Windsor (England) Signal Generator (from Slough) with a Very Cool Dial

Kilo Cycles!  Mega Cycles! Windsor - like in the castle!    Made in Slough, Buckinghamshire, England, the town that was the fictional site of the original (UK) version of the TV series "The Office." The dial and indicator turn nicely.

I would be willing to part with this piece of kit.   Please let me know if you are interested, how much you would offer, and how we could arrange shipment.  

Soldering School -- 1958 (Video)

I went to a similar course at Ft. Gordon Ga. in 1977.  But I think my instructors would pass out if they saw the way I REALLY solder in the shack today.  But hey, I am building SSB transceivers, not spacecraft.  If one of my joints is bad (they rarely are), I can fix it.  So chill out Mr. Instructor -- if we were to do every connection your way it would take us a lot longer to build a rig.  

 

TV Homebrew 84 years ago -- Tracking Down W9YEI's 1939 Television Receiver -- The CRT He Probably Used -- Please Help Find More Info

From October 1938 QST "Building Television Receivers with Standard Cathode Ray Tubes" 

by J.B. Sherman 

A recent Hack-A-Day article about early television receivers got me thinking about the receiver built by young Johnny Anderson in 1939 and described by Jean Shepherd on WOR in 1973.  In the 1973 program (skip to the 18 minute mark),  Shep gives a good description of the device.  It sounded a lot like the receiver from Peter Scozzari's October 1939 "Radio and Television" article:  Shep described a big chassis with angled pieces of aluminum one of which had a tube socket brazed onto it.  Anderson may have bult the power supply on the same chassis as the receiver.  Shep said that a 1 inch CRT was in this socket.  Tellingly, he described the picture as being green in color.  

Peter Scozzari wrote that oscilloscope tubes produced a "greenish hue."  One month after his first article, in November 1939 Peter Scozzari published another article in which he changed the CRT to to a tube that would produce a black and white (not green) pictures.  See below for the part of the article that describes the shift to the larger black and white tube.  This supports the idea that Anderson was using a tube built for oscilloscopes.  The picture above shows what images from the three sizes of RCA oscilloscope tubes would have looked like (absent the green hue -- this was a black and white magazine).  I find them kind of eerie, considering that the person in the picture was probably born more than 100 years ago.  And in that bottom picture we see an image (absent the green hue) very similar to what Shep saw in 1939, and described so vividly in 1973. 

Scozzari's receiver started out with a 2 inch tube, then a month later, he went with a 3 inch tube.  But Johnny Anderson may have only had the 1 inch tube described by Shep.  The Sherman QST article provided circuit details for all three sizes of RCA tubes. This information would have been very useful to Johnny Anderson. So my guess is that when Shep saw TV for the first time in 1939 in Johnny Anderson's basement workshop, he was looking into an RCA 1 inch 913 CRT. 

Here's a great EDN article on the 1 inch CRTs available in the 1930s: 

https://www.edn.com/one-inch-wonders/

Here's a fellow who recently built a TV receiver using an RCA 902: 

https://www.cool386.com/902tv/902tv.html

Here's the YouTube video of his 902-based receiver in action: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI8pYs-MBI0

Previous SolderSmoke blog posts on this topic: 

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/john-stanley-anderson-w9yei-sheps.html

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/early-television-jean-shepherd.html

http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/04/w9yeis-homebrew-1939-tv.html

This is all pretty amazing:  We are gathering details on a television receiver built some 84 years ago by a teenager in a basement in Hammond, Indiana.  

Does anyone out there have more information on what Anderson built?  Can anyone dig up more information on this? Any more info on Peter Scozzari?  Anyone have info on Jack Neitz of California (he recently built the Scozzari TV receiver)? 

W9YEI's Homebrew 1939 TV?

 

I've been thinking about Jean Shepherd's 1973 description of the homebrew TV receiver built by his friend Johnny Anderson W9YEI in (probably) 1939.   Shep said Johnny got the info on this receiver from the IRE Journal.  But I was thinking that there had to have been "how to build" articles in circulation around that time, and -- if located -- these articles might provide some insight on what Johnny Anderson built. 

Asked for info on early TV's Google will send you to lots of sites about early commercial sets.  But you have to dig a bit and refine your search to find articles about the kind of receiver that Shep described as having been built by Johnny Anderson.  

The picture above shows one such possibility.  It comes from an article in the October 1939 issue of Radio and Television magazine.  The author was Peter Scozzari.  

http://www.earlytelevision.org/pdf/rtv_10-39-1.pdf

The picture tube seems to be about the size that Shep described;  Shep said it was a 1 inch tube, and this schematic shows a 2 inch tube, but the image must have been smaller, so this seems consistent with Shep's recollection.  The article presents this as a "Low Cost" project -- that would have been what Shep's teenage friends were looking for.  And we KNOW that Anderson was capable of building something like this:  we have a QSL card from him from the same time period in which he notes that he was using a "9 tube superhet."  Someone who could build a 9 tube superhet in 1938 could certainly build this TV receiver.   

Can anyone find more of these kind of articles from the late 1930's? 

Three cheers for Johnny Anderson and for Peter Scozzari. 

More Googling revealed that a Californian named Jack Neitz more recently built the receiver described in Scozzari's 1939 article.  Here is Neitz's build: 

This is really amazing.  We need more info on Jack Neitz!   The only info I have is from: 

https://www.earlytelevision.org/neitz.html

"Patrolling the Ether" WWII Video on Radio Direction Finding Efforts

I heard about this video while trying to track down information on John Stanley Anderson's 1939 television receiver.  "Patrolling the Ether" is kind of hard to find.  It is not really on YouTube.  But there is a good BARC Vimeo video about WWII RDF efforts that includes at the end the full "Patrolling the Ether" video.  

Here it is:  

https://vimeo.com/415926991

Thanks to BARC and to Brian Harrison for putting this together. 

In the video, they discuss the invention of the Panadaptor by Dr. Marcel Wallace F3HM  during World War II.   I set up a very crude Panadaptor using Wallace's principals:

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2019/05/diy-waterfall-quick-and-easy-panadaptor.html

The 17 & 12 SSB Transceiver -- Circuit and Build Info -- Video #4

I REALLY LIKE THIS RIG. IT IS LIKE A MAGIC CARPET THAT CARRIES MY VOICE ACROSS THE SEAS.

Cutting Display Hole sets off smoke alarm. Reverse Polarity Protection. IF and Crystal Filter at 21.470 MHz 50 ohms! TRGHS! Amp for VXO Carrier Oscillator/BFO. Mic Amp from uBITX. Transmit/Receive switching from mic connector. VFO: NO DIE CAST BOXES! HT-37 Variable Cap, Frequency Shift. BP filters from QRP LABS designs (G0UPL). TIA amp boards from K7TFC. Needed RF amp to hear band noise. BITX40 PA design, but RD006HHF1 instead of IRF510. Should I run receiver input through LP filter? Frequency Readout Story: How to use one San Jian counter on two bands.

John Stanley Anderson W9YEI -- Shep's Friend Who Homebrewed a TV Receiver in 1938

 

John Stanley "Johnny" Anderson -- son of John E. and Beda Klarin Anderson, natives of Sweden -- was born on July 19, 1918, in East Chicago, Indiana. He grew up at 6813 (formerly 1439) Arizona Avenue in Hammond, and graduated from Hammond High School a couple of years ahead of American humorist and writer Jean Shepherd. In his WOR radio broadcast of January 24, 1973, Shepherd told of how Johnny was an expert ham who was way ahead of the other kids in town, and how he first saw television demonstrated by Johnny in his basement. Johnny in fact held amateur radio license W9YEI at the time.

After graduation from Hammond High, Johnny went to work as a chemist at the local steel mill. On April 11, 1941, Johnny enlisted at Fort Benjamin Harrison in the U.S. Army, serving through WWII until November 27, 1945. On June 4, 1955, he married Jane H. Vanstone.

Johnny later moved to Munster, Indiana, and continued working at Inland Steel, where he held a variety of technical positions. He passed away on January 29, 1984, at the emergency room of Hammond's St. Margaret Hospital after suffering from neurogenic shock. At the time of his death, Johnny was an electrical technician at Inland Steel's quality control center. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Hammond.  From: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/173124396/john-stanley-anderson

The Flick Lives web site has an interesting letter that Johnny wrote to his friend Paul Schwartz (W9KPY) in mid 1941.  Schwartz is frequently referred to by Jean Shepherd.  Schwartz was killed in World War II.  

In the letter, Johnny also references another mutual friend who Shep often mentions:  Boles (W9QWK). 

http://www.flicklives.com/files/1941-05-02_093_Johnny_Anderson_to_Paul_Schwartz.pdf

Dorothy Anderson was Johnny's sister and was for a time Shep's girlfriend. 

Rcvr: "9 tube Superhet"  FB OM

Early Television, Jean Shepherd, Homebrewing, and Hack-A-Day

It may have been something like this 1947 receiver.  But with a smaller CRT.

Hack-A-Day has an article about early (1930s) television.  I was immediately reminded of a January 1973 Jean Shepherd show on WOR New York in which Shep talks about a kid in his neighborhood who built a very early television receiver.  You can skip to about the 18 minute mark for the homebrew radio and television stuff. 

In the 1973 show, Shep identifies the builder as John Anderson.   The Flicklives web site lists the hams who lived around Shep in Hammond Indiana.   Among them is John Stanley Anderson W9YEI.  That's him. 

Shep was born in 1921 and in the show he says this all took place when he was 16 or 17.  So that would place these events around 1938.  We see that on February 2, 1939  W9XZV -- the experimental station of Zenith Chicago -- went on the air with television.  In August 1940 W9XBK, the experimental TV station of WBKB Chicago went on the air.  That station was the one Johnny Anderson used to demonstrate TV to Shep and other friends.   

Once again, Shep really captures the spirit of homebrew radio and the way it really captivates teenagers. He also explains -- very well I think -- the difference between true homebrew radio and kit building.  

I really wish we had more details or pictures of W9YEI's TV receiver.  I tried looking in the IRE Journal, but I couldn't find anything.  Anyone have more info on this receiver or ham homebrew TV projects from the late 1930s?

EXCELSIOR!   73   Bill  

https://hackaday.com/2022/04/10/retrotechtacular-a-diy-television-for-very-early-adopters/

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2008/07/best-jean-shepherd-ham-radio-episode.html

http://www.flicklives.com/index.php?pg=318

https://www.earlytelevision.org/w9xbk.html

WD-40: Not Quite the Pope's Pee

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 typing yesterday's post about how WD-40 had restored life to the hard drive in my old Tandy 1000 computer, I knew that this would stir up anti-WD-40 sentiments.  I'm grateful that Todd weighed in with such a thoughtful response.  

What can I say?  I was young and foolish.  I thought WD-40 was the answer.  Now I know better.  I have can of DeOxit D5 on my shelf.  I only use the WD-40 on my bicycle.

Todd K7TFCApril 9, 2022 at 7:49 PM wrote: 

I think even the Pope would argue his pee has already served its only real purpose: to remove unwanted substances from the body. WD-40 is useful for that purpose as well--it's pretty good at dissolving and blasting away dirt and grease from tools, hardware, or small mechanisms. That's no doubt why it worked to get your hard-drive spinning again. As a lubricant, though, it is deeply flawed.

If you have nothing else at hand, it can also substitute as an penetrating rust buster. The purpose its developers intended is coded in the name itself: "WD" stands for water displacement, and its very good at doing that. It's not so good at many of the other uses to which it's commonly put.

A very-long time ago, I worked at a company that made its own PCBs, and they had some very-precise NC machinery (programmed with punched tape in those days) for drilling and routing the boards. After a series of baffling and costly shutdowns, the culprit was discovered and WD-40 was banned entirely from the plant. The plant-maintenance guy and janitors couldn't even have any.

It was found that once completely dry, the oils and waxes in it would slowly polymerize (as they were intended), leaving behind a sticky film that protected from moisture and rust just fine, but it gummed up precision machinery. The Chief Production engineer (my father) got the company brass to ban WD-40 entirely.

Why ban it from even plant-maintenance and janitorial work? Because you couldn't keep the PCB-production crew from resorting to it in a "crisis" if they could find any at all in the building. It meant they weren't careful enough to keep the proper lubricants in stock. You could either fire them for their shade-tree-mechanic mentality, or you could ban WD-40.

Needless to say, I've kept my congenital anti-WD-40 animus alive all these years, but I do have a can I use for cleaning and water-displacement purposes. When tempted to use it otherwise, though, the memory of my father sniffing the air suspiciously for its distinctive odor flashes in my head, and I reach for something else. --73, K7TFC  

WD-40, a Hard Drive, a Coat-Hanger Antenna, Dumpster Diving, and Amateur Radio Satellites from the Azores

 

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 old material about satellite operations.   Here is a 2003 QST article about working the satellites from the Azores: 

http://www.gadgeteer.us/AZORESSP.HTM

Regarding the usefulness of WD-40, during my time in the Azores John EI7BA once told me that WD-40 is, "the Pope's pee!"  Apparently that is high praise in Ireland.  It is indeed good stuff. 

Messias CU2BJ is a Silent Key.  I hope Ray CU3GC, WL7CDK is doing well.  

The Vacuum Tube's Forgotten Rival: The Magnetic Amplifier

The video above shows one application of the principal, but be sure to check out the IEEE article:  

https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-vacuum-tubes-forgotten-rival

The First Commercial SSB Trans-Atlantic Radiotelephone System

These guys didn't just complain about QSB -- they DID SOMETHING about it!  

Thanks to AWA and Hack-A-Day for disseminating this great video.