionized layer in the Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere. In 1954, Reber moved to Tasmania,[12] the southernmost state of Australia, where he worked with Bill Ellis at the University of Tasmania.[13] There, on very cold, long, winter nights the ionosphere would, after many hours shielded from the Sun's radiation by the bulk of the Earth, 'quieten' and de-ionize, allowing the longer radio waves into his antenna array. Reber described this as being a "fortuitous situation". Tasmania also offered low levels of man-made radio noise, which permitted reception of the faint signals from outer space.
His Homebrew House in Tasmania
In the 1960s, he had an array of dipoles set up on the sheep grazing property of Dennistoun, about 7.5 km (5 miles) northeast of the town of Bothwell, Tasmania, where he lived in a house of his own design and construction he decided to build after he purchased a job lot of coach bolts at a local auction. He imported 4x8 douglas fir beams directly from a sawmill in Oregon, and then high technology double glazed window panes, also from the US. The bolts held the house together. The window panes formed a north facing passive solar wall, heating mat black painted, dimpled copper sheets, from which the warmed air rose by convection. The interior walls were lined with reflective rippled aluminium foil. The house was so well thermally insulated that the oven in the kitchen was nearly unusable because the heat from it, unable to escape, would raise the temperature of the room to over 50 °C (120 °F). His house was never completely finished. It was meant to have a passive heat storage device, in the form of a thermally insulated pit full of dolerite rocks, underneath, but although his mind was sharp, his body started to fail him in his later years, and he was never able to move the rocks. He was fascinated by mirrors and had at least one in every room.
To Canada -- And a Rejection of the Big Bang
The same July 1988 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine has a good historical vignette of Reber, with a focus on his actvities in Canada late in life (click on the image below). Reber had big doubts about the big bang. Unfortunately this seemed to spill over into scorn and ridicule for those who -- well -- believed in the big bang. We see this at the end of the article. Oh well, even great people sometimes get cranky.
Three cheers for Grote Reber.
I had trouble making the WayBack Machine links to work on my blog. But they seem to work on the Wiki page. So to see them, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_Reber Then go to the Reference section and take a look at the second and third items.
This book is kind of weird, but give it a chance. The author seems too prone to describe the physical attributes of his colleagues, especially female colleagues. But he was born in 1910 -- he was an old guy when he wrote this book, so perhaps we should cut him some slack. And there is one memorable episode where he defends a female applicant. In spite of the shortcomings, there are many real gems in there, often hidden among the descriptions of 1930's era Kleenex machines and refrigerators. I picked up the book a long time ago and only read it recently.
Some highlights:
-- Crystal Radios in the 1920s.
-- Working Australia from Michigan on 40 CW in 1927. And waking up his parents to tell them. (Decades later, I did the same thing after a ZL contact).
-- Doing a radio propagation survey using the 5 meter band (FMLA!)
-- Jansky's discovery of an extraterrestrial hiss in 1932. (It seems like that was the big discovery, So why did Penzias get the Nobel prize?)
-- A youthful trip to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
-- A regular ham band schedule from Ann Arbor to Berkeley that featured Ernest Lawrence and Robert Oppenheimer.
-- Lots of mention of Fred Terman, Grote Reber, and Karl Jansky,
-- Some discussion of how Jansky was turned down for a job. And about how being a radio amateur actually hurt chances for employment; there are a few lines about anti-ham prejudice.
-- Lots of people known to us show up in the book: Joe Taylor, Shoemaker and Levy of Shoemaker-Levy 9 fame, Arthur C. Clarke, Maarten Schmidt of "First Light," and many others.
-- And of course, the WOW signal (that has recently been explained as probably having a natural origin).
-- Kraus tells of how the Latin words "Ad Astra per Aspera" (to the stars, with difficulty) were engraved above their radio telescope receiving room. He goes on to (correctly) criticize those who write about radio telescopes, without having ever built one. Remarkinig on one such critic, John Bolton, a revered Austialian radio astronomer and radio telescope builder, wrote, "If the writer had built a radio telescope his story of radio astronomy would be a different story."
Here is a good review of Kraus's "Big Ear Two" book:
Jay KI5VIR is a new ham, but you would never know this by looking at his build of the direct conversion receiver: It looks like something built by someone with a lot more time the amateur ranks. (See above.)
Jay writes:
I have completed the direct conversion reciever and I can't thank Bill, Dean and those that commented and asked questions on discord enough. This was my first build and I can't believe how much I learned. I have a long ways to go, but this was just what I needed to get started in homebrewing. 1- (BIGGEST CHALLENGE) was probably the diode ring mixer and learning to use my scope and setting it up to test the circuit. (this was also the most rewarding stage) 2-(WHAT DID YOU LEARN AND WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE?) I got a basic understanding of how to read a circuit and what different components do in the circuit.(I still want to revisit each stage and make sure I get a little more) 3-(WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HOMEBREW NEXT?) I want to first dissasemble each board and rebuild while it is fresh in my mind and make sure I get a little better understanding. After that, I want to either build a transmitter to go with this reciever, or build a complete transciever. Not sure whether to build ssb or cw, but I definately want to build something I can make at least a few contacts with.
Congratulations Jay, and welcome to the Hall of Fame!
Dave Richards AA7EE is justifiably famous in homebrew circles for the beautiful photographs of his rigs, and for the superb documentation of his builds. You will see what I mean when you visit his blog:
We were very pleased when Dave told us he would build the direct conversion receiver that we have been discussing on Discord.
Dave writes:
Phew! Well this was a bit of a journey, and a slightly humbling experience. I looked at the schematic and thought, "Hey, I can build this. Shouldn't be too hard!" But the homebrew Gods judged that it was time to remind me of my place in the big scheme of things, by imbuing my receiver with in-band breakthrough from SSB, CW, and digi stations. Strong in-band stations within about 50KHz were breaking through and being heard in the same way that you'd hear SSB, CW, and digi signals on an AM receiver without a BFO. Their pitch wasn't changing as I tuned, because they had no pitch. Bill suggested that RF was getting into places it wasn't supposed to be, and being envelope detected by the AF amp. As it turned out, he was right. If anyone's interested, I can post a video of the issue I was experiencing. In the meantime though, I'll keep this post brief. I have quite a lot of pictures from various stages of the build, but posting them all here might be a bit TMI.
I wanted to make this receiver reasonably compact and build all the stages on one board. My near-pathological tendency to try and build things fairly small could have contributed to the breakthrough problem that I experienced. I won't go into all the details of the troubleshooting process here, unless people are really interested, though I'll detail them in a post on my blog, as I think that sharing this stuff can be helpful to other builders - just as I have benefited greatly from others sharing with me.
I made a few small changes from the original schematic, to cure the issues I was experiencing. Will detail them in another comment underneath, as the free version of Discord puts a character limit on posts.
I made the following small changes, to cure a couple of issues this little receiver was experiencing -
1) The AF amp was motorboating at anything above about medium volume, so I swapped out the 47µF capacitor in the +ve supply line to the AF amp (C10) for a 470µF part. This killed the motorboating dead in it's tracks.
2) To solve the in-band breakthrough issue, I did two things -
a) At the suggestion of Peter VK3TPM, I placed a 1K resistor in the +ve supply line to the first AF amp stage, Q5, between C15 and R8. In conjunction with C15, this forms a lowpass filter with a 3dB cutoff point at about 3Hz. With a 12V supply, ~3.5V is dropped across this resistor and at 9V, the voltage drop is ~2.3V. If this voltage drop is too much for you, you can try a lower value of resistor and perhaps increasing the value of C15. This voltage drop does decrease the gain of the stage a little. In my case, it was welcome, as the amp was tipping over into feedback at full volume. Adding the resistor eliminated this, so I can now run the AF gain pot at full tilt.
b) I added a 0.22µF capacitor from the wiper of the AF gain pot to ground, as an RF bypass. Physical placement of this cap was close to Q5. It also shapes the audio a little, cutting out some of the high-frequency hiss. You can experiment with different values here. I was initially going to use a 0.1µF part, but 0.22µF provided better protection. Greater values cut out too many of the higher frequencies for my liking. For a relatively simple receiver like this, I like the wide open sound.
I removed the spring from the tuning shaft. Tuning is smoother now, and free from backlash.
Dave
AA7EE
Here is a video of Dave's receiver inhaling CW during the CW Sweepstakes contest:
Here is one of Dave's iconic photos of the receiver:
Thanks Dave! Congratulations and welcome to the Hall of Fame!
I think this one is a bit over the top. They are way too interested in the old typewirters. The artist who destroys the old machines to make robots and sculptures... the "musical group" that plays songs on old typrwriters... all the people who decry modern digital tech, but then create internet pages that save the old typewriter shops. But hey, who am I to criticize them? Some readers really liked the New York Times article on the Bremerton Typewriters Company. And there is a lot of overlap between these typrewriter fanatics and the many shades of ham radio fanaticism (boatanchor-oligists, I'm looking at you!) So here (above) is the full movie.
One personal note: My paternal grandmother was part of that original typewriter revolution - she remained proud all of her life of hwer ability to use that machine. She kept her own typewriter in her house all of her life. And she used it.
There are a LOT of YouTube videos about old typewriters and workshops that service them. Here is one about the last typewriter shop in Melbourne, Australia:
Listen to this in its audio form. Maybe follow along with the (type?)written text. Enjoy the pictures and the videos and -- above all -- the message.
This wonderful article has a lot to say about the value of repairing -- and knowing how to repair -- old gear. Not just typewriters, although that is very cool. But this article also pertains to old boatanchor ham gear, and to the skills needed to homebrew rigs today. And it says a lot about mentorship.
Readers will remember last week's post about the homebrew rivalry between VU2RM and VU2NR. (Note the bio about VU2RM below). This morning Farhan sent me this article from a 1970s-era Indian ham radio magazine in which VU2RM describes his early efforts to get onto the satellites. I also tried during the mid 1970s, but I didn't have the kind of magic decoder ring provided (via QSL!) by OH2RK. My satellite success had to wait some 20 years, until I was in the Dominican Republic. More on this below the VU2RM article.
This morning I replied to Farhan's email:
Very cool Farhan. I see that Pete may have an Indian rival for "most SSB transceivers built."
I got into the satellites during my 1992-1996 stay in the Dominican Republic. At first, we had no way to get the up-to-date Keplerian elements to predict satellite passes. Then Compuserve opened up. I had to telephone Miami from the DR to get the Keps. I ran up a huge phone bill.
I too built an antenna for these contacts. Mine was the 2 meter portion of a 144/440 MHz project from 73 magazine called "The Ray-Gun". I built mine out of scrap lumber and refrigerator tubing. I still have these elements! I used them in the beam that I built to listen for YOUR satellite! In the DR, elevated the thing by 45 degrees and pointed it in the general direction of the satellite.
RS-11 had a very cool robot aboard. If you called it just right, it would issue you a serial number. I have the QSL.
Here are some articles about our satellite adventures.
