Bert, WF7I, sent us this report from the nuclear reactor building at UVA. You can almost feel the excitment! Congrats Bert!
Bill:
I'm ecstatic to report that my MMM made its first QSO, after almost 20 years, last night at the University of Virginia ham club at the nuclear reactor! I worked W4OEQ, Tom in McMinnville, TN. He gave me a 459 report. I was running about 300-500 mW (hard to tell with our meter) out of the MMM into our inverted vee up high in the trees of Observatory Hill at UVa. I also have three witnesses to the event: our club president, Mark KJ4IEA; club Treasurer Will, KI4LGE; and member Alex, KJ4YWP. I received a round of applause from our group after the QSO was complete!
It was a very satisfying moment to be sure. Not only to make a QSO with this rig from my past and all those memories, but to do it at the re-vitalized UVa ham club, which has its own long, off-and-on history dating back to the 1930s (at least), and to do it with a captive audience! Our club members, mostly younger guys 18-22 years old, have never done CW and always are in a mesmerized/stunned condition when they see me tapping out the dots and dashes, and copying it in my head! Everyone was very silent and focused during the QSO.
72/73!
Bert WF7I
Michigan Mighty Mite -- N2CQR/HI8 versionBert, WF7I, (our correspondent at UVA Charlottesville), wrote yesterday about his past and recent adventured with a little rig that got a lot of us started in the scratch-built homebrew game: The Michigan Mighty Mite. I built one in the Dominican Republic, probably in 1993. I never worked anyone with it, but was really pleased to get the thing oscillating. I still have remnants of it (sans crystal) -- see above. Bert's e-mail and AA1TJ's recent derring-do make me want to dust off that little single FET transceiver for 3.579 MHz that I built in Italy. One QSO would make me happy. At least this minimalist stuff is keeping me away from the regens...
Here's a good article on how to build one:
http://www.qsl.net/wb5ude/kc6wdk/transmitter.html
Here's a site from Dave, WA5DJJ, who built a bunch of these rigs:
http://www.zianet.com/dhassall/Michmitymite.html
Bert's e-mail:
Hey Bill.
The AA1TJ postings on your blog motivated me to unearth my old Michigan Mighty Mite (the "MMM"). For me there's a lot of history, even emotion, there. I built this little rig with my friend AC7CA when we were both finishing up high school. Neither of us knew what was really going on in this circuit, other than some vague thoughts about resonance and that a transistor amplifies.
What was important to us at the time was more the fit-and-finish of the box that it was in, and making QSOs, rather than working out the theory behind the schematic. I'll email you a photo of the box as it stands now. We got a nice, blue plastic project box from Radio Shack, and figured out that those small iPod (used to be called "Walkman")-style headphone sockets made great crystal sockets as well (they really do). I remember vividly the two of us planning out the radio, I remember trying to work with plastic (not so easy, it tended to melt and scuff up), and attaching the air-variable capacitor (not a small feat with the limited tools available). But the end product looked like a much more impressive rig than it really was. This oversized blue box with a big tuning knob, bright colored red and black banana power terminals, the cool little crystal sticking out of the top, and the Dymo-label tape proclaiming, "Rig Master" (or "blaster", or something similar -- I have to actually go see what it said!). 1/2 W of power came out of this very simple oscillator, just as advertised. But to this day, I don't know if either of us ever even made a QSO with the thing! The thrill was in the assembly of a rig from a schematic in CQ magazine, the fellowship of the two of us working on it, and seeing the thing actually WORK as promised. Time moved on, and it ended up getting shoved to a back corner of my room, and when college and work came along, it almost got totally forgotten and collected dust.
Anyway, the blog postings made me think of low-powered QRP, and I dug it out again, dusted it off, and pulled out some crystals. The thing still works just as it did 20 years ago! I was very happy to see that. I guess one of the advantages to ultra-simple, low part count rigs is that not much CAN go wrong! And if it does, it only costs a few pennies, or nothing, to fix.
The rig went on the air on Saturday night, and it was quite an interesting contrast on the work bench. On one side, my Kenwood TS-2000, a state-of-the-art (or nearly so) DSP rig, with the "glowing numerals" and a computer interface. Next to it, the MMM, straight key and a pile of rocks! A single "super antenna" compact vertical was erected on a tripod in my backyard, with a coax coming in to the shack to a switch (functioning as a "T/R" switch, in a way). In one position, my gazillion-transistor appliance rig would function as a ridiculously sensitive and over-the-top receiver for the task at hand. In the other position, my homemade single-transistor MMM would transmit out to the vertical.
I called CQ till my hand/wrist was sore, and QSY'd between the 4 freqs I had to choose from, but to no avail. I am not deterred however. This evening, following the W4UVA club meeting, I will hook it up to our 40 m inverted vee high in the woods overlooking the nuclear reactor. It would be fitting if the possible first ever MMM QSO came from this setup.
Late Sunday night, after I had exhausted myself from "pounding brass", I was reading more from "Solder Smoke -- The Book", and found one picture that really made my day. Sitting in front of your Tandy and just to your left, was a small blurry object. Reading the caption, I saw that it was YOUR Michigan Mighty Mite! What a fitting way to end a wonderful weekend of hamming.
72/73,
Bert WF7I
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1948828
One of the many benefits of having a kid in elementary school is that you are made aware of important days that otherwise might escape your attention. Like today: International Pi Day. While the mathematical connections might be a bit flaky, I liked the above video.
Slashdot put it this way:
I'm not saying it's as good as Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber or something, but it's a great way to get ready for Pi day which is tragically still not a federal holiday. Write your congressman.
Listeners noticed that recent SolderSmoke podcasts had some other audio playing faintly in the background. At first I though this must have been AM broadcast band breakthrough, so I built a little crystal radio, only to discover that the powerful AM stations here were not playing the ZZ-Top style classic rock that I was hearing in background noise. Bert, WF7I, suggested that I listen carefully to the QRM for a call sign. I tried that this morning. I couldn't get a clear call sign, but I picked up the unmistakable rhythm of Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do?" Fortunately that song is 1) infrequently played and 2) quite long; I had enough time to take a spin around the FM radio dial. Sure enough, I caught the tail end of the Frampton song on WBIG-FM 100.3 A quick check of the web shows that this is a 50,000 watt station that has its transmitter within about 1 kilometer of my house. Bingo.
The mic cord is just about 1/2 wavelength. That would put the high voltage nodes at the ends, right? I notice that the interference drops noticeably if I wind up the cord, and increases a lot if I stretch out the cord.
I can hear some other stations in there also (one country station). It may be that there are multiple FM stations broadcasting from that antenna site. I can see the tower's red lights blinking from my front lawn.
Thank you Peter Frampton!
How many times have I said "never again, no more regens"? I guess I need a twelve step program or something like that. This latest bout of regen fever started with the King's Speech movie. So I blame the Brits. All of them. Then this Belgian guy with the video comes along (see above). Now I find myself drawing out a schematic for the old regen that I picked up years ago at the Kemption Park rally in London. Someone please, STOP ME!
Sounds like the folks at MAKE are looking for someone with THE KNACK. Check it out:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/03/awesome-opportunity-to-work-with-make.html
During those dark days in which I was using my Astatic D-104 mic for podcast purposes (not a popular move) I checked on the mic element inside my chrome lollipop and found it to be the original crystal "Rochelle salt" element. I remember wondering about the Rochelle salt: What the heck was that? Well, this morning, the hippie technologists over at the Make blog explained it all to me via the above embedded video. It turns out that you can MAKE piezoelectric Rochelle salt crystals in your kitchen using -- get this -- soda ash, coffee filters, and -- wait for it: CREAM OF TARTAR sauce! I'm not making this up.
Bert, WF7I, sent us this report from the nuclear reactor building at UVA. You can almost feel the excitment! Congrats Bert! 
Posts
