Mars is moving away. Jupiter and Saturn close in the sky. And the Sun is back in action – Cycle 25 is underway. Also, the earliest sunset is behind us. Brighter days are ahead.
Book Review: “Conquering the Electron” With a quote from Nikola Tesla.
No real travel for us: Hunkered down. Lots of COVID cases around us. Friends, relatives, neighbors. Be careful. You don’t want to be make it through 10 months of pandemic only to get sick at the very end. SITS: Stay In The Shack.
Pete's Bench and Tech Adventures:
Backpack SDR keithsdr@groups.io
Hermes Lite 2
Coaching SSB builders
G-QRP talk
A new source for 9 MHz crystal filters
Bill's Bench:
Fixing the HA-600A Product Detector. Sherwood article advice. Diode Ring wins the day. Fixing a scratchy variable capacitor. Studying simple two diode singly balanced detectors. Polyakov. Getting San Jian frequency counter for it.
Fixing up the 17 meter BITX. Expanding the VXO coverage. Using it with NA5B's KiwiSDR.
Resurrecting the 17 meter Moxon. But WHY can't I nest the 17 meter Moxon inside a 20 meter Moxon? They do it with Hex beams. Why so hard with Moxons? DK7ZB has a design, but I've often heard that this combo is problematic. Any thoughts? I could just buy a 20/17 Hex-beam but this seems kind of heretical for a HB station.
Suddenly getting RFI on 40 meters. Every 50-60 Hz. Please tell me what you think this is (I played a recording).
MAILBAG:
Dean KK4DAS’s Furlough 40/20
Adam N0ZIB HB DC
TCVR
Tony G4WIF G-QRP
Vids. Video of George Dobbs.
Grayson KJ7UM
Collecting Radioactive OA2s. Why?
Pete found W6BLZ
Articles
Rogier KJ6ETL PA1ZZ
lost his dog. And we lost ours.
Steve Silverman KB3SII
-- a nice old variable capacitor from Chelsea Radio Company.
Dave K8WPE thinks we
already have a cult following.
Dan W4ERF paralleling
amps to improve SNR.
Jim W8NSA -- An old friend.
Pete Eaton
WB9FLW The Arecibo collapse
John WB4GTW old
friend... friend of:
Taylor N4TD
HB2HB
And finally, we got lots of mail about our editorial. No surprise: Half supportive, half opposed. Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion. And we are free to express ours. It’s a free country, and we want it to stay that way. That is why we spoke out.
Yesterday the Electoral College voted, finalizing the results. All Americans should be proud that the U.S. was able to carry out a free and fair national election with record turn out under difficult circumstances. And all loyal Americans should accept the results. That’s just the way it works in a democracy.
We are glad we said what we said. It would have been easier and more pleasant to just bury our heads in the sand and say nothing. But this was a critically important election and we felt obligated as Americans to speak out. We'd do it again. And in fact we reserve the right to speak out again if a similarly important issue arises.