Looking for a Web Person to Create a WordPress Staging/Backup site for this blog.

I can supply the backup files and the Template backup.  I need someone who can create a backup site for this blog.   I think it should be in WordPress.  It should include all the posts and comments, pictures and videos in the current blog.  It would be great if it used the same Template as the current blog.  I want to keep the current blog going indefintelty, but we need a backup site that could be used if Google suddenly decides to "deprecate" blogspot. 

Please let me know if you can help or if you know someone who can.  We will pay.  We can discuss this before any work begins.  

Thanks.  73  Bill

A USB-powered Homebrew X-ray machine. And who is Project 326?

This is an interesting project.  The use of dental X-ray packs was really innovative. The approporately snarky presentation about nanny-state nervous nellies was great.  It all reminded me the X-ray chapter of C.L. Stong's great book "The Amateur Scientist."   Here is a .pdf of the book:  http://www.ke5fx.com/stong.pdf

The X-Ray machine in Stong's book appears on page 500 (520 in the .pdf)  Here is the opening paragraphs:  

Indeed, it was lonely up there in the 10^-8 cm band! 

But who is behind Project 326?  Who is the robot narrator's human assistant?  At first I thought they were joking when they said they were in Southern China.  But YouTube does show them in Hong Kong.   He has British accent, but oddly he calls valves "tubes."  He also seems to use quite a bit of SolderSmoke terminology and practice:  He uses copper tape as a ground plane. He talks about relaeasing "Magic Smoke" and of passing or failing "the smoke test."  Could it be that Project 326 had been listening to the SolderSmoke podcast?  We hope so!   Please let us know if y ou have any background info on this mad amateur scientist. 

Here is the Project 326 YouTube channel:  

https://www.youtube.com/@project-326

How many of you guys have changed the clutch on a Heathkit HW-101 (or similar rig)?

That circular thing on the right is the "Plastic Clutch" on the Heathkit HW-101.   Mine dried out and shattered when I pushed the "Zero Set" button on the from ot the HW-101.  I heard it crack.  I cut out a piece of plastic of the right size.  That replacement clutch has been in there for about 30 years now.  

I know of one other guy who has replaced the clutch on a HW-101 (Will, N5OLA).  Let us know if you have done this too.  Put a comment down below. 

Oscillation! Negative Resistance! Barkhausen Explained Very Well!

It is not every day that we find a web site or a YouTube video that discusses negative resistance and the Barkhausen criteria.  But that day has arrived my friends!  

This All Electronics fellow appears to be Italian.  I really like his enthusiasm. The universe!  Differential equations! The passion seems to jump out of the video when he talks about how the negative resistance "enhances the oscillation!"  It is really great.

He even talks about how thermal noise gets the oscillation going.  This is something that I struggled with as a kid.  It took me a while to find a good source that explained this.  He explains it very well. 

Thanks to master homebrewer Pete Juliano (another Italian!) for alerting us many years ago to the Barkhausen criteria.  And thanks to Al Williams at Hack-A-Day for alerting us to this great video. 

Here is the All Electronics channel on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@AllElectronicsChannel

Dan KF5DAN's FB SolderSmoke Direct Conversion Receiver

It is a happy occassion whenever we get to announce a new member of the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion Receiver Hall of Fame.  And Dan KF5DAN has entered the hallowed halls.   Congratulations Dan.  We are really glad you are doing the happy dance.   Above you can see Dan's receiver inhaling SSB, in the video below you see it receiving CW. 

Dan writes: 

I would like to present proof of life! I found the motorboating issue in my amplifier. R18, 1K resistor was connected from the power rail to the base of Q5, instead of the collector. I moved it, and had already added a 470uF cap from earlier troubleshooting. There is a lot of noise, probably due to some stormy weather in Arkansas this evening. I'm doing the happy dance over here.

Thank you very much! I am very appreciative of all the guidance and suggestions everyone has provided. I am very happy to be in this group of hams and homebrewers.

Homebrewing a Quantum Computer

Ok, now for something completely different, and something that might help us shake off that Ludite moniker. 

I've seen lots of videos that promise to explain what quantum computing is all about.  Most of them disappoint.  These videos have promise.  

This young lady built a very simple quantum computer at home using lasers and some calcite.  The homebrew angle is very interesting.  At one point in the second video she talks about the benefits of taking theory and using it to actually build something at home.  Indeed.  

I need to spend more time with both of these videos, but like say, they show promise, and they definitely show the spirit of homebrew.  

The first (above) describes the build.  In the second video (below) she uses the build to do a calculation.

  

AI Apocalypse: How Google is Changing the Internet-- Implications for SolderSmoke

Here's what happened in a nutshell:  During the spring of this year Google rolled out an automatic AI search feature.  So now, when you have a question, Google's AI looks at websites across the web and writes up a nice, specific answer to your question.  Good for you, but disastrous for those who built blogs and websites on the assumption that Google searches would be sending a lot of people to our sites.  Why go to the sites if the nice AI has already given you the answer?  Many of us have seen precipitous drops in the numbers of visitors.  I have noticed an especially large drop in the number of comments on my blog posts.   And I have noticed that many of the other blogs listed on my blog site are no longer posting regularly. 

This is not imaginary. 

Here is a BBC article on what has happened: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250611-ai-mode-is-google-about-to-change-the-internet-forever

Here is TWiT TV talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDdLw1ubLaY&t=86s

Andreas Speiss (White gloves, Swiss accent, motorcycle hat) talks about the YouTube trends that are causing him to stop regular video production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTerwIniB24

Leo Sampson talks about the pressure to get high hit numbers on YouTube (scroll forward to the 3 minute 20 second mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4tSOQO3kxY

Fraser Cain of Universe Today talks about the Google ""AI apocalypse" (scroll ahead to the 18 minute mark): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/universe-today-podcast/id794058155?i=1000714736434

This is unfortunate, and it does seem unfair.  The AI is essentially taking our content, repackaging it, and serving it up for readers.  The AI site gets to monetize the visits -- the blog owners that the AI gets the information from do not.  

But what should we do in response?

Well, we will resist the forces that seem to be pushing us into oblivion.  We know we are a very niche operation.  At best we are NIMCELS:  "Niche Internet Micro-Celebrities."  We are content with our NIMCEL status.  We know that our posts and podcasts about homebrew rigs will never go viral nor rival the hit counts of Taylor Swift or Arianna Grande.  And we are not in this for the money (!).   Some additional comments would be encouraging -- these comments let us know that we are not blogging/podcasting into the abyss. 

So,  just keep reading the blog, listening to the podcast, perhaps become a Patreon sponsor  and -- perhaps above all -- put comments on the blog site and the YouTube channel. Help spread the word about our efforts. 

An old fashioned RSS reader may help.  Feedly works well:  Here are some recent recommendations: 

https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/

Here is the RSS feed for the SolderSmoke Blog: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SoldersmokeDailyNews

And here is the RSS feed for the podcast: http://www.soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke.rss

Here is the ID for the SolderSmoke YouTube channel.  Please subscribe and comment!  https://youtube.com/@soldersmoke?si=mYMzMNtsPyKot7q4

Become a Patreon sponsor for SolderSmoke: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolderSmoke

We thank you for your support. 

Will Everett N5OLA -- the Heathkit Guru from South Texas

Will N5OLA

Will's innovative approach to old, dirty Heathkit transceivers caught my eye:  he gives them a bath.  Like with soap and water.  Then he put the rig in the oven (not all of us can do this and live to tell about it).  Finally he leaves the rig under the South Texas sun for a few days to complete the drying process.  FB Will. 

Will has (I hope!) inspired Pete N6QW to change his landfill plans for the HW-32A.   I have not given my HW-101 a bath yet, but I have recapped the HP-23B power supply and I have the HW-101 on the air.  Just yesterday a guy on 40 told me I was 40 Hz off frequency. I felt like I had come home. 

 

The N5OLA Workshop

There is another line on Will's QRZ page that caught my eye: 

"When not on the air, I write novels and own two indie coffee shops here on South Padre Island."

Indeed Will is a well known author who has done some great stuff:   

From http://www.willeverett.net/about.html

As a journalist, Will Everett has reported from the Middle East, South Asia and West Africa for National Public Radio, the BBC, Voice of America and other outlets.  With Walter Cronkite he wrote and produced the 2006 documentary World War One Living History Project, the only media project to honor the last surviving veterans of WWI. He also collaborated with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien on a program for the National Campaign to Stop Violence.

For ten years he was the creator and host of the syndicated NPR program Theme and Variations. His work has been recognized by the Society for Professional Journalists, the New York Festivals, the National Headliner Awards and the Poynter Institute.

His novel We’ll Live Tomorrow was  published in October 2015.  He also provided lyrics for a choral collaboration with Joseph Martin, “The Message,” published by Hal Leonard.

Will holds a master's degree from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. 

Will's QRZ page:  https://www.qrz.com/db/N5OLA

Will's Site: http://www.willeverett.net/home.html

Will's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@N5OLA

Alan W2AEW Measures the Minimum Discernible Signal (MDS) of the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion Receiver

So cool that Alan did this.  Here we see a rigrourous measurement of the MDS of our receiver, with a correction for the bandwidth.  Very nice. 

It can discern signals down to -125 dbm.  I think that is pretty good for simple receiver like this.  

Alan agrees that another way to do the sensitivity test is to just listen for the band noise when you connect and disconnect the antenna.  Especially on the low HF bands,  if you can hear it, you have sort of maxed out on receiver sensitivity.  

Thanks Alan!  

Hack-A-Day on the Tao of Bespoke Electronics

https://hackaday.com/2025/06/25/the-tao-of-bespoke-electronics/#comment-8142333

My comment:  Good post with good points about the under-appreciated differences between true homebrew and kit building. I have a lot of Heathkits around me, but I never considered them to be homebrew. There is a big difference. We have been promoting and supporting the HOMEBREW construction of 40 meter direct-conversion receivers. No one would confuse these receivers with commercial, or even kit-built gear. But they work very well, and the builder earns the satisfaction that comes with building something from scratch. There are no factory made PC boards to “populate.” All four of our boards are made using Manhattan construction techniques (super glue, isolation pads, copper-clad substrate). Almost 90 receivers have been completed, in more than 15 countries. Check out the receivers. Build one if you dare: 

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search/label/DC%20RX%20Hall%20of%20Fame 

BTW — I own a Dymo machine, and my SSB transceivers are in wooden boxes made from junked packing material. 73 Bill N2CQR

F6GUH: True Homebrew

 

Philippe put it this way:  "Radio is my religion, my shack is my church." 

20 Meter transceiver

40 Meter Transceiver

80 meter transceiver

Today I was on 17 meter SSB, talking to Yannick HB9TWY.  He looked at my QRZ page and said that he had a friend with rigs that look like mine.  "Who is that?" I asked.  Philippe F6GUH is the intrepid homebrewer.  I like the looks of his rigs.  And they are truly "rigs."

Thanks Yannick.  And thank you Philippe. 

WD4CFN Makes Contact Using the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion Receiver and a Michigan Mighty Mite

 

Hall of Fame member Steve WD4CFN in Tennessee fired up his 40 meter Mchigan Mighty Mite (above) and made contact with ND4K in Georgia. FB Steve.  Congratulations OM!