SolderSmoke Daily News -- Ham Radio Blog

Marc nicely sums up this project with this line:  "It's an IC but in discrete form!"  On the same theme, he later says, "...

I'd really come to like this old signal generator.  The construction is superb.  It was built to be repaired.  As you open it up you fin...

I recently posted a video from CuriousMarc about whether or not to replace electrolytic capacitors in old pieces of gear.  This is a hot to...

A while back I got some fairly acerbic feedback when I DARED to suggest that perhaps it would be a good idea to replace the old electrolytic...

Jean Shepherd once said that all of us at one point come to a cross-roads in our lives -- one road leads to success, the other to ham radio ...

Eric Guth 4Z1UG has a really interesting interview with Ted Robinson K1QAR.   I really enjoyed hearing Ted's inspiring story:  https://w...

Ten years ago, my friend John gave me this tiny Sony receiver.  It wasn't working.   I tried to fix it but quickly discovered that the t...

This is the second time that Todd K7TFC has sent in a comment that is so good that it gets elevated to the main blog page.  When I was typin...

  Last month I was talking to Ira VP2EIH on my new 1712 SSB rig.  Ira is interested in satellites.  Talking to him caused me to dig up some ...

... send them this video.  Lin is in Hong Kong. What a great job she does with very simple tools.  Notice how she casually mentions that for...

Allan WA9IRS sent me this article.  Thanks Allan.   https://www.digitalengineering247.com/article/right-to-repair-movement-attracting-attent...

  I think a good troubleshoot is almost as satisfying as a successful homebrew.  And we can sense that high level of satisfaction in Pete N6...

There is a lot of wisdom and history in this Cameo video by Steve Wozniak.   Thanks to Chuck KE5SPY for alerting us to this.   Here a good B...

This amazing 10 minute video captures very well the joy of fixing broken things.  It comes to us through a recommendation from Paul VK3HN in...

https://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto We don't get a lot of mail from Darwin, Australia, so the message coming in from Phil VK8MC immediately...

Perhaps in retaliation for all the bad things I've said about regens over the years, the main tuning cap in the old regen I've be...

Hi Bill, Your recent success with baking your Sony Vaio gave me the courage to attack my flat screen monitor. The most expensive thing i...

The folks over at ifixit.com have come up with a Self-Repair Manifesto that readers of this blog will find inspirational. I like the line...

I mentioned my broken frequency counter... Tony Fishpool, G4WIF, of G-QRP sent me a replacement CMOS chip. The counter is now counting be...