Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity --- Wonderful Video by Jim Al-Khalili (sent to us by Ashish N6ASD)

From Ashish N6ASD -- Oil Lamps and Electronics

Here is the link to the video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtp51eZkwoI

First, thanks to Ashish Derhwagen N6ASD for alerting me to this video.  You should all check out his blog. 

This is a really important video.  It is the best I have seen about the history of electricity and electronics.  It is from 2011, but it is still very good. Jim Al-Khalili travels through the world and displays the actual devices developed by the likes of Heinrick Herz,  Guglielmo Marconi, and Jagadish Chandra Bose.  There is great discussion of Benjamin Franklin, Volta and Galvani.  The role of electricity in The Enlightment is discussed.

  

Jim talks about the early transatlantic cables, and why some of them didn't work. 

We see Jagadish Chandra Bose developing early point-contact semiconductors (because the iron filings of coherers tended to rust in the humid climate of Calcutta!) 

There is a video of Oliver Lodge making a speech.   There is a flip card video of William Crookes (one of the inventors of the cathode ray tube and the originator of the Crooke's cross).  

We see actual coherers.  

There is simply too much in this video for me to adequately summarize here.  Watch the series.  Watch it in chunks if you must.  But watch it.  It is really great.  

Thanks Ashish.  And thanks to Jim Al-Khalili.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtp51eZkwoI

Tally Ho! Leo Solders -- Aurora -- Satellites -- Meteors -- Tides -- Starlink

I've been following this YouTube channel, probably since early in the pandemic.  It is not about radio, but in this episode we see Leo actually do some soldering.  NOT BAD!   Lots of other related stuff.  

Here is the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SampsonBoatCo

Who can tell us more about Lovelock's homebrew shortwave radio?

"Three years earlier, Lovelock had listened on his homemade shortwave radio in Finchley to the 'beep, beep, beep' transmission of the USSR’s Sputnik, the first satellite that humanity had put into orbit. Now he was playing with the super powers."

From: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/05/gaia-theory-born-of-secret-love-affair-james-lovelock

A bit of a soap opera, but the radio question is, I think,  interesting. 

Electromagnetic Waves -- Sir Lawrence Bragg -- Royal Institution (Video)

This is a really wonderful video.  I especially liked his presentation on the nature of the EM spectrum, and his use of the centimeter waves to demonstrate wave behaviour.   The two slit experiment was very nice.  Sir Lawrence's presentation on SWR was brilliant.  

Still, you wonder how would all this be done if those waves of Sir Lawrence (and Young, Maxwell and Faraday) were considered to be the photons that they also really are? 

In any case, three cheers for the Royal Institution: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=Royal+Institution  

Rigs on Vertical Boards -- Then and Now

 

I saw this on Facebook today.  G1AVQ (SK) Rig

The G1AVQ rig reminded me of the N3FJZ rig that I worked in 2015:

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2015/10/hb2hb-n3fjz-n2cqr-si5351-and-bitx-tias.html

I am a big fan of breadboards, and have recently been following the lead of Frank Jones W6AJF in using pine boards as the bases for my homebrew rigs.  Mine are more horizontal, but we see here from N3FJZ and G1AVQ that a vertical orientation works too.  

Laser Communication in London 2007 -- a Pointer, a VW Solar Panel, and Radio Kismet

Hack-A-Day has an article today about using a laser for data transmission.   This reminded me of a discussion I had with Mike KL7R about similar systems.  My son Billy and I built a very simple version in London in 2007.  Check out the podcast above.  Scroll foward to 19 minutes 15 seconds and you will hear how we did this.  

This was Mike's last podcast.  He was killed in a car accident in Hawaii about 10 days later.  RIP Mike.  73 OM.  

Mike KL7R

Ian Keyser G3ROO and Spy Radios

Above is a recent ICQ podcast interview with Ian. 

Here is a slightly older interview with Ian: https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2018-10-19/daring-spies-who-broadcast-from-behind-enemy-lines

This sojoun into spy land started with this WTF video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f3ZJYdmpZw

Crypto Museum explains what the Mk 301 was all about:  https://www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/mk301/index.htm

 I have had Ian on the SolderSmoke blog several times: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=%22Ian+Keyser%22

N2CQR at the key with a G3ROO paraset

Basil Mahon is an Author for Us -- He explains Faraday, Maxwell, and Heaviside

 

Armand WA1UQO has sent me two of Basil Mahon's books.  They are both really great.  He is a wonderful writer who has the rare ability to present not only the people who made the discoveries, but also the technical details of the discoveries themselves.  There is so much to learn from Basil Mahon's books.  I put a link to one of them on the column to the right >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I bought his book on Maxwell so I can read it on a long flight our to California.   

PERSONAL:

Born May 26, 1937, in Malta;  married Ann Hardwick (a teacher of chemistry), April 1, 1961; children: Tim, Sara, Danny. Education: Attended Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, 1955-57; Royal Military College of Science, B.Sc., 1960; Birkbeck College, London, M.Sc., 1971. 

Check out his career: 

British Army, career officer, serving with Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in Germany, Aden, and United Kingdom, 1955-74, retiring as major; Government Statistical Office, civil servant, 1974-96. Consultant and trainer on censuses and statistics, including work for clients in Russia, Estonia, Croatia, and Republic of Georgia.

And his thoughts on writing: 

Basil Mahon on writing: "To me, the joy of writing is simply the chance to give readers the joy of reading—to share one's thoughts and passions with them, hoping to leave them with a feeling of pleasure and well-being. By the time I came to write The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, careers in the army and the civil service had given me plenty of practice in writing instructions—where crispness and clarity were the cardinal virtues—so the big test was to try to hold fast to these qualities and to entertain the reader at the same time."

https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/mahon-basil-1937

From the Netherlands, Manu Joseph explains why he loves Mahon and Forbes' book on Faraday and Maxwell: 

Thank you Armand, and thank you Basil Mahon. 

Spy Rigs, Para Sets, Bugs, and Enigma Machines -- Dr. Tom Perera W1TP (video)

This is a really amazing presentation by Tom Perera W1TP to the Fairlawn (NJ) Amateur Radio Club. 

There is so much great info in this presentation.  Some of the highlights for me: 

-- The U.S. Civil War telegraphic (wired) spy set was just mind blowing.  I had never heard of this.  

-- The way the Nazis transmitted a signal 1 kc off the BBC frequency, so that Germans who tuned their Nazi-issued receivers to the BBC could be detected by neighbors (from the resulting 1 kc tone!) and turned in to the Gestapo.  

-- "Things don't land gently when dropped by parachute." Indeed.  This was a reminder of the courage of the young women who parachuted into Nazi-held territory during WWII.  Like Paulette.  It was great to see her with her Paratrooper wings on.  AIRBORNE!  And the picture of the operator with the bicycle generator was of Virginia Hall.  See: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/18/711356336/a-woman-of-no-importance-finally-gets-her-due  That portrait hangs in the hallway of the National War College. 

-- How they put the schematic of the PRC-5 right into the box.  Great idea.  But it had a terrible receiver.  One of the schematics showed a 455 kc IF and a BFO.  So they sent in superhets, not just regens. 

N2CQR operating the Para Set of G3ROO around 2009

This video makes me want to build a Para Set. 

Thanks a lot to Tom W1TP and the Fairlawn ARC. 

Valveman -- The Story of Gerald Wells

Don't be deterred by the annoying test patterns at the start of this video.  Just skip past them.  The rest of the video is quite good.  Or you could just click on this link and avoid the first 83 seconds of test pattern:  https://youtu.be/Y8w6iwaAGJ4?t=83

Gerald Wells has been mentioned on this blog before, but I don't think we've ever presented the full documentary on this fellow.  Here it is.  Gerry is clearly one of us: a radio fiend, obsessed (as he admitted!) with wireless, a victim of THE KNACK.   

George WB5OYP of the Vienna Wireless Society got to meet Gerald Wells and visit his museum. George alerted me to this video.  Tony G4WIF also was able to visit Gerry and his museum. 

The documentary is full of interesting stuff, and is, in itself, a Knack Story.  Wells mentions the Crippens murder so well described by Eric Larson in "Thunderstruck."  It was this crime that brought radio to the center of public attention.  

How they Make Raspberry Pi 4 Single Board Computers

So, if the Raspberry Pi is a key part of your new "homebrew" rig, how much of the rig did YOU actually build? 

Who is the Man in the Portrait in Artie Moore's Shack?

 

Who is this person?   He is in a prominent position in Artie Moore's very early radio shack.  Artie was obviously big on labeling things, and there is a label under the picture but I can't make it out.  What do you folks think?  Who is this?  

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2023/04/artie-moore-and-titanic.html

Tim Hunkin on Drilling Holes (Secret Life of Components Video)

 I guess that aside from being a great video, this is something of a test of technical nerdy-ism.  If you find this hour long video really interesting, well, you know... 

Really cool stuff from Tim Hunkin: 

-- I liked the angle driller.  Need one. 

-- The placement of the magnets near the hole to catch the shavings was really cool. 

-- Tim's reluctant admission that it is just better to buy new drill bits (as opposed to sharpening old ones) is good advice. 

-- WD-40!  Yea! 

-- Note:  No white "Boffin" coat for Tim.  Just "overalls."  But as I watched I found myself thinking that he could probably have used an armor plate or at least a Kevlar vest amidst all that flying metal. Perhaps a bit more eye protection too...  

-- Fiddley.  A useful tech term.  

--Swarf:  Another useful tech term:  the metallic remnants (shavings) of drilling. 

-- The digi readout on the milling machine looked really useful. 

Finally, I loved the sign that Tim has posted in his workshop:  

SMALL HADRON COLLIDER

Four Old BBC Shows on Radio: Hams, Physics, and Antique Wireless

The first one, about ham operators in general, is pretty depressing. Then it goes downhill as they shift to those who are listening to baby monitors and cell phones.  Yuck. 

The second one seems to show some physicist having understandable difficulty explaining particle-wave duality in a short TV segment.  

There is a short bit (that I didn't quite get) about the BBC's "Teddy Bear's Picnic."  

The final one is about Gerald Wells and his Antique Wireless Museum in South London.  Note the white coat -- clearly a boffin.  For a while I confused him with Rupert Goodwins G6HVY (similar white coat, but a different bloke).  

Artie Moore and the Titanic

I had never heard of Artie Moore, but his is a very interesting story from the earliest days of radio. 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artie_Moore

https://www.facebook.com/groups/118053768802799

More Info on the Cuban Jaguey Solid State DSB Transceiver

ZL2BMI Transceiver Layout (not full size here!) 

Continuing our search for information the Cuban "Jaguey" DSB rig, Trevor Woods pointed me to Dick Pascoe's QRP column in the (below) July 1998 issue of Ham Radio Today.  I think the first SPRAT article about Eric Sears' ZL2BMI DSB rig was in SPRAT 83 in the summer of 1995.  This fits well with the sequence described below by Arnie Coro CO2KK. 

I am still looking for a schematic and pictures of the Jaguey rig: If you can help in this, please let me know.  

Speaker Made from Potato Chip Bag: Tim Hunkin's Solenoid and Electromagnet Video

The potato chip ("crisp") speaker is very cool (I have it cued up here), but the rest of Tim Hunkin's video is also wonderful and worth watching.  (Note:  Posh bags work better as speakers.) 

Thinking of our use of signal relays, I kept wanting Tim to tell viewers to put a diode and a capacitor across the relay terminals to prevent back EMF from frying circuits.  But I guess this is not much of a problem with the arcade games that Tim builds.  

As always, Tim's scrounging and use of discarded parts is really admirable.   

I noticed in the credits that he is dedicating these videos to the memory of his colleague Rex. 

Thanks to Chuck WB9KZY for bringing this video to our attention.  And thanks Tim. 

A Really Great Podcast: 90th Birthday of the BBC

 Listen!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct4lzh

Amazingly Cool MONTV Video on Direct Conversion Receivers with Glue Stick PTOs

I think this is one of Nick's best videos. And he has made a lot of good ones. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl9dnajkYO0

This is a really excellent description of how a Direct Conversion receiver works. But more importantly Nick really captures the joy of building one of these receivers using discrete, analog components, including a Permeability Tuned Oscillator made from our beloved Glue Sticks.  

Extra mojo comes in the form of a mixer designed by Pete Juliano using J310s to simulate a 40673 dual gate MOSFET.  Fantastic.  Icing on the cake comes from a W8DIZ AF amp out of SPRAT magazine. 

There is a grand finale.  I won't spoil it.  Watch the video. Suffice it to say that Farhan would be pleased with this.  

Great stuff.  Thanks Nick!  

How the Diode Ring Multiplies by 1 and -1 -- "The Secrets of the Diode Ring" -- Plus another Bandsweep with the DC RX

A deeper look into how the Diode Ring detector works: "the particular go of it." Here I rely on a wonderful diagram from the RSGB. This diagram clearly shows how in this circuit, the switching action of the diodes -- controlled by the VFO -- results in sum and difference frequencies at the output. This is amazingly illuminating. I then tried to build this actual circuit. It works, but I am also getting a lot of AM breakthrough from a local AM station (WFAX) and Radio Marti at 7335 kHz. I will try again. In any case, the diagram shows how the diode ring does its thing! I need to beef up the Band Pass Filter. I tuned around a bit on 40 meters -- you can listen. Students at a local high school have been trying to get the DC receiver I loaned to them going -- they may be confused by the intricacies of SSB tuning. I will see them next week.

Here is the RSGB diagram that reveals the secrets of the Diode Ring.  (Now that could be the title of a book or movie.  I claim the rights to that!)  Click on the image for a better view.