SolderSmoke Podcast #265 is ready for download.
Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jWYe6NxnJA
Audio Version: http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke265.mp3
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Travelogue: Pete to San Diego, Dean to NYC, Bill stays home.
Field Day Report! Dean? Pete? I had a bad back. Really.
The importance of "taking a break" discussed on "Hidden Brain" podcast.
We need new chapters for the FMLA series. Time to add the CBLA?
AI Pete? http://soldersmoke.com/AIPete.mp3
Dean: WSPR success -- Report
Back on the air with the homebrew sBITX.
The Last Ditcher CW rig. Frank Jones would approve! Construction technique combining wooden slats and copper clad boards is FB.
Homebrew CW rigs -- update.
Schematics and Co-Pilot
Shameless Commerce Division:
Mostly DIY RF
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Bill: Fixing the receiver in my 17-12 rig. Adding 12 db to the TIA.
The Open Circuits book. Eric is the Eric from CuriousMarc. And he is a ham!
Blasphemy? Bill redraws schematic for Michigan Mighty Mite.
I have 6T9 tube. I don't really want to build a CW transmitter. But I may have to.
Gemini explains "Low Value Content" They see 10,000 posts and assume it is AI Slop.
Mailbag:
Wes: Nice email from W7ZOI.
Peter Marks VK3TPM fixed the index file (with help from Claude).
Peter VK3TPM and Paul VK3HN -- Great comments on AI.
Also Dean KK4DAS and Bob KD4EBM
VK3HN sent FB AI QSL from ZL2BNE (see mine!)
Bruce KK0S sent two FB AI QSL cards.
Rogier PA1ZZ -- Sends "The World of El - AI" IDK.
Ryan KJ7KVD building a Michigan Mighty Mite (I sent parts)
Robert W8MOX heard my beacon from the DR to Annandale Va.
Kirk NTOZ -- The future of ham radio and what went wrong.
Paul KL7FLR -- The Wizard of Wasila -- Finally 3D printed a Toroid winder
Charlie NJ7V -- Doing great work over at Red Summit RF.
Podstatus reports that we are #2 in Ghana! Hooray for us!
Farhan VU2ESE -- LARCSet CW mods!
Walter KA4KXX Homebrew POTA proposal.
Grayson KJ7UM: Likes Helge's Norwegian paraset
Gerald VA2GJ: Including DC RX in Canadian license study materials.
Ron WA6YOU: Spy radios RT-6 and RR-6
Scott K6AUS: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2026/06/update-how-many-drake-2-b-receivers.html We need to send him a 2B!
Bob W8SX: FDIM interview with Hans G0UPL. More to follow.
I am probably 30 years late to tea. I just bought yellowed paper copies of SSD and EMRFD at a tag sale.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone give links to TikToks, blogs or webs that go into analog circuit design for solid state radio?
Thanks George
George: Start small and simple. Build a Michigan Mighty Mite transmitter (even if you don't intend to use it for CW contacts). There is lots of info and links about this on this blog. Then you should build the 40 meter SolderSmoke Direct Conversion receiver. Again, lots of info on this blog. Be sure to start visiting the Discord channel -- lots of info and encouragement there. Good luck! 73 Bill N2CQR
DeleteGeorge
ReplyDeleteI am not a Ham and for 18 years I have exclusively designed and built receivers and antennas for the hydrogen 21 cm line as an amateur radio astronomer. I work as a computer science teacher.
Learning solid state design takes many years and has many niches. What bands? what modes?
Very few homebrewers design. Rather they copy and morph an existing design to suit their needs.
Do you like maths? Maths and simulations with computer tools are a big part of design. Measurement is a theme of those old books you mentioned Learning to use test equipment and more importantly aquiring and calibrating it is part oF design. Maths, measures and make!
This fellow has a EE degree https://www.qsl.net/va3iul/ and keeps a wonderful page of links including magazine archives. Learning from old books and articles is both inspiring and can help you get where you want to go. I personally learned a lot from the SSD book back when I was in high school and it was book in our school library stacks.
You need to measure for many reasons but also because many articles, schematics and books contain errors. You need to find them through measurement and by knowing some basic principles such as the general physics of the sine wave and optimally how to analyze linear RF circuits using complex numbers representing the ratio of incident and reflected waves like scattering parameters. A lot of source code has errors too, or the person does not follow good practices. I have seen identical poor or error ridden source code reappear in multiple peoples work so to me this suggests they just copied the original sketchy code into their work without testing it. AI can also write poor code.
I agree with Willam. Start simple. Could you bias a transistor amplifer for HF so that its source impedance is 50 ohms across HF and transistor operation remains stable with temperature and power supply voltage variations? There is loads to learn my friend!
Good luck. David
Thanks for the latest show guys...... Keep up your good work on the interwebs best Amateur Radio podcast... :-D
ReplyDeletegregW:-) OH2DX
FYI I always listen to the HF bands on Field Day because I think it is a good barometer for propagation and also the state of the hobby. This year I tuned around briefly a few times mid-afternoon and early evening Saturday as well as Sunday morning, using both my own radios as well as a local SDR with a waterfall display. Notably, on 15M the most activity I heard was a few CW stations and two SSB frequencies in use. There was some SSB on 40M, but no Field Day stations at all. In summary from my anecdotal results, only 20M was full of Field Day CW and SSB activity. To me this at least confirms that the only HF bands currently worth my time and effort are 40M and 75M in the morning and evening, and 20M.
ReplyDelete--Walter KA4KXX
Bill - you mentioned those emails from companies promising to help you make the podcast amazing (it already is). I get those emails too, always promising to increase exposure or some such nonsense. I never reply because my podcast is not a business. It's just a hobby, and I fear the only thing more exposure generated from them would bring is more trolls. I think we're both happy with our "micro celebrity" status - haha.
ReplyDeleteCharlie: I think the term is "Niche Internet Micro Celebrity" or NIMCEL. I said I thought Pete would object because it sounds too much like "numb skull." Then I noted that it could also be easily confused with INCEL, which, of course, is an entirely different thing! 73 Bill
DeleteHAHAHA! Yeah. That's it!
DeleteNote that I do not agree with the supposition that "if you hear FT8 signals then the band is open," since FT8 facilitates the decoding of signals that are up to 15 - 21 dB below the background noise floor, while it is virtually impossible to copy any CW or SSB at all below the noise floor. Therefore I feel that the participation and/or propagation on CW and SSB this past Field Day was quite dismal with possibly the fewest contacts in history for these modes during normal waking hours. --Walter KA4KXX
ReplyDelete