SolderSmoke Quiz Question: Who is the actor in this Bell Labs video?

He appears at 8 minutes, 17 seconds.  And he is somehow in the YouTube title frame.  I think I know who it is.  Any ideas?  (DON'T LOOK AT THE COMMENTS!) 

 

A Surprisingly Good Movie from the Late 1960s: "The Ham's Wide World" (Video)

I found this movie to be surprisingly good.  Narrated by Arthur Godfrey, it features Barry Goldwater, and a lot of other hams.  There is a homebrewer too!  Lots of  old rigs we know and love:  a Drake 2-B, a couple of Galaxy Vs, a Benton Harbor lunchbox, Heathkit SB-series rigs, many Swans, and was that an HQ-170 that I saw in there?  There are also many cool antennas, including a 15 meter quad set up by a bunch of Southern California teenagers. 

Near the end, when they visit ARRL Headquarters, we briefly see none-other-than Doug DeMaw, W1FB!  FB!  

Please take a look at this video and post comments about the rigs, antennas, and radio amateurs that you see in the film. 

Video of SolderSmoke Podcast #237 (Audio in Previous Post)

Alan Wolke W2AEW: YouTube Silver Play Button Award, and ARRL Hudson Division 2020 Technical Achievement Award

Three cheers for Alan Wolke W2AEW, truly one of the great guys of homebrew ham radio.  Alan's wonderful YouTube videos have enlightened hams all around the world.  He is always there to answer questions and help hams (like me) who are at times struggling to understand technical concepts. 

Photo from the November 13, 2021 ARRL Hudson Division Awards Luncheon. That’s Alan with the ARRL CEO David Minster NA2AA, the Nobel Prize winning Dr. Joe Taylor K1JT, and 2021 Technical Achievement winner David DeCoons WO2X. Alan was presented with the division’s 2020 Technical Achievement award. 

Excellent Video from Farhan on Amplifier Design

Farhan has produced a really excellent video explaining the theory behind the feedback amplifiers that we use in so many of our circuits.  He takes us through the design and construction of these amplifiers, then uses his Antuino network analyzer to test an amplifier  and to measure input and output impedances.  

There is a lot of tribal knowledge and wisdom in this video! 

Check it out here:  

https://www.vu2ese.com/index.php/2020/06/18/feedback-amplifier/

Thanks Farhan! 

Video on the Galaxy V VFO Project

This is the second version of this video.  I had some technical difficulties getting it to upload in High Definition, but I was able to work it out in this version. 

In this video I describe the VFO project, talk about how I made use of the e-bay Galaxy V parts, talk about the circuit (series-tuned Colpitts), conduct some stability tests, and discuss many of the ways a VFO like this one can be useful to the radio amateur.  

Thanks to Pete Juliano for inspiring this effort. 

Revamped SolderSmoke YouTube Channel -- Please Subscribe

I did some work on the SolderSmoke YouTube Channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/user/M0HBR

And I added a bunch of videos that had somehow ended up in different channels. 

Please visit, watch some of the videos and subscribe.  From now on I will put all of the videos in this channel.   

Thanks!  73  Bill 

Freethink YouTube Channel

Lots of really nice, inspirational videos here: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UConJDkGk921yT9hISzFqpzw

AMAZING 1999 Video on the Invention of the Transistor at "Hell's Bells Laboratory"

Thanks to Armand WA1UQO for alerting me to this.  I really liked the book -- "Crystal Fire" -- that this 1999 video is loosely based on. I'm also a fan of the narrator,  Ira Flatow, whose melodious voice is heard each week on NPR's excellent "Science Friday" radio show. 

A few observations and thoughts on the video: 

-- I liked the irreverant Calypso song "Hell's Bells Laboratory."  It looks like those folks had a lot of fun.  And wow, Shockly's secretary was named Betty Sparks.  TRGHS. 

-- I have the same big Variac on my bench.  And I have one of those "third hand" devices.  

-- I'd like to build my own replica of the point contact device with the triangular piece of lucite and the gold foil. 

-- While Shockley seems to be the real bad guy in this story (he seems to have all the bad characteristics of David Sarnoff,  Lee DeForest, and Steve Jobs),  I liked the his use of "physical intuition" to understand devices and the problems they were meant to solve.  

-- The image of the two Japanese founders of Sony working in the late 1940's in a bombed out department store was very powerful.   

-- Although I came on the scence a bit later, I WAS one of those kids who used a transistor radio and an earphone to surreptitiously listen to rock-and-roll music. 

-- "More transistors are made each year than raindrops fall on California."  Hmmm.... 

More info here:  http://www.pbs.org/transistor/
Extra interviews:  http://www.pbs.org/transistor/tv/index.html

"So You Want To Build?" Words of Wisdom from Pete Juliano

Everything on Pete's blog is worth reading, but this article was so good that I could not resist posting a link to it here. 

Tribal knowledge from a leader of the homebrew tribe: 

http://n6qw.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-new-line-of-transceivers-difx.html

Ralph Baer -- Video Game Inventor

Thanks to Stephen G7VFY for alerting us to this very nice video.   Ralph Baer did pioneering work in video games.   It is fun to see him in his workshop. He obviously has a variant of The Knack.  Stephen hinted at a reference to "noodling" but I didn't hear it -- perhaps Stephen meant that the whole thing was about what we'd call noodling.  I found the box on his bench labeled "Wire Wrap Materials" kind of ominous -- remember our April 1 announcement about the launch of the new "Wire Wrap Rap" podcast?

I liked Ralph's summary comment about how these days he just has fun building things.

JH8SST/7's Build of Pete's Simpleceiver

Beautiful. 

Makes me want to put S-meters in my rigs.

More on Pete's design here:

http://n6qw.blogspot.com/2015/09/simpleceiver-40m-ssbcw-receiver-and.html

In De Ether (Short Belgian documentary about ham radio)

In De Ether (English Subtitles) from Ivo Maes on Vimeo.

Video: Sweeping a Filter with a FeelTech Signal Generator and a Rigol Oscilloscope

This short video shows how I used my new FeelTech Signal Generator (90 bucks shipped from China) and my trusty Rigol oscilloscope to display the passband of the filter in my Armand HROish receiver.  Feedback on this test procedure would be appreciated.

Video of Armand HROish Receiver

Building LC Oscillators

Yesterday I came across this very nice video -- I thought you guys would like it.  2E0VIR obviously has The Knack!

I'm building a very simple LC VFO today. This is for the HRO Dial Receiver that I've been slowly working on. Mine is a Hartley, from Chapter 3 Figure 7 of SSDRA.   Stay tuned!

Update: PA3GSV's Amazing Mighty Midget Receiver (video)

Jan sent me an amazing update on his Mate for the Mighty Midget Mk 2 receiver project.  I'm really blown away by the skill that he brings to the mechanical phase of this project.   This is a homebrew dial-string reduction drive using the end cap from a sewer pipe as the big wheel.  Think about that.  Amazing. Jan reports that with the mechanical work almost done, he is almost ready to start melting solder.  FB Jan!  Check out the video above and the photos below.

Great Video: The Secrets of Quantum Physics

Listen to My R2 Phasing Receiver (formerly known as "The Frankenstein" )

I really like this receiver.  Thanks to all who helped. 

Mama Mia! Mikele's Croation Simple-ceiver Video

You can just feel the homebrew enthusiasm in this video.  You can almost smell the solder smoke.

We love it when people do videos showing their new rigs spread out on the workbench with individual boards held together by bits of solder.  It is even better when, as in this video, the boards are atop hand-drawn schematic and parts-placement diagrams with much NOODLING in evidence. 

FB Mikele!  And I agree with you about the stations who call "CQ DX-only."  I used to hear that a lot when I was in Europe, and I hear it hear quite a bit too.   I always think it is a contradiction in terms. There were times when I was sitting there with a new rig, anxious to get a signal report from a strong station, and he wouldn't come back to me because of the Continent that I was sitting in! Pity.   His loss.  He might have been interested to hear about the contraption I was testing.  It could have been fun, but no, he preferred to work VK3 or Puerto Rico for the 1000th time. 

Indeed, three cheers for the legendary Pete Juliano!