Just go to http://soldersmoke.com. On that archive page, just click on the blue hyperlinks and your audio player should play that episode.
http://soldersmoke.com
I was impressed by those bandpass filters. I will try to do something similarly robust on my 17/12 rig.
Paul's miniaturization of this rig is really astonishing. I would go nuts trying to keep it this small. I just couldn't do it.
Look closely at the boards he uses. They look like printed circuit boards, but with all the components and all the soldering on one side. This is very smart -- this makes it easier to troubleshoot and to change components.
I was glad to see at least one NE-602 in there. FB.
The video is above. Check out Paul's blog for more info:
We are up on the 12th floor of a building in Santo Domingo. I brought my uBITX and managed to check in as baggage a 16-foot crappie fishing pole. I figured I needed to get the 1/2 wave antenna away from the building -- last time I was here I was unable to make any contacts from this location with the antenna stretched along the balcony. Last time I was QRP with an SST transceiver.
The fishing pole worked well, but I operated with fear that it would fall or that the neighbors would complain). Today I got on 17 CW with the uBITX (more power than the SST), put it on 17 CW and promptly worked W4A, a special events station commemorating E. Howard Armstrong. Turns out that today is Armstrong's birthday. TRGHS.
On the Reverse Beacon Network my CQs were heard by KO7SS in Arizona (very cool skimmer station at 8100 feet!) and by W2NAF (interesting operations in Antarctica, Svalbard and Virginia Tech).
The WFSRA: The World Friendship Society of Radio Amateurs.
Pete's Bench:
The Pimp. The NCX rig. The Collins. The many DC receivers built worldwide. The parts shortages are real! Several key radios on hold. Si5351 sub. Talk to G-QRP convention
Bill's Bench:
FT-8. Not for me. I tried it. Novice Station Rebuild. Globe V-10 VFO Deluxe. Selenium rectifier removal CONTROVERSY? Not crazy about my Novice station. Not crazy about CW. Mate for the Mighty Midget. Again. Mike W6MAB -- Detector problems LTSPICE Check One more mod for MMM RX. Ceramic filter at 455. Dropped screw inside tubular cap on Millen 61455 transformer. Talk to the Vienna Wireless Society Thinking of a Moxon or a Hex beam.
BOOK REVIEW Chuck Penson WA7ZZE New Heathkit Book. http://wa7zze.com
Mailbag
-- New SPRAT is out! Hooray! -- Todd K7TFC sent me copy of Shopcraft as Soulcraft. FB. -- Dean KK4DAS building an EI9GQ 16 W amp. FB. -- Jack NG2E Getting close on Pete's DC receiver. -- JF1OZL's website is BACK! -- Tony K3DY sent link to cool books. -- Sheldon VK2XZS thinking of building a phasing receiver. -- Peter VK2EMU has joined the WFSRA. FB! -- Ned KH7JJ from Honolulu spotted the Sideband Myth in the AWA video. -- Chris M0LGX looking at the ET-2, asks about the variometer. -- Pete Eaton Nov 64 anti HB rant in november 1964 QST. Wow. -- Josh Lambert Hurley spreading FMLA stickers in the UK. FB -- Stephen VE6STA getting ready to melt solder. -- Got a great picture of Rogier PA1ZZ back on Bonaire. -- Farhan reading the manual of Hans's new digital rig. -- Paul G0OER wonders if FMLA getting ready to move on 5 meters.
-- This is really interesting technology. Three cheers for Joe Taylor and colleagues. This mode would obviously be very useful for fast, weak signal contacts as are needed on meteor scatter or EME.
-- FT-8 does give you the chance to work DX that would have been difficult on other modes.
-- Chinese hams showing up on FT-8 -- more than other modes.
-- I think FT-8 is good for hams who just want to have a lot of "contacts." It is definitely not for the rag-chewer.
-- I find it it kind of cold and antisocial. More like a computer game than ham radio. A bit like sending short text messages on a cell phone.
-- I think FT-8 contacts are in some ways more meaningless than a "59!" contest exchange -- unless you look, you don't even know the report you got, nor do you know the report you sent.
-- For me it is more impersonal than CW. But at least we let the technology decode the characters instead of having to memorize dot and dash sounds. In a phone contact you can hear the other person's laugh. In a CW QSO, you hear him key "HI HI." FT-8? No laughter at all.
-- With PSK Reporter, FT-8 gives you a good feel for how propagation changes during the day. But it is kind of like 2-way WSPR. As with WSPR, it is -- at first -- fascinating, but then it loses its charm. Yes, everyday you are heard in Belgium.
-- It seems to be getting kind of crowded. The passband for FT-8 contacts is often full, and it is hard to find an open space.
-- There is little opportunity for the homebrewer. I hooked it up to my homebrew transceivers and had a small bit of fun using a 2N3904 as a switch triggered by the RTS signal for T/R. But that's about it.
-- I get the sense that the ham himself is not really needed in FT-8. This mode seems like it could easily be automated or run by an AI. Just tell it to go out there, make a lot of contacts and log them. Maybe prioritize the DX you "need." Has this already been done?
-- After a session with FT-8, I had a really nice 17 meter ragchew SSB QSO. That SSB contact left me happy. The FT-8 session was a bit like spending time on social media or a video game. It left me edgy. FT-8 made me appreciate phone even more.
But hey, to each his own. A lot of people really like FT-8. I hope they have fun.
I have the speaker mounted on the front of the board. I kind of like it like that. I now have a bandswitch, and reverse polarity protection (no more living dangerously for me). That Yaesu VFO clarifier circuit might prove useful should I decide to give this rig CW capability. I once again find myself thinking that I might never put this in a metal box. Frank Jones had the right idea.
June 2021. We were in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. At this point we were in a 12th floor apartment in the center of the city. I would take my SST 20 meter CW transceiver and EFHW antenna out on the balcony. I made no contacts from this location, but one of my CQs was picked up by K9TM on the Reverse Beacon Network (see below). All the other RBN spots were the result of calls from the eastern tip of the island. (Click on the RBN image for a clearer view.)
It took some brass pounding on my homebrew key, but on May 28, 2021 I made a real QSO from the eastern tip of the island of Hispaniola. KJ4R came back to my CQ near 14.060 MHz. I was running just 1-2 watts from my SST transceiver to an end-fed half wave antenna. Ed KJ4R was in South Carolina running 5 watts, also to an EFHW antenna. TRGHS. Thanks Ed. And thanks to Bob Scott KD4EBM and Wayne Burdick N6KR.
I was very pleased to see Dave AA7EE's comment on my SST rig. This caused me to search his site for his SST article. And wow, it is an SST treasure trove. Lots of discussion of the circuit and mods. And Dave's usual wonderful photography and videography.
Bob KD4EBM recently sent me an amazing package of radio goodies. Included was a little metal box not much larger than a deck of cards. It is a 20 meter SST transceiver designed by Wayne Burdick N6KR during the late 1990s. This transceiver is built around three NE602 Gilbert Cell mixer chips. It arrived in my shack as I was struggling to understand the Gilbert Cell. TRGHS. It also put me back on the path of QRP CW righteousness. Thanks Bob. Thanks Wayne.
I e-mailed Wayne Burdick (now of Elecraft fame) to tell him I was now using the rig he had designed so long ago. Wayne e-mailed back, saying that the SST was the smallest "real" radio that he had ever designed. SST stands for Simple Superhet Transceiver.
I've been using the SST every day for the last week or so. It is a pleasure to operate. I'm using it with the key from India that Farhan brought for me. It is truly QSK -- the receiver stays on when I transmit. I've never used a QSK rig before and I can now see the big advantage that this provides: When I am responding to a CQ, I can immediately hear if the other guy put out another CQ or respond to someone else -- I can stop calling at that point. My first contact with it was with F6EJN. Again, TRGHS.
I made two small mods to the SST: I added 1 uH to the RFC in the VXO; it now tunes 14.053 -- 14.063. And I took out a noise blanker that had been installed. Removing the noise blanker left an ugly hole in the front panel which I promptly filled with a completely cosmetic machine screw.
I just liked this picture. It seems to capture the pride and satisfaction that comes from getting on the air with homebrew gear. It's obviously a simple QRP station, but it is all homebrew. And -- from the QSL cards on the wall -- we can see that he has had some success with it. The map on the wall is of the United States and the QSLs are from the east coast and the mid-west, so my guess is that he's probably on 80 or 40. FB OM.
In SolderSmoke podcast #229 Pete and I were discussing my rather flaky effort to turn the Hodgepodge BITX40 Module into a CW rig by injecting keyed 700 Hz audio into the mic jack (see video below). We got some very helpful responses from ND6T and VK2EMU:
Hi Bill,
You mentioned generating CW by modulating SSB: Collins did that in their
first SSB transceivers, I believe, as did SGC, but the results were less
than optimal. The problem is that you are involving the audio chain and
modulator. You know from experience how difficult it is to maintain low
intermod there and the tone is no exception. So we end up with lots of
spurs within the filter passband and then also have the opposite
sideband suppression less than perfect. If you check your transmitted
signal with a spectrum analyzer or SDR you can easily see the nasties.
Listening to a CW signal thus generated makes it obvious unless it is
buried way down in the noise. It IS a valid CW signal (not MCW) since it
is (almost) a single signal. However, in actual operation it doesn't
work very well.
I know because I have done that. I bought one of Farhan's original
BITX40 boards and wanted to put it on CW. I ended up injecting a keyed
signal from one of the spare clocks on the Si5351 into the RF amplifier
chain (thus avoiding the above stated problems) but still had garbage
from the audio and IF stages. I fixed that by shorting out that signal
during transmit by a transistor to ground. That was documented on your
With putting an audio oscillator into you hodgepodge radio, your transmission is not the same as a standard CW rig.
If we have a transmitter as described in the ARRL handbooks from the 1940's or 1950's, (or even the Michigan Mighty Mite) it is a crystal oscillator and maybe a PA tube. By keying either the oscillator and/or the final PA on and off, then we can send Morse code as ICW Interrupted Continues Wave. If we check the list of emission designators, we have A1A.
However, if we feed a tone into a SSB transmitter, then we have J2A.
At the other end it may sound the same, but because it is created in a different way, it has a different designation.
A quick look at Part 97 shows that J2A and J2B are classed as CW, so you are in the clear. However, if you put a tone oscillator into an AM signal to send CW, then that would be classed as A2A and not classed as CW, but as MCW. MCW can be used on 6 meters and above, but not HF.
So I say BASTA with the J2A! If I want to go CW, it's all A1A for me. I dusted off my Fish Soup 10 and am now back on 40 CW with 200 mW.... A1A all the way!
Wow, check out the FB gear of Tommy SA2CLC in Sweden, in use on Straight Key Night 2021. There is some German WWII gear, a BC-348, a homebrew transmitter, and some FB QRP kits.
Putting this rig on CW posed a real Hodgepodge challenge: What did I have laying around that would let me do this? Then I remembered: Years ago I built a little 750 Hz audio tone generator. So I pressed that into service. I also needed a sidetone so I built a little RF-actuated circuit that turns on a piezo buzzer when I go key down. And I put a little DC monitoring device (recommended early in 2020 by the Ham Radio Workbench podcast) between the power supply and the rig. There is more to do! Stay tuned.
In a recent podcast, Pete mentioned that Leo Sampson (the young Brit who is rebuilding the sailing yacht "Tally Ho") should seal the deal with his girlfriend. Well, it seems that "life coach" should be added to Pete's already impressive list of abilities (homebrew hero, pasta chef, guitar player, etc.) A while back Pete gave similar advice to Jonathan, M0JGH. This morning, Jonathan reported in, confirming that Pete's advice was completely correct. A "mixing product" arrived early in the lockdown. Congratulations to Jonathan and his remarkably radio-tolerant wife. It seems Leo should be shopping for a ring.
--------------------------
Dear Bill and Pete
I hope that you and your families are staying very well during these extraordinary times.
I wanted to thank you both for the reminiscent shout-out during the last podcast, whilst you were suggesting that Leo Sampson of sailing yacht Tally Ho should "seal the deal" with his girlfriend. If our case study is indicative of his future prospects, he absolutely should do! Not only are we happily married but we welcomed a bubbly baby girl into our family at the start of lockdown. (I note that hams refer to children as “harmonics”, but wouldn’t mixer products be a more appropriate metaphor?)
Apologies for my radio silence of late. Circumstances have allowed me the rare and special opportunity to take more of a lead with parenting, and so my soldering iron has only been wielded for maintenance purposes rather. Your discussion about the intrigue of distant voices emerging from homebrew rigs has whetted this CW addict's appetite to build something for SSB or even DSB, and likely for one of the higher bands...
I feel that I should briefly stick up for the art of CW, though. As a keen amateur musician the ability to communicate through rhythm will always hold a special charm, particularly when you consider that many of my regular EU chums on 40 and 80 are easily identifiable by their “distinctive fists”. I recall a true WW2 spy story in which a double agent, I forget which, was rather unwell but still had to be carried into the radio tent to send his CW whilst lying on a stretcher, otherwise the Germans might notice the absence of this distinctive fist and realize that the game is up!
This is obviously very cool, but looking ahead I think Adam should think about adding one more mixer, changing the bias on the TX amps, and adding a mic amp. Boom: A Double Sideband Transceiver.
Pete wrote: When I was in the US Navy and a particular unit did something outstanding – the Command ship would raise the Bravo Zulu Flag for a job well. Don’t know if you can see it there in MO but I have raised the BZ flag to you. Outstanding and congratulations.
Bill and Pete:
Just finished a DC transceiver using Arduino nano, SI5351 (my sincerest apologies, Bill), diode ring mixer and lm386 audio amp. The transmit portion is a two-stage class AB pre-amp (from EMRFD page 2.32), which is driving an IRF510 final (biased at 2.08 volts) from Pete’s design. Output is about 5watts into a CWAZ low pass filter, based on the design from here: https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/9902044.pdf
I’m using a manual TX/RX switch which is doing multiple things. It brings the Nano A1 LOW, offsetting the transmit frequency 600 Hz for CW, grounds the audio input to prevent deafness (learned that one the hard way), and it engages a relay that switches the antenna from the receiver to the transmit, and also turns on the transmitter stages. Keying is through the first stage of the pre-amp. I still have some tidying up to do, and I’m not sure the LPF works so well using two component inductors instead of all toroids, but I finished it today and made my first QSO into Ontario almost 1000 miles away. It’s been great fun! 73, Adam N0ZIB Missouri
"SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" is now available as an e-book for Amazon's Kindle.
Here's the site:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V9FIVW
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