Shortwave and Numbers Stations in 2022 (video)

Thanks to Rogier PA1ZZ for sending this to me. 

The Story of Television (Sarnoff's Version) -- 1956 Film

Of course, this has to be taken with a huge grain of salt.  "General" Sarnoff sits there and claims that Vladimir Zworkyin "invented" electronic television.  But Philo Farnsworth really did that.  Zworykin's claim to invention has about as much validity as Sarnoff's claim to having been a General!  

But still, there is a lot of interesting info amidst the RCA propaganda.  Again, it is really striking how far they had come before WWII put things on hold for four years.  

Level UP EE Lab Builds a Superhet Receiver

I was really glad to have stumbled across Darren's YouTube channel: 

(46) Level UP EE Lab - YouTube

Heck, he has an S-38E on the shelf above his bench.  He is clearly one of us.  What is his callsign?  

This morning I watched the first and last of his 10 videos on his superhet receiver project.  Very cool.  Lots of good info in there.  And there is something for everyone:  Arduinos and Si5351s, along with a lot of standard analog circuitry.  The first episode appears above. 

The variable bandwidth filter looks very interesting. And there was a nice shout-out to Charlie Morris and one to Hans Summers. 

I really like his effort in episode 10 to measure Minimum Discernible Signal using commonly available test gear.  This helped me in my effort to get more rigorous and serious about receiver performance measurement.    

Darren has many other excellent projects on his YouTube channel.  My Hammarlund HQ-100 receiver started giving me trouble this week, and I was debating whether or not to fix the old thing.  Darren's channel provided the inspiration I needed.  It will be fixed!   

Please subscribe to Darren's channel.  And spread the word about his videos.  We definitely want him to make a lot more.  

Thanks Darren! 

Words of Wisdom on Which Tools to Buy

Also interesting are Van Neistat's thoughts on workshop design: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8bzWKBvZsE

 

75/20 - 17/12 Two Homebrew Rigs in Scrap-Wood Boxes

 

I moved the 17/12 Rig off the workbench and placed it (as planned) atop the Mythbuster rig.  Now I have four bands easily accessible.  In these pictures you can see all four bands being displayed on the San Jian Frequency Counters. 

I found a kitchen drain screen that is an ideal cover for the 3 inch speaker in the 17/12 rig. 

I reconfigured the Low Pass filters in the CCI .1 kilowatt amplifier.  I put a 12 meter LP filter in there in place of the 40 meter LP filter (that I haven't been using much). 

I have been working a lot of DX on both 17 and 12.   

Back to the 1970's! Homebrew Keyboards! Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter

Even though it is outside my normal analog comfort zone, I really liked this video.  Farhan sent it to me, along with this note: 

--------------

As a kid, do you remember Don Lancaster's books? I learnt most of my digital electronics from him. I still have the 7 dollar video generator book on my shelf. He predates the Homebrew Computer Club. In fact, he is probably the reason for the HCC, because he put in the pieces that were used by others like the two Steves to build their own computers.

His most brilliant hack was to build a "TV typewriter" out of standard TTL parts that were just coming out in the surplus market. For $120, you could, if you build etched your own PCBs and managed to pry parts of fellow builder's dead fingers, build a circuit that, if you typed your name, it showed up on the TV screen! Never mind that dad wanted to get back to watching football or mom wanted the kitchen counter to be cleared out. Those days, parents had no appreciation for their kids being on TV, I guess.

In an earlier hack, he encouraged people through his articles in Radio Electronics to build their own Qwerty keyboard. With this in hand, you could, um .. um... well type something and sit back. There was nothing to connect it to. The fun thing was, there were no key switches available. You had to build those as well. Wind your own springs, make your own keytops, Once it was built, you could use a VOM to check that the ASCII bits corresponding to the key you held down would correctly show up on the 7 data lines. I guess the girls were surely impressed. You just needed to carry the power supply with +5, -5v, +12v, the keyboard itself, an ASCII chart and a VOM to school to show off.

Jokes apart, he kept building things and builds them to this day. His TTL cookbook and CMOS cookbooks were the goto books for almost all digital elecctronics hackers. It is a pity that no one acknowledges his knack. He has scanned in a few of his books on his 1990s www.tinaja.com.  Check  https://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/cmoscb.pdf

Why does it concern us? He is K3BYG, that's why.

Watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-bFV8fHekk

- f

-----------

 So many things from the video resonated with me: 

-- The importance of building and testing, stage by stage.  The narrator admits "I might have screwed that up."

-- Homebrew keyboards!  Make your own keyboard springs you pathetic appliance operators! 

-- Wood box. 

-- Origins of ASCI

-- The scary 1970s.  Indeed.   I started High School in 1972. 

-- Schematic errors!   Oh the humanity!  Erratas. 

-- Appeals to the Digital Gods. (Not as powerful as The Radio Gods.)

-- A Gimmick Twin Lead. 

-- "So many different disciplines went into building this thing..." 

-- A taste of the home computing revolution of the 1970s. 

-- Farhan is right -- he was K3BYG.  But that call now seems to belong to someone else. 

Don Lancaster's unofficial autobiography: 

https://www.tinaja.com/glib/waywere.pdf

Clearly, Don Lancaster has The Knack! 

Looking at the World Through a 1 inch Cathode Ray Tube (the RCA 913) (videos)

Joh DL6ID sent me the above video.  We have been e-mailing each other about the W9YEI Television Receiver built in 1939 or so.  We have kind of concluded that the builder used an RCA 913 tube as the CRT.  This was an oscilloscope tube and was often described as looking like a metal 6L6 with a tiny screen on top.   This is kind of neat -- like using something from the old days to peer into the new world of video.  

We wondered about the image persistence of this tube.  Fortunately for us, we found several YouTube videos showing recent builds or repairs of oscilloscopes with RCA 913 tubes.  

Of course, Mr. Carlson has a video on one of these devices (and -- as expected -- has another in his junk box.  Mr. Carlson has at least two of everything.) 

Here are a few other videos showing RCA 913 tubes in action. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-qidcmN-sI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfN2mmEIfTE   (with Men at Work audio)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJF22Ra2kIM    (Summertime.... And the Livin' is Easy)

Here's a nice video from Tektronix on CRTs: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHGAnJjnNY0

1942 (?) RCA Film on Tubes, Radio, Research, and Television

Here is a very interesting video from RCA.   It was released in 1942,  but it looks to me as if it was produced BEFORE the Pearl Harbor attack and the U.S. entry into World War II.   There is no mention of the war nor of RCA's support for the war effort.  All films like this that were produced during the war have a lot of material about how the company was contributing to the war effort.  So I think this is really a pre-war film. 

Early in the film they link the origins of RCA Labs to a decrepit "radio shack" at Riverhead, Long Island (NY) in 1919.   Here is some background on this: 

https://antiquewireless.org/wp-content/uploads/30-the_beginnings_of_radio_central.pdf

and

https://antiquewireless.org/wp-content/uploads/26-report_from_radio_central.pdf

In this film we see Vladimir Zworykin (boo, hiss) of TV fame (no mention of poor Philo Farnsworth),  and we also see Harold Beverage, the creator of the antenna that bears his name.   There is what must have been one of the first "electronic clocks."  

At the end, the segment on television is really interesting.   It is amazing how far they had gone with TV before the war.  

An Eclipse, a Sunset and a Sunrise, all on Mars

https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/26671/insight-captures-a-martian-sunrise-and-sunset/?site=insight#:~:text=NASA's%20InSight%20lander%20snapped%20a,or%20sol%2C%20of%20the%20mission.

https://www.space.com/perseverance-rover-mars-solar-eclipse-video

Conclusions About W9YEI's Early (1940?) Homebrew Television Receiver

It may have looked something like this.  Recent build of the Scozarri receiver by Jack Neitz

Joh DL6ID and I have been exchanging e-mails in which we compare notes on the early homebrew television receiver of Johnny Anderson W9YEI.   In 1973 on WOR New York, Jean Shepherd described a very memorable demonstration of TV  conducted some three decades earlier by Anderson for teenage friends in Hammond, Indiana.  Shep provided a lot of detail, but some of his recollections seemed a bit off;  Shep was known for exaggerating or changing details to make a story better.   

We have arrived at some conclusions about this project (but if anyone has more info, please let us know): 

DID ANDERSON ACTUALLY BUILD A TV RECEIVER?  

Yes, he did.  This was a homebrew project, not a kit build and not the use of a receiver built and loaned for test purposes by the transmitting station.  Anderson was an accomplished homebrewer whose basement, according to Shep, was filled with devices he had built.  A QSL card sent by him in 1938 shows him using a "9 tube superhet" as a receiver.  Shep describes Johnny -- over a period of perhaps six months -- gathering components  in Chicago's electronics parts market, and building something in his basement.  That sure sounds like a real homebrew project.  A TV receiver kit was available, but it was very expensive, and Shep would have immediately denounced it as a non-homebrew project.  Anderson homebrewed the receiver. 

WHY DID HE DO THIS? 

Why would a ham build a TV receiver at a time in which there were only a few experimental transmitters on the air, and no possibility of using the receiver to "work" other amateur stations?  We tend to think of TV as a post-war commercial phenomenon.  But in fact there was a lot of "buzz" about TV in the 1930s.  Magazines were filled with TV articles, and with ads for courses that promised to prepare people for what seemed to many to be "the next big thing."  The World's Fair in Chicago in 1933 and 1934 featured a demonstration of television -- Anderson, who lived in a close-in Chicago suburb,  may have seen this demonstration.  Television must have seemed like a do-able but difficult technical challenge, and would  have attracted the interest of an advanced homebrewer like Anderson.    

WHEN DID ANDERSON BUILD THE RECEIVER? 

Shepherd describes a demonstration of TV in which Anderson tuned into experimental transmissions of WBKB in Chicago.  WBKB's experimental transmitter W9XBK did not go on the air until August 1940.  And Anderson told Shep that he had been calling in reception reports for a month or six weeks.  That would push the date of the demonstration to September 1940 at the earliest.  In September 1940 Anderson was 22 years old, and Shep was 19. (Here is one area in which Shep's recall is questionable -- he claims that the event took place when he -- Shep -- was 16 or 17.  In fact he was older, but having the protagonists a bit younger made the story more intriguing.)   If we assume that it took Anderson six months or so to build the receiver,  that would push the start date of Anderson's build to around March 1940.  

There was another experimental station on the air in Chicago: Zenith Corporation had W9XZV doing experimental transmissions starting on February 2, 1939.  If Anderson had built the receiver a bit earlier, he could have been tuning into W9XVZ before W9XBK went on the air.  But I think it was more likely that he started building in early 1940.  I get the feeling that the Scozzari articles of October/November 1939 influenced his build.  

WHAT PUBLICATIONS GUIDED ANDERSON? 

Shep, in extolling Anderson's advanced, self-taught knowledge of electronics tells us that Anderson was at his young age already reading the IRE Journal, the monthly publication of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Joh DL6ID notes that Shep said that this publication was being sent to Anderson, indicating that he had some form of subscription.  He may have also had access to back-issues in a Chicago library.  Anderson was a serious consumer of technical material. 

The IRE Journal had many articles about television, but they were highly theoretical.  Typical of this was the December 1933 issue.  Anderson probably also benefitted from more practical, build-related articles that appeared in publications like QST, Shortwave and Television,  and Radio and Television. 

In December 1937 QST began a series of articles on television my Marshall Wilder.  

In March 1938 CW Palmer launched a series of build articles on TV receivers in the Gernsback magazine "Shortwave and Television." See photo below. 

In October 1938 QST started a series of practical build articles on TV by J.B. Sherman.  This series provided circuit details on how to use three different sizes of RCA oscilloscope CRTs, including the small 1 inch 913 tube. 

In December 1938 QST continued with the television theme,  presenting the first in a series of build articles by C.C. Schumard. 

In October 1939 Peter Scozzari launched a good series of build articles in Radio and Television magazine.  See photo below. 

WHAT CATHODE RAY TUBE DID HE USE?  

Many of the publications of the era carried projects using 2 or 3 inch CRTs.  But it appears that Anderson had a smaller, 1 inch oscilloscope CRT in his project.  In his 1973 broadcast, Shep repeatedly called the CRT "tiny" and refers to it as a 1 inch tube.  Shep said the image produced was green, indicating a tube built for oscilloscopes.  He may have used a 1 inch RCA 913 CRT Tube. See the Sherman article in the October 1938 QST. 

THE DEATH OF ROSS HULL

In the middle of all this, on September 13, 1938 radio pioneer Ross Hull was electrocuted while working on his homebrew television receiver. 

The Palmer Receiver

The Scozzari receiver -- Power supply on separate chassis

Previous SolderSmoke Daily News posts about this project: 

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/john-stanley-anderson-w9yei-sheps.html

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/early-television-jean-shepherd.html

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/w9yeis-homebrew-1939-tv.html

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/tv-homebrew-84-years-ago-tracking-down.html

Hack-A-Day post on this topic: 

https://hackaday.com/2022/04/16/can-you-help-solve-the-mystery-of-this-1930s-tv/

Young Jean Shepherd Gets Hung-Up On Ham Radio

Oh man, we've all been there:  OBSESSION with ham radio.  Shep went over the top and didn't sleep all weekend when his homebrew transmitter was finally neutralized and started to put out a decent signal on 40 meter CW.  

One of my favorite lines in this episode is about how, before the neutralization, the transmitter had had so many parasitics that it would continue to transmit for two hours AFTER Shep turned it off, "and all on the wrong frequencies."  

I found this while searching for other Shep references to Johnny Anderson, the guy who built the TV receiver.  Please let me know if you know of any other Shep references to Johnny. 

Here is the program.  Skip ahead to 20:50 

https://www.radioechoes.com/?page=play_download&mode=play&dl_mp3folder=T&dl_file=the_jean_shepherd_show_1963-03-07_hung_up-ham_radio.mp3&dl_series=The%20Jean%20Shepherd%20Show&dl_title=Hung%20Up-Ham%20Radio&dl_date=1963.03.07&dl_size=8.87%20MB

EXCELSIOR!  

Ruby Payne-Scott and Early Australian Radio Astronomy

Click on the cartoon for a better view

Read the full article here: 

https://womenyoushouldknow.net/ruby-payne-scott-first-woman-radio-astronomer/

Windsor (England) Signal Generator (from Slough) with a Very Cool Dial

Kilo Cycles!  Mega Cycles! Windsor - like in the castle!    Made in Slough, Buckinghamshire, England, the town that was the fictional site of the original (UK) version of the TV series "The Office." The dial and indicator turn nicely.

I would be willing to part with this piece of kit.   Please let me know if you are interested, how much you would offer, and how we could arrange shipment.  

Soldering School -- 1958 (Video)

I went to a similar course at Ft. Gordon Ga. in 1977.  But I think my instructors would pass out if they saw the way I REALLY solder in the shack today.  But hey, I am building SSB transceivers, not spacecraft.  If one of my joints is bad (they rarely are), I can fix it.  So chill out Mr. Instructor -- if we were to do every connection your way it would take us a lot longer to build a rig.  

 

TV Homebrew 84 years ago -- Tracking Down W9YEI's 1939 Television Receiver -- The CRT He Probably Used -- Please Help Find More Info

From October 1938 QST "Building Television Receivers with Standard Cathode Ray Tubes" 

by J.B. Sherman 

A recent Hack-A-Day article about early television receivers got me thinking about the receiver built by young Johnny Anderson in 1939 and described by Jean Shepherd on WOR in 1973.  In the 1973 program (skip to the 18 minute mark),  Shep gives a good description of the device.  It sounded a lot like the receiver from Peter Scozzari's October 1939 "Radio and Television" article:  Shep described a big chassis with angled pieces of aluminum one of which had a tube socket brazed onto it.  Anderson may have bult the power supply on the same chassis as the receiver.  Shep said that a 1 inch CRT was in this socket.  Tellingly, he described the picture as being green in color.  

Peter Scozzari wrote that oscilloscope tubes produced a "greenish hue."  One month after his first article, in November 1939 Peter Scozzari published another article in which he changed the CRT to to a tube that would produce a black and white (not green) pictures.  See below for the part of the article that describes the shift to the larger black and white tube.  This supports the idea that Anderson was using a tube built for oscilloscopes.  The picture above shows what images from the three sizes of RCA oscilloscope tubes would have looked like (absent the green hue -- this was a black and white magazine).  I find them kind of eerie, considering that the person in the picture was probably born more than 100 years ago.  And in that bottom picture we see an image (absent the green hue) very similar to what Shep saw in 1939, and described so vividly in 1973. 

Scozzari's receiver started out with a 2 inch tube, then a month later, he went with a 3 inch tube.  But Johnny Anderson may have only had the 1 inch tube described by Shep.  The Sherman QST article provided circuit details for all three sizes of RCA tubes. This information would have been very useful to Johnny Anderson. So my guess is that when Shep saw TV for the first time in 1939 in Johnny Anderson's basement workshop, he was looking into an RCA 1 inch 913 CRT. 

Here's a great EDN article on the 1 inch CRTs available in the 1930s: 

https://www.edn.com/one-inch-wonders/

Here's a fellow who recently built a TV receiver using an RCA 902: 

https://www.cool386.com/902tv/902tv.html

Here's the YouTube video of his 902-based receiver in action: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI8pYs-MBI0

Previous SolderSmoke blog posts on this topic: 

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/john-stanley-anderson-w9yei-sheps.html

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/early-television-jean-shepherd.html

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/w9yeis-homebrew-1939-tv.html

This is all pretty amazing:  We are gathering details on a television receiver built some 84 years ago by a teenager in a basement in Hammond, Indiana.  

Does anyone out there have more information on what Anderson built?  Can anyone dig up more information on this? Any more info on Peter Scozzari?  Anyone have info on Jack Neitz of California (he recently built the Scozzari TV receiver)? 

W9YEI's Homebrew 1939 TV?

 

I've been thinking about Jean Shepherd's 1973 description of the homebrew TV receiver built by his friend Johnny Anderson W9YEI in (probably) 1939.   Shep said Johnny got the info on this receiver from the IRE Journal.  But I was thinking that there had to have been "how to build" articles in circulation around that time, and -- if located -- these articles might provide some insight on what Johnny Anderson built. 

Asked for info on early TV's Google will send you to lots of sites about early commercial sets.  But you have to dig a bit and refine your search to find articles about the kind of receiver that Shep described as having been built by Johnny Anderson.  

The picture above shows one such possibility.  It comes from an article in the October 1939 issue of Radio and Television magazine.  The author was Peter Scozzari.  

http://www.earlytelevision.org/pdf/rtv_10-39-1.pdf

The picture tube seems to be about the size that Shep described;  Shep said it was a 1 inch tube, and this schematic shows a 2 inch tube, but the image must have been smaller, so this seems consistent with Shep's recollection.  The article presents this as a "Low Cost" project -- that would have been what Shep's teenage friends were looking for.  And we KNOW that Anderson was capable of building something like this:  we have a QSL card from him from the same time period in which he notes that he was using a "9 tube superhet."  Someone who could build a 9 tube superhet in 1938 could certainly build this TV receiver.   

Can anyone find more of these kind of articles from the late 1930's? 

Three cheers for Johnny Anderson and for Peter Scozzari. 

More Googling revealed that a Californian named Jack Neitz more recently built the receiver described in Scozzari's 1939 article.  Here is Neitz's build: 

This is really amazing.  We need more info on Jack Neitz!   The only info I have is from: 

https://www.earlytelevision.org/neitz.html

"Patrolling the Ether" WWII Video on Radio Direction Finding Efforts

I heard about this video while trying to track down information on John Stanley Anderson's 1939 television receiver.  "Patrolling the Ether" is kind of hard to find.  It is not really on YouTube.  But there is a good BARC Vimeo video about WWII RDF efforts that includes at the end the full "Patrolling the Ether" video.  

Here it is:  

https://vimeo.com/415926991

Thanks to BARC and to Brian Harrison for putting this together. 

In the video, they discuss the invention of the Panadaptor by Dr. Marcel Wallace F3HM  during World War II.   I set up a very crude Panadaptor using Wallace's principals:

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2019/05/diy-waterfall-quick-and-easy-panadaptor.html

The 17 & 12 SSB Transceiver -- Circuit and Build Info -- Video #4

I REALLY LIKE THIS RIG. IT IS LIKE A MAGIC CARPET THAT CARRIES MY VOICE ACROSS THE SEAS.

Cutting Display Hole sets off smoke alarm. Reverse Polarity Protection. IF and Crystal Filter at 21.470 MHz 50 ohms! TRGHS! Amp for VXO Carrier Oscillator/BFO. Mic Amp from uBITX. Transmit/Receive switching from mic connector. VFO: NO DIE CAST BOXES! HT-37 Variable Cap, Frequency Shift. BP filters from QRP LABS designs (G0UPL). TIA amp boards from K7TFC. Needed RF amp to hear band noise. BITX40 PA design, but RD006HHF1 instead of IRF510. Should I run receiver input through LP filter? Frequency Readout Story: How to use one San Jian counter on two bands.

John Stanley Anderson W9YEI -- Shep's Friend Who Homebrewed a TV Receiver in 1938

 

John Stanley "Johnny" Anderson -- son of John E. and Beda Klarin Anderson, natives of Sweden -- was born on July 19, 1918, in East Chicago, Indiana. He grew up at 6813 (formerly 1439) Arizona Avenue in Hammond, and graduated from Hammond High School a couple of years ahead of American humorist and writer Jean Shepherd. In his WOR radio broadcast of January 24, 1973, Shepherd told of how Johnny was an expert ham who was way ahead of the other kids in town, and how he first saw television demonstrated by Johnny in his basement. Johnny in fact held amateur radio license W9YEI at the time.

After graduation from Hammond High, Johnny went to work as a chemist at the local steel mill. On April 11, 1941, Johnny enlisted at Fort Benjamin Harrison in the U.S. Army, serving through WWII until November 27, 1945. On June 4, 1955, he married Jane H. Vanstone.

Johnny later moved to Munster, Indiana, and continued working at Inland Steel, where he held a variety of technical positions. He passed away on January 29, 1984, at the emergency room of Hammond's St. Margaret Hospital after suffering from neurogenic shock. At the time of his death, Johnny was an electrical technician at Inland Steel's quality control center. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Hammond.  From: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/173124396/john-stanley-anderson

The Flick Lives web site has an interesting letter that Johnny wrote to his friend Paul Schwartz (W9KPY) in mid 1941.  Schwartz is frequently referred to by Jean Shepherd.  Schwartz was killed in World War II.  

In the letter, Johnny also references another mutual friend who Shep often mentions:  Boles (W9QWK). 

http://www.flicklives.com/files/1941-05-02_093_Johnny_Anderson_to_Paul_Schwartz.pdf

Dorothy Anderson was Johnny's sister and was for a time Shep's girlfriend. 

Rcvr: "9 tube Superhet"  FB OM

Early Television, Jean Shepherd, Homebrewing, and Hack-A-Day

It may have been something like this 1947 receiver.  But with a smaller CRT.

Hack-A-Day has an article about early (1930s) television.  I was immediately reminded of a January 1973 Jean Shepherd show on WOR New York in which Shep talks about a kid in his neighborhood who built a very early television receiver.  You can skip to about the 18 minute mark for the homebrew radio and television stuff. 

In the 1973 show, Shep identifies the builder as John Anderson.   The Flicklives web site lists the hams who lived around Shep in Hammond Indiana.   Among them is John Stanley Anderson W9YEI.  That's him. 

Shep was born in 1921 and in the show he says this all took place when he was 16 or 17.  So that would place these events around 1938.  We see that on February 2, 1939  W9XZV -- the experimental station of Zenith Chicago -- went on the air with television.  In August 1940 W9XBK, the experimental TV station of WBKB Chicago went on the air.  That station was the one Johnny Anderson used to demonstrate TV to Shep and other friends.   

Once again, Shep really captures the spirit of homebrew radio and the way it really captivates teenagers. He also explains -- very well I think -- the difference between true homebrew radio and kit building.  

I really wish we had more details or pictures of W9YEI's TV receiver.  I tried looking in the IRE Journal, but I couldn't find anything.  Anyone have more info on this receiver or ham homebrew TV projects from the late 1930s?

EXCELSIOR!   73   Bill  

https://hackaday.com/2022/04/10/retrotechtacular-a-diy-television-for-very-early-adopters/

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2008/07/best-jean-shepherd-ham-radio-episode.html

http://www.flicklives.com/index.php?pg=318

https://www.earlytelevision.org/w9xbk.html

WD-40: Not Quite the Pope's Pee

This is the second time that Todd K7TFC has sent in a comment that is so good that it gets elevated to the main blog page.  When I was typing yesterday's post about how WD-40 had restored life to the hard drive in my old Tandy 1000 computer, I knew that this would stir up anti-WD-40 sentiments.  I'm grateful that Todd weighed in with such a thoughtful response.  

What can I say?  I was young and foolish.  I thought WD-40 was the answer.  Now I know better.  I have can of DeOxit D5 on my shelf.  I only use the WD-40 on my bicycle.

Todd K7TFCApril 9, 2022 at 7:49 PM wrote: 

I think even the Pope would argue his pee has already served its only real purpose: to remove unwanted substances from the body. WD-40 is useful for that purpose as well--it's pretty good at dissolving and blasting away dirt and grease from tools, hardware, or small mechanisms. That's no doubt why it worked to get your hard-drive spinning again. As a lubricant, though, it is deeply flawed.

If you have nothing else at hand, it can also substitute as an penetrating rust buster. The purpose its developers intended is coded in the name itself: "WD" stands for water displacement, and its very good at doing that. It's not so good at many of the other uses to which it's commonly put.

A very-long time ago, I worked at a company that made its own PCBs, and they had some very-precise NC machinery (programmed with punched tape in those days) for drilling and routing the boards. After a series of baffling and costly shutdowns, the culprit was discovered and WD-40 was banned entirely from the plant. The plant-maintenance guy and janitors couldn't even have any.

It was found that once completely dry, the oils and waxes in it would slowly polymerize (as they were intended), leaving behind a sticky film that protected from moisture and rust just fine, but it gummed up precision machinery. The Chief Production engineer (my father) got the company brass to ban WD-40 entirely.

Why ban it from even plant-maintenance and janitorial work? Because you couldn't keep the PCB-production crew from resorting to it in a "crisis" if they could find any at all in the building. It meant they weren't careful enough to keep the proper lubricants in stock. You could either fire them for their shade-tree-mechanic mentality, or you could ban WD-40.

Needless to say, I've kept my congenital anti-WD-40 animus alive all these years, but I do have a can I use for cleaning and water-displacement purposes. When tempted to use it otherwise, though, the memory of my father sniffing the air suspiciously for its distinctive odor flashes in my head, and I reach for something else. --73, K7TFC  

WD-40, a Hard Drive, a Coat-Hanger Antenna, Dumpster Diving, and Amateur Radio Satellites from the Azores

 

Last month I was talking to Ira VP2EIH on my new 1712 SSB rig.  Ira is interested in satellites.  Talking to him caused me to dig up some old material about satellite operations.   Here is a 2003 QST article about working the satellites from the Azores: 

http://www.gadgeteer.us/AZORESSP.HTM

Regarding the usefulness of WD-40, during my time in the Azores John EI7BA once told me that WD-40 is, "the Pope's pee!"  Apparently that is high praise in Ireland.  It is indeed good stuff. 

Messias CU2BJ is a Silent Key.  I hope Ray CU3GC, WL7CDK is doing well.  

The Vacuum Tube's Forgotten Rival: The Magnetic Amplifier

The video above shows one application of the principal, but be sure to check out the IEEE article:  

https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-vacuum-tubes-forgotten-rival

The First Commercial SSB Trans-Atlantic Radiotelephone System

These guys didn't just complain about QSB -- they DID SOMETHING about it!  

Thanks to AWA and Hack-A-Day for disseminating this great video.  

Tim Hunkin's (The Secret Life of ...) New Series , and First Show (on Sensors) (Video)

Lots of Tribal Knowledge from Tim, the guy who brought us "The Secret Life of Radio" and other wonderful "Secret Life" shows. 

Tim's YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/timhunkin1/featured

The Next Time You Hear Someone Complaining About Winding Toroids....

... send them this video. 

Lin is in Hong Kong. What a great job she does with very simple tools.  Notice how she casually mentions that for those parts that have been lost, she will make them herself.  Three cheers for Lin! 

This video reminded me of the people in Santo Domingo 25 years ago who rewound the transformers and RF chokes from my HT-37.  These parts still work.  

Chuck KF8TI recently told me that when he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines (1965-1967) he visited a transformer re-winding shop there, seeing piles of insulation and wire on the floor.  Apparently business was good!  

Lin's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpPt42tLH5FRk__ytvMsejw

Video of SolderSmoke Podcast #236

SolderSmoke Podcast #236 is available!

Podcast Posted on 1 April 2022:

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke236.mp3

Winterfest!  Many Boatanchors.  Lots of old good analog test gear.  Talk with Dean KK4DAS.  Met up with Armand WA1UQO and Charles AI4OT. 

Pete's Bench: 

-- Looking for help in software development for MAX2870 board.  

-- Tapped Capacitance Impedance Matching

-- The Pea Shooter (See N2USD's version in videos

 below).

-- Tribal Knowledge on Making Enclosures

Bill's Bench: 

-- 17-12 Band Imaging SSB Transceiver.  It works on both bands. 

-- Plan for Glowing Numerals (N6QW has been there and done that!)

-- WU2D's videos on VFOs.  

-- Temperature Compensation:  HT-37 capacitor.  FT-101 VFO,  even in the ARC-5 receiver! 

-- Trying to get more rigorous about receiver design.  Gain distribution, IMD, Dynamic Range, etc. 

-- Do I need a true RMS audio voltmeter?  Or can I get the same info from freeware audio spectrum analyzer and soundcard?

-- 6EA8s replace 6U8s in MMRX 

SHAMELESS COMMERCE DIVISION:   We have a sponsor!  

PARTS CANDY out of Chicago produces quality test leads for your bench.  The guy who runs the company is Carlos, and he is one of us.  He is an electronic tinkerer. See the ad on the left hand column of the SolderSmoke blog.  Just click on the picture of the test leads and you will be taken to Carlos's ebay store.  Go for it. 

Mailbag

Walter KA4KXX in Orlando -- Diodes in BITX Bilats -- Why?  Farhan says To prevent reverse junction of off transistor from conducting and clipping waveform. 

Tony G4WIF -- Audio test gear and G3ROO paraset

Todd K7TFC Pine boards, TIAs and 12 meters

Dean KK4DAS  Ceramic Variable Oscillators on 40.   Juliano Criteria? 

Mike WU2D   VFOs and Temp compensation. ARC-5s

Chris KD4PBJ   A really nice parts care package -- Thanks Chris! 

Steve M0ECS.  Inspired by SS, moved something off the Shelf or Box of Shame. 

Jason KD2RKN Building a DC receiver.  It is all our fault. 

Chris Mannon in Indiana joining the CBLA

KC4GMH is listening! 

Ed N2XDD has been armed with a 3.579 MHz crystal.  

Harvey Wa3EIB working on his museum 

Tim AG4RZ is BACK IN THE SOLDERSMOKE! 

Fred KC5RT -- an old friend -- recommends Bangood RF sig gen for 88 bucks. 

Shlomo 4X4LF listening and homebrewing from a Kibbutz in Israel. 

Chuck KF8TI was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines. 

SolderSmoke Podcast #236 -- Bill's 17-12 Rig, Pea Shooter, VFO Wisdom, Temp Compensation, Need Code for Max2870, Making Enclosures, MAILBAG

ARC-5 R-23 Nav Receiver Parts

SolderSmoke Podcast #236 is available!

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke236.mp3

Winterfest!  Many Boatanchors.  Lots of old good analog test gear.  Talk with Dean KK4DAS.  Met up with Armand WA1UQO and Charles AI4OT. 

Pete's Bench: 

-- Looking for help in software development for MAX2870 board.  

-- Tapped Capacitance Impedance Matching

-- The Pea Shooter (See N2USD's version in videos

 below).

-- Tribal Knowledge on Making Enclosures

Bill's Bench: 

-- 17-12 Band Imaging SSB Transceiver.  It works on both bands. 

-- Plan for Glowing Numerals (N6QW has been there and done that!)

-- WU2D's videos on VFOs.  

-- Temperature Compensation:  HT-37 capacitor.  FT-101 VFO,  even in the ARC-5 receiver! 

-- Trying to get more rigorous about receiver design.  Gain distribution, IMD, Dynamic Range, etc. 

-- Do I need a true RMS audio voltmeter?  Or can I get the same info from freeware audio spectrum analyzer and soundcard?

-- 6EA8s replace 6U8s in MMRX 

SHAMELESS COMMERCE DIVISION:   We have a sponsor!  

PARTS CANDY out of Chicago produces quality test leads for your bench.  The guy who runs the company is Carlos, and he is one of us.  He is an electronic tinkerer. See the ad on the left hand column of the SolderSmoke blog.  Just click on the picture of the test leads and you will be taken to Carlos's ebay store.  Go for it. 

Mailbag

Walter KA4KXX in Orlando -- Diodes in BITX Bilats -- Why?  Farhan says To prevent reverse junction of off transistor from conducting and clipping waveform. 

Tony G4WIF -- Audio test gear and G3ROO paraset

Todd K7TFC Pine boards, TIAs and 12 meters

Dean KK4DAS  Ceramic Variable Oscillators on 40.   Juliano Criteria? 

Mike WU2D   VFOs and Temp compensation. ARC-5s

Chris KD4PBJ   A really nice parts care package -- Thanks Chris! 

Steve M0ECS.  Inspired by SS, moved something off the Shelf or Box of Shame. 

Jason KD2RKN Building a DC receiver.  It is all our fault. 

Chris Mannon in Indiana joining the CBLA

KC4GMH is listening! 

Ed N2XDD has been armed with a 3.579 MHz crystal.  

Harvey Wa3EIB working on his museum 

Tim AG4RZ is BACK IN THE SOLDERSMOKE! 

Fred KC5RT -- an old friend -- recommends Bangood RF sig gen for 88 bucks. 

Shlomo 4X4LF listening and homebrewing from a Kibbutz in Israel. 

Chuck KF8TI was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines.