SolderSmoke Podcast #223 Field Day, Club Talks, Patreon, NanoVNA, Farhan Video, SPRAT, BIG MAILBAG

SolderSmoke Podcast 223 is available: 

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke223.mp3

27 June 2020

Quarantine Field Day!   

Ironically, THIS YEAR we are both participating

Pete's FD Plan, Bill's FD plan 

Talking to Clubs: 

Pete's talk to the Cedar Valley Iowa Club

Bill's talk to the Vienna Wireless Society

Pete's Bench

DDC SDR

Ideas from the Summer SPRAT

Mean Well Voltage Regulator

SHAMELESS COMMERCE DIVISION: PATREON.   SS is an  SV DELOS WANA-BE!

We got our very first Patreon Patron!  Jonathan Magee from the UK!  Upper Left on the blog.

Continue to use our site for your Amazon purchases. 

Bill's Bench

NanoVNA

Understanding L Networks

+/- 6kHz Ceramic filter for Q-31

Lobes, Nulls and WSPR

Miscellaneous: 

Farhan's feedback Amplifier Video

British Antarctic Broadcast heard (sort of)

MAILBAG:

Mauro VA6BRO liked the SolderSmoke book.  Thanks Mauro

Tryg in Galway Ireland is listening.  Hope to get you the signed books Tryg. 

Michael N4MJR suggested that I use N2 Corona Quarantine Radio as my phonetics.  I dunno... 

Ed DD5LP has been helping us get SS rebroadcast on a German SW broadcast station. Stay tuned! 

Rogier PA1ZZ in California sent an e-mail about the Don Lee Broadcast System.  Thanks Rogier!

Rick KE3IJ  Silver Skirt on his 2B also. W3GOO did it.  Rick traded his Commodore 64 for the 2B.  Yea! 

Walter KA4KXX has a simplified circuit for the MMM!  From UK

Peter VE1BZI thank us for the tribal knowledge.  Dipolo Crilolo

Peter VK2EMU Wee need someone to make the Constructor Crusader badge. 

Scott KA9P sent us the Amateur Wireless cover from 1934 with the Constructor Crusader thing. 

John GM4OOU Built lockdown rig.  we want pictures! 

Jerry KI4IO  His version of the Sproutie by AA7EE   FB 

Adam N0ZIB built a MMM

Wouter ZS1KE in South Africa -- comparing notes on Drake 2-Bs

Randall KD5RC wants to get started in HB. 

Solstice Special: Midwinter BBC Messages to Antarctica

Thanks to SWL Post for alerting us to this wonderful annual event.  BBC SW stations send a special program to the UK crews at the Antarctic bases.   SWL Posts asks for listeners to record this year's program:

http://swling.com/blog/2017/06/help-record-the-2017-bbc-antarctic-midwinter-broadcast-today/

Here is an excellent recording of the 2015 show.

https://soundcloud.com/vinylzone/bbc-midwinter-special-transmission-for-antarctica-on-9590khz-21062015-21230z

And here is a recording of the 2017 broadcast:

https://ia601501.us.archive.org/30/items/BBCMidwintersDayBroadcast/BBCWorldService-Antarctic-Midwinters-Day-Broadcast-5985kHz-2130-2200-21-06-2017.mp3

Spectacular Solar Weather

This amazing picture was taken last night at the Bharati Indian Base Station in the Larsemann Hills of Antarctica. The researchers there report that the aurora was so bright that it cast shadows.

Yesterday I was having a nice 40 meter SSB contact with N3TDE.  Rich is 179 miles away, in Pennsylvania.  At 1650 UTC, his signal very suddenly dropped into the noise. 

The purple lines along the bottom of the chart below probably explains both the aurora and the abrupt end of my 40 meter contact.

Bud Waite, W2ZK, Antarctic Ham Hero

I really blew it in SS137, and in the original version of yesterday's blog post. I can't believe I actually reported that McMurdo Base was named for McMurdo Silver! This is like some weird self-inflicted payback for all my April 1 hoaxes. Sorry guys. McMurdo base is unfortunately not named for McMurdo Silver.

OM Armand, WA1UQO, came to my rescue! He provides a wonderful story (a TRUE story) about a ham who actually did have some Antarctic terrain features named for him. And deservedly so. Be sure to read the story of W2ZK in the links below.

By the way, we see here two additional examples of strong, distinctive names in the radio world: Armand Hamel and Amory H. Waite. Thanks to Steve "Snort Rosin" Smith for reminding me of another one: Philo T. Farnsworth. (Billy and I have long had plans for a kids novel built around a character named Excelsior G. Whiz --- the G stand for GADZOOKS!)

Hi Bill!
Listened to Soldersmoke #137 Sunday evening and was intrigued by the McMurdo Silver piece. It immediately brought to mind another Ham that was associated with Antarctica and had a Point of land and four islands named in his honor. His name was Amory "Bud" Waite (W2ZK). There was a nice write up about him in the November 2009 QST Vintage Radio Column by K2TQN. There is also a wealth of information about him on the Antarctican Organization website. I have a fond spot for Bud even though I never met him. As a novice in 1975 I responded to an advertisement in QST for a used Heathkit TX-1. My first transmitter! Bud was selling it as a favor for the widow of a SK. Had a really nice conversation with him one evening and he mentioned that he had once been on an expedition with Admiral Byrd! WOW! Little did I realize then that he had been one of the three men that had rescued Byrd from a forward camp. The story is amazing and can be found on these links. The first link is a video of a presentation that he gave to a New Jersey radio club in 1974. It's a little long but well worth the effort. You can see what McMurdo Sound looked like when he revisited it during the IGY (knew you would love that!). Anyway thought you would like to read about someone who really had the Knack. If you are looking for nominees for the Soldersmoke Ham Heros Hall Of Fame, I nominate Bud Waite ( and Doug DeMaw and Wes Hayward and Jean Shepherd). By the way, I still have the Heathkit Apache and hope to get it back on the air. As always keep the solder flowing and smoking and the podcasts comming.

73's

Armand (WA1UQO)

http://www.antarctican.org/antarctican_society/flash/Amory_Waite_presentation_1974.cfm

http://campevans.org/_CE/html/p-31W2zk.html

http://hamgallery.com/Tribute/W2ZK/w2zk.pdf

......................................

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McMurdo Silver -- A Man with The Knack

In the latest podcast I talked about McMurdo Silver. I noted that many radio pioneers (and many modern-day radio wizards) have very strong and distinctive names. This guy's name is clearly in that category. Here is a 1929 bio on OM McMurdo:
http://durenberger.com/resources/documents/MCMURDOSILVER0629.pdf

And here is some additional info. From http://hhscott.com/e_h_scott_2.htm:

E.H. Scott had several competitors. The most significant among them was a dashing young genius named McMurdo Silver. Silver was a continuous contributor to technical articles to Radio News magazine (the predecessor of Popular Electronics) throughout the 1930's. He was a polo player, gun collector, and is said to have been quite a bon vivant. Formerly the president of Silver-Marshall, Inc., he set up the McMurdo Silver Corp. and began building custom high-fidelity receivers in competition with Scott.

While good, his receivers were never quite the equal of Scott’s. One of Silver’s most famous owners was Dr. Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube. DeForest owned a Silver Masterpiece V and praised it in the final chapters of his autobiography. Throughout the 1930s, Scott’s and Silver’s advertisements would do battle trying to “one up” the other’s in technical achievement. Features were stolen and lawsuits initiated. Finally, Scott won the battle and bought out the failing Silver in 1940. Scott then introduced a new, bottom-of-the-line receiver and designated it as the Scott Masterpiece. I do not know if the gesture was meant as a tribute to his archenemy or to rub salt in the wounds. Silver eventually committed suicide in 1947.

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics"http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Australian Antarctic Antenna Archeology

Macquarie Island

Bill,

I caught half of a report on “The 7:30 Report” on Australia’s public broadcaster ABC TV. Not knowing the full Mawson expedition story, I found this interesting. A conservation group is working to conserve the old halfway point radio repeater mast and whatever other bits have survived on Macquarie Island.

The links are to the transcript and the actual report video.

Story Transcript:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3268909.htm

Vodcast videos. They are about 26MB in size. Theyr’e both the same video. Just two different formats.

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/730report/video/podcast/r799754_7027600.m4v

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/730report/video/podcast/r799754_7027588.wmv

John Dowdell

Yet to do the test

Sydney Australia

Blue Light in Dark Ice

Down in Antarctica, the "Ice Cube" neutrino telescope was completed this month. It is an amazing piece of gear in an awesome location. Essentially, they use a 1 kilometer square piece of pure Antarctic ice as the detector -- when a neutrino hits a water molecule, it makes a bit of blue light and from this light the direction of the neutrino can be determined. But there is a problem: cosmic rays can create the same kind of blue light. So there's noise. They need a filter, right? Yes, and for this purpose they use... THE EARTH. They put the blue light detector at the TOP of the cube and look DOWN, down through the Earth! Only neutrinos get through.

For more details: http://www.icecube.wisc.edu/info/explained.php