Rocketry with Arduinos -- Update on Carbon Origins

I wrote earlier about these students and their cool Apollo telemetry device.  Here is an update. 

http://makezine.com/2015/07/21/carbon-origins-space-chase/


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Some HB SSB History -The Belthorn Story

The Eden Valley, Cumbria, England

 Hello Bill, 

 

As per your discussion with Pete in #177 I can indeed confirm that the correct pronunciation of Belthorn is “Bell-Thorn,” like Bell and Thorn concatenated. I named the design the “Belthorn SSB IF Module” in honour of the village I was living in at the time I developed it. I wanted to put the village on the map and in doing so leave my mark.

 

The design was published as a two part article in RadCom May/June 2000 intended to offer an alternative to the Plessey SL600/1600 IF strips of the late 70s early 80s. These integrated designs opened up simple SSB construction to many but by the mid 80’s sources of SL600/1600 ICs had all but dried up. I thought that a new design using readily available parts would be worth developing to offer a simple and repeatable basis for building an SSB transceiver.

 

From the emails I’ve received over the years it was and still is a popular project with many hundreds if not thousands having been built around the world. When the MC1350 IF amplifier became an endangered species I returned to the drawing board to produce a new version using a home brew diode DBM front end, a simple cascode IF stage and NE/SA612 product detector/modulator. An interesting feature of this was an AGC system based around an 8 pin 12F683 PIC. This new design offered considerable simplification and retained excellent performance. It was christened the “Eden SSB IF Module” after the Eden Valley where I now live in the north of England. It formed part of a transceiver project published on Yahoo Groups (Search for Eden 9). The gentleman who created the Yahoo Groups site mistook my schematic revision number (9) to be part of the name, and so it unwittingly became Eden9!!!  Fortunately the NE/SA612 remains in production although should it become obsolete I would probably make things right by bringing out a yet another version of the IF strip, perhaps with a switching mixer.  Here are a couple of links from the “old world” to give you a flavour of Belthorn the village and Belthorn the design;

 

The village website -http://www.belthornvillage.co.uk/ (Note that they’ve just bought a pub!)

 

The origin of the name “Belthorn” is quite interesting – although of little relevance to radio! Before the industrial revolution the village used to be on a pack horse route. to this day there is a house at the top of the village called “Bell in the Thorn” many years ago this used to be an inn. It’s thought that it takes its name from when a Bell hung in a thorn bush or tree nearby was used to signal when a horse change over was required to carry loads up and down the hill, probably from the mines or quarries on the nearby moors.

 

The link for the “Eden9” which you may find interesting is; https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eden9/info There is a power point presentation in the files section which describes the project and which features a section on receiver design. It may be a useful primer for those interested in the design process.

 

You can still find my original website on the internet archive complete with an introduction to Belthorn the village and a few of my earlier projects here; http://web.archive.org/web/20090316093248/http://g4gxo.cwc.net/

 

73 Ron G4GXO

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Interview on "QSO TODAY" Podcast with Eric 4Z1UG

Last week I was interviewed by Eric 4Z1UG for his podcast "QSO Today."  I was at first reluctant to do this, simply because of time constraints: I already have difficulty finding the time to record SolderSmoke.  But when I listened to Eric's interview with Wayne Burdick N6KR of Elecraft, and learned that they had been teenage ham radio friends, I wanted in!  Our interview was a lot of fun.  You can listen to it here:
http://www.qsotoday.com/podcasts/n2cqr  or via ITunes.

Please help Eric out by subscribing to his podcast and by linking to his site.   I'm sure he'd appreciate comments on our interview. 

Thanks Eric!  And as Shep would say: EXCELSIOR! 

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

SolderSmoke Podcast #178: Anniversaries, ZIA, LBS II, Old Mics, Antenna Dreams, Interviews, MAILBAG

SolderSmoke Podcast #178 is available:

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke178.mp3

18 July 2015

Anniversaries:
Pete Juliano -- One year with the podcast
BITX20 -- Ten years of homebrew fun
SolderSmoke Podcast:  Ten years of podcasting

Bench Report:   Pete's ZIA and LBS II
Bill messes around with old microphones

Looking ahead:
Pete plans antennas
Bill lusts after ladder line (spurred on by Farhan's new blog)

On the Air Reports:
Pete on 20 with ZIA and LBSII
Bill having fun on 40 (even with the Spectral Purity Police)
Bill tries rock-bound QRPp.  It is hard.  (Spoiled by QRO BITX luxury)
Bill's verdict:  BITX40 with Yaesu filter, Si5351, and TIA best of the 3 rigs.
Catching Cubesats with Pete's SDR Dongle


Digitizing old paper logs (and finding a lot more HB rigs)
Interviews with Eric 4Z1UG on QSO Today Podcast
FDIM interviews by Bob Crane

Peter Parker's review of DSB kit

MAILBAG:
Parts from W8NSA
Colin's tuna Tin Mighty Mite
Dean's Tiny Tia
Bryan's MMM dreams
Armand braves the heat at the Manassas Hamfest 

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Colin's Tuna Tin Mighty Mite (Video)

You will remember Colin as the builder of that beautiful BITX20 that he first used from his backyard and later used with great success from a hilltop in Northern England.  In this video we see Colin demonstrating his Michigan Mighty Mite.  Lots of soul in that little machine!   Colin notes that this rig worked well from the start.   The Radio Gods were obviously pleased by his use of a tuna tin as the chassis.  I think they also liked the MePads from W1REX and the Tek 465 'scope.   And of course the T-shirt was obviously a key element in Colin's success.  

Here is that beautiful BITX, now equipped with an internal speaker:



Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Dean's Tiny Tia -- Hardcore Homebrewing

 

Hi guys,

I've been on kind of a building hiatus due to various issues, but after seeing the work being done with the termination insensitive amplifiers I had to start noodling again.....as Pete would say.  Well I have decided to build a TIA (ZIA according to Pete) SSB transceiver.  I've decided to homebrew everything including the DBM, crystal filter, and even the Si5351 module.  As I wait for more parts to come in, I wanted to show the 2 TIA amps and crystal filter assembly I've built.  I've included a screenshot of the pass band response through the amps and the crystal filter.  It looks the same in both directions and everything fits into an area of 2 x 2.5 inches.  With the space left on the board, I hope to be able to put my SBL-1 clones on as well.  I follow up as I get more completed.

73

Dean AC9JQ 

 

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Pete's LBS II Transceiver

Look at that.  That is the work of a master homebrewer.  More info and more great pictures here:

http://www.n6qw.com/LBS2.html


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20