SolderSmoke Podcast #156 -- November 4, 2013 -- Interview with Peter Parker VK3YE of Melbourne, Australia

November 4, 2013
Special hour-long interview with Peter Parker, VK3YE
-- Early experiences with radio
-- CW
-- DSB Gear
-- Simple gear, and gear that is TOO simple
-- VXOs, Super VXOs and Ceramic Resonators
-- Building receivers
-- Chips vs. Discrete
-- Making the leap to SSB
-- The Knob-less wonder and the BITX
-- No need for a sophisticated workshop
-- Advice for new phone QRPers

Peter's Blog: https://vk3ye.com/

Peter's YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/user/vk3ye/featured

Ciprian Got His Ticket: YO6DXE (and Romanian Mighty Mite FIXED!)

Ciprian writes: 

Thank you so much to you all... and thank you SolderSmoke for always writing about my learning in homebrew gear. I did finally got my license... just waiting for the paperwork to arrive. But now I'm finally YO6DXE ( DX Explorer lol ). I did found my issue with the power... it seems that it's from the cheap BD139 that doesn't seem to work as expected. I get about 500mW with a 2n2222. So I ended up making another version of the transmitter that I'm really happy about. 73 to you all DE YO6DXE.

SolderSmoke posts about Ciprian: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=Ciprian

Ciprian's QRZ.com page: https://www.qrz.com/db/YO6DXE

Ciprian's blog:  https://dxexplorer.com/

Ciprian's YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DXExplorer

ZL2BMI Double Sideband QRP Transmitter in SPRAT #191

Very cool that SPRAT had a Double Sideband (DSB)  transmitter article in its current issue (#191 Summer 2022). The author is DSB guru Eric Sears ZL2BMI,creator of the famous ZL2BMI  DSB QRP transceiver. 

I think DSB is a great way to break into homebrewing for phone.  Building a DSB transmitter is a LOT easier than building an SSB rig.  The DSB transmitter can then be converted into a DSB/Direct Conversion transceiver.   

Here is a link to 75 SolderSmoke blog posts about DSB (keep on scrolling, keep on hitting the "older posts" button): https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search/label/DSB

Here are a bunch of blog posts that mention ZL2BMI: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=ZL2BMI

Thank you Eric, and thanks to G-QRP. 

Hans Summers G0UPL Wins FDIM 2N2222A Power Out Challenge -- 4.1 Watts from Two 2N2222As

Farhan told me how cool this was.  And he was right.  It looks like a lot of fun.  Congratulations Hans! 

 

SolderSmoke FDIM Interview with Keith W. Whites -- Teaching Electronic Design to EE students using a QRP Transceiver designed by Wayne Burdick

When I first listened to Bob Crane's interview at FDIM with Keith Whites, I thought of the book "The Electronics of Radio" out of CalTech by David Rutledge.  Keith Whites told me that the difference between his effort at University of Kentucky was that Rutledge's course was designed for freshmen at Cal Tech, while White's course was aimed at Juniors and Seniors.  

I told Keith Whites that I had struggled to understand the Gilbert Cell and the NE602, the device that lies at the heart of the rig used in both courses:  The NE-602 Gilbert Cell Mixer used in Wayne Burdick's NORCAL 40A. Here is how I came to understand the device:  https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2021/11/how-to-understand-ne-602-and-gilbert.html

Here is Bob Crane's interview:  http://soldersmoke.com/2022 Whites.mp3

Here the slides that Keith used at FDIM: http://soldersmoke.com/2022 Teaching NorCal40A.pdf

Keith's students obviously got a lot out of this course.   Keith has kindly offered to make his course notes available to those who need them. 

Thanks to Bob Crane, Keith Whites, David Rutledge and Wayne Burdick. 

SolderSmoke FDIM Interview: Adam K6ARK and his 2.6 gram Mini-Pixie SMD Transceiver

I've not bee a big fan of the super-simple Pixie transceiver, but Adam K6ARK could make me a believer. 

Our correspondent Bob Crane W8SX interviewed Adam at FDIM.  You can listen to the interview here: http://soldersmoke.com/2022 K6ARK.mp3

The video above shows Adam's tiny Pixie in action in the California desert.  His rig is about the size of a postage stamp and weighs about 2.6 grams. FB Adam. 

Adam did a lot better with his Pixie than I did with my far larger and more complicated SST transceiver. He also did better than I did on 40 when I was using my ET-2 (two FET) transceiver. 

I liked how Adam recorded in the field the CW from his rig, I also liked his key (!) and his EFHW antenna and "tuner."  Adam's ability to cope with no CW sidetone was also admirable.  

Adam's YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/c/K6ARKPortableRadio

Thanks to Adam and to Bob Crane.  

"Dream It - Make It" -- Rich WB4TLM, Mrs. Filoramo, and C.F. Rockey W9SCH (aka The Rock)

 

Rich WB4TLM spotted my bog posts about famed QRPer C.F. Rockey W9SCH.  He followed up by sending me a link to the WB4TLM blog.   It is a lot of fun.  It describes his troubles in school and his subsequent participation in The Rock's electronics class. 

Rich's blog has some great inspirational quotes for ham radio homebrewers.  He is now teaching at Full Sail University. Their fabrication lab has a motto: "Dream it -- Make it."  And in a quote that made me think of my good friend Pete Juliano, Rich tells his internet-jaded students, "I've been there...done that... I can get you there faster." FB OM.  

Here is the link to Rich's blog:  http://richardarndt.com/about

Thanks Rich.  And thanks to Mrs. Filoramo and The Rock! 

Rich WB4TLM

First Ever Contact on 12 Meters: Homebrew, QRP, SSB, DX (Video)

I've recently finished most of the circuitry on the 17-12 meter dual band SSB transceiver. I have had contacts with it on 17 meters, but until yesterday morning (March 22, 2022) I had not had any contacts on 12 meters. This morning I talked to Paul EA5JZ in Valencia, Spain. I was running the 17-12 rig barefoot at about 5 watts with the final being one RD06HHT FET. The antenna was my 75 meter doublet fed with window line -- I had to modify the tuner to get it to work on 24.9 MHz. It was very cool to have my first 12 meter contact be QRP, HB and with Spain.

There is a LOT of soul in this new rig.  Here is a partial list of contributors: 

-- Overall BITX design:   Farhan VU2ESE

-- Termination Insensitive Amplifiers (TIA):  Wes Hayward W7ZOI and Bob Kopski K3NHI.  

-- TIA boards from Todd K7TFC

-- ASK-1 Mixer from Armand WA1UQO

-- VFO design parameters from Joe Carr K4IPV (SK) 

-- VFO stability ideas from Frank Harris K0IYE and Mike Murphy WU2D. 

-- HT-37 Tuning Capacitor bought from e-bay at suggestion of Pete Juliano N6QW. 

-- Pine board base of the rig:  Frank Jones (SK) W6AJF's preferred building technique. 

-- DTC Band-Pass filter circuits from Han Summers G0UPL. 

-- Low pass filter values from G-QRP web site. 

-- Idea of using RD06HHT instead of IRF-510 in the final:  Pete Juliano

-- Heat sink from Chris KD4PBJ

-- Trifilar Toroids used in many places from Farhan VU2ESE.

Thanks to all.  73  Bill  

Pete's Pea Shooter is ON THE AIR! -- QRP HB SSB FB

 

https://n6qw.blogspot.com/2022/03/march-3-2022-peashooter-makes-contacts.html

QRP HB SSB FB

FLASHBACK: The Herring Aid 5 Direct Conversion Receiver and Frank Jones (Video)

The Radio Gods seem to be pushing me towards Direct Conversion receivers.  This week I was speaking via Zoom with the very FB L'Anse Creuse Amateur Radio Club in Michigan.  My Herring Aid 5 tale of woe came up (see video above).   Then Dean KK4DAS was sharing video of the amazing fidelity of the Pete Juliano Direct Conversion Receiver.  Then I started thinking about Frank Jones W6AJF, and the story (fictional) of his build of the Herring Aid 5 by Michael Hopkins AB5L: 

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

I gave Frank a board for the Herring Aid Five redux from the April 1998 QRP Quarterly and challenged him to build one up. It took maybe two hours and that includes his own touches which included refusing to buy any parts.

For the transformers, he calculated the turns ratios from the impedances and tested a bunch of TV set pulls 'till he found something close. But he made the output 1:1 because his Brandes phones are close to 1000K Ohms as it is. 

He was willing to use toroids, but not to buy one, so I gave him an Amidon circular and he calculated the values of the 18 specified units. Then he wound them on unidentified cores from my junk box after learning the permeability of each with his homebrew dip meter. 

A store bought Zener was out of the question so he mixed and matched regular diodes with transistors hooked up as diodes until he got close enough to 10 volts. The mosfets came out of a TV tuner and Frank will use any plastic bipolar that says "C" or "D" on it for a 2N2222. 

Of course it worked the first time. He rigged up a patch to a pair of Class A push-pull 6L6s so Christie could hear it and she said it was "Also cute but bigger than the other one." 

Now a real QRPer would cry at that, but not Frank who sees no advantage in miniaturization at all. In fact, he mounted the whole thing in an old case from a Collins 6 and 2M transceiving attachment he junked out for the parts and no two knobs matched as Frank thinks matching knobs slow you down in a pileup. He wanted to take it back to his own shack and try it out with his breadboard MOPA and pair of 100THs because he does not run QRP, saying it "transfers the burden to the other guy."  

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

Frank Jones was one HARD CORE HOMEBREWER.  No store-bought Zener diodes or toroidal cores for him! 

All of the SolderSmoke Herring Aid 5 articles can be found here: 

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=Herring

Thomas K4SWL -- SOTA Activation on Bearwallow Mountain, North Carolina (video)

Thomas put out a very nice video of his recent activation of Bearwallow Mountain in western North Carolina.  Really nice.   It was fun to see the QSOs and the logging as he did it.  Very cool that he worked Christian F4WDN --- Jack NG2E also worked F4WDN on a recent activation in the Shenandoah area of Virginia. 

More details on the activation here:  

https://qrper.com/2022/02/summits-on-the-air-pairing-the-elecraft-kx2-and-chameleon-cha-mpas-lite-on-bearwallow-mountain/

Thanks Thomas! 

Barefoot Ham Radio -- PA2OHH's Wonderful Web Site

I first saw the link to Onno's site on Peter VK2TPM's blog.  And at first I confused it with the site of another great homebrewer Miguel PY2OHH.   This is all very IBEW:   On the website of an Australian ham,  I spot the web site of a Dutch ham living in Spain and briefly confuse him with a Brazilian homebrewer with a very similar callsign.  TRGHS. 

Onno PA2OHH has an inspirational approach to the hobby that he presents in a  really wonderful website.   Here is his intro to Barefoot Radio: 

Barefoot technology and Barefoot power!

Barefoot technology or simple, non-professional radio technology and real Barefoot power or harmless QRP power, that is what you will find here. There are some complex designs but many designs are simple radio amateur circuits. They will never be used professionally!
These simple circuits and rigs can give you much fun: home brewing, portable activities during holidays, etc.
Batteries and inverted V dipole antenna's with a fishing rod as the center support are all you need to make many QSO's.

Much fun!
Barefoot technology and Barefoot power can give you much fun, but is not perfect... There are disadvantages like VXO control instead of a VFO, direct conversion receivers that receive both sidebands and simple frequency displays that are not so easy to read. But working with such simple equipment is often more exciting than working with a much better commercial transceiver.
Perhaps that you cannot believe that you can make many QSO's with QRP power of only 1 watt. Indeed, some practice is needed in the beginning so do not give up too soon. Every boring standard QSO becomes an exciting experience with QRP power!

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

Check out Onno's site:  https://www.qsl.net/pa2ohh/

Peter Parker VK3YE Inducted Into QRP Hall of Fame

Wow, I was really pleased to learn that Peter Parker VK3YE was a 2021 inductee into the QRP Hall of Fame.  

This is a richly deserved honor.   Peter Parker  has been making extraordinary contributions to QRP and homebrewing for many years.  I remember reaching out to him when I was just getting started with homebrew phone gear.  I considered him a guru of DSB.  He helped me a lot.  Peter Parker was interviewed on the SolderSmoke podcast in 2013: 

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2013/11/soldersmoke-podcast-156-special.html

Peter has published many books and has produced many YouTube videos.  He hosts an annual QRP gathering in his beloved home-town of Melbourne Australia that gets attention from solder-melters around the world.  

Three cheers for Peter Parker!  

Congratulations Peter! 

VK3YE's Web Site: https://vk3ye.com/

VK3YE's QRZ.com page:   https://www.qrz.com/db/VK3YE 

Thanks to VK3HN for alerting me to this. 

SST -- QRP On The Beach

Up in a beach house on Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts, I put the SST on 20 meters using an End-fed Half Wave antenna and QRP-guys tuner.  Conditions were pretty bad, with solar storms causing disturbances in propagation, but I did manage to get picked up by RBN skimmers in Iceland, Germany and Italy (see below).  And I had one nice QRP-QRP contact with DK4AN.

I was having trouble getting out until I used the oar to raise the central portion of the half wave antenna -- that's where the current is. 

Thanks again to Bob KD4EBM for sending me the SST.  

Video: E. Howard Armstrong and Early Radio

This is a really wonderful video. It might seem slow to those accustomed to faster-paced YouTube videos, but the information content is very high -- it contains a lot of pictures I hadn't seen before and audio of Howard Armstrong.  

I never knew that the name of the radio company Zenith was derived from the early callsign "9ZN." 

As a Northern Virginian, I like the reference to NAA Arlington.  

I used to live near Yonkers, N.Y.  I remember Warburton Ave.  What a fine shack young Howard had up in that cupola attic.  

The photo of Armstrong's breadboard was very nice.  My Mythbuster is in good company.

QRPers will get a kick out of the newspaper headline "New Radio Marvel Revealed!"  (They cut the power out from 20kW to 5 watts!) 

Thanks again to Dave Bamford W2DAB for sending me the book about Armstrong, "Man of High Fidelity" by Lawrence Lessing.  

Finally, I remember talking to Bruce Kelley W2ICE at hamfests.   He was a great radio amateur: 

https://www.qcwa.org/w2ice-01351-sk.htm

http://www.arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive/ARLX020/1997

Be sure to check out the Antique Wireless Museum's YouTube Channel.  Lots of good stuff there: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX55peBhzeX1qps_VYXdLBA

We have the famous photo of Major Armstrong,

 but this is the first one I've seen of a slightly younger Captain E. Howard Armstrong. 

Romanian Mighty Mite and Ciprian's Knack Story

Another wonderful video from Ciprian in Romania. 

Any suggestions on his Mighty Mite power output problem? 

Here is Ciprian's YouTube channel. His intro video presents his Knack Story.  

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgaWKPt1P-4D6YI-Opd15_Q

I really hope Ciprian can get a license very soon.  His homebrew projects alone should qualify him. Ciprian has The Knack. It would be great if the IBEW (especially the European branch) could help Ciprian get some more parts and test gear. 

Jack NG2E's Pebble Crusher

 Check out NG2E's Pebble Crusher homebrew transmitter.  Doug DeMaw would be enormously pleased.   

Jack will no-doubt have this 250 mW rig on the some peak along the Shenandoah Valley, handing out QSOs to SOTA fans.   

Jack's blog page has a really nice video on this project: 

https://jackhaefner.blogspot.com/2021/06/pebble-crusher-40m-xmtr.html

Santo Domingo Shack on 12th Floor Balcony -- SST QRP CW

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.)

 

QRP - QRP Contact from Dominican Republic

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.

VK3HN's Homebrew 30 Meter SST QRP Transceiver

It turns out that many people homebrewed SST rigs.  Here is Paul VK3HN's version.  Really nice. 

https://vk3hn.wordpress.com/2016/12/27/summit-prowler-two-a-scratch-built-30m-cw-transceiver-wilderness-sst-for-sota/