SolderSmokeStatus

I've been getting some increasingly desperate messages about SolderSmoke withdrawal symptoms so I thought I'd better send out a status report. Also, one listener wrote in addressing me as "The Grand Poobah of the SolderSmoke Brotherhood." Wow, with a title like that, I better get going with the podcasts!

Most of the stuff is in the shack. The workbench is assembled. I'm trying to set up for both 220 and 110 (lots of Euro gear accumulated over the last ten years!) Surprisingly, Home Depot doesn't sell 110 to 220 transformers. And I live in an area where LOTS of people move back and forth across the pond. I may have to press my old autotransformer into service.

Most of my really old gear -- the stuff that went into storage over the last decade -- should show up in a week or so. This means my HT-37, DX-40, DX-60, Lafayette HA-600 etc. will be reappearing on the scene.

I hope to get some beacons (uh, I mean MEPTs!) on the air soon.

Unfortunately my ancient computer gave up the ghost during the trip. Hard drive is making scary noises. This will slow down the podcast as I have trouble putting it together with Linux only (which is what I'm operating with now -- thanks Jorge! Without your help I'd be completely off the net) Anyone have any version of Windows I could legally use?

But the Drake 2-B is doing fine. I'm listening to 75 SSB as I type.

Hang in there loyal listeners. Perhaps some of that nicotine gum would help. Or, better, some REAL solder smoke.

73 from the GP

Bill

Climbing a REALLY tall tower

No thanks, I think I'll stick to tree-supported dipoles.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/81100181/

Thanks to Brent, KD0GLS for sending along this really scary video.

Getting Settled -- Slowly. Yogi Berra on Theory and Practice

I've been getting some "Are you alive?" inquiries from SolderSmoke fans. I'm happy to report that, yes, I am still around, and doing fairly well. This move back to the states has been a bit more difficult and complicated than previous transfers, but slowly the shack is starting to come
together. Moat important: The Drake 2-B survived the journey!

It may take me a few weeks to start emitting whistling S sounds and Gong noises ("Wow, that's awesome!') but hang in there, new SolderSmoke episodes are on the way.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share with you a Yogi Berra quote sent to me by Brent, KD0GLS. I think this is especially appropriate because my grandfather actually played for the New York Yankees:

"As I make my way through the back episodes of SolderSmoke at a stately pace and hear you speak of Bletchley Park, I'm also reading "Secrets & Lies" by Bruce Schneier, renowned cryptographer and internet security expert. In his book, I read this timeless quote that immediately made me think of our hobby:

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
Yogi Berra"

Thanks Brent! Thanks Yogi!

A confession

Well, I didn't actually do it, but I thought about it. As the date of our departure from Italy approached, I was -- as readers and listeners will remember -- getting deeper and deeper into minimalist QRSS beacons. During the final weeks I was running my 15 mW Hans Summers-inspired varactor-modulated FSK transmitter from our country location up in the Sabine Hills. I had it running off one of my Volkswagen solar panels. I knew that the owner of the olive grove wouldn't mind if I left my nearly-invisible doublet antenna in the trees... You guys see where I was going with this. I came close to leaving that thing on the air. Sometimes I kind of wish I had. It would have been fun. But the QRSS beacons already seemed to be pushing the regulatory envelope a bit, so the solar panel and the beacon board went into the shipping container. I hope they will soon be radiating from Northern Virginia...

All OK here. We are getting settled. Our stuff should be arriving in the USA next week. We may have a new podcast out by early September.

We are still in a temporary apartment. This week Billy and I visited the local hardware store and got some very thin magnet wire. I have about 50 feet of it going from the balcony to a tree. As I type I'm listening to SSB net activity on 40 meters with my little Sony portable receiver. Man, that recent Coronal Mass Ejection really seems to have messed up propagation. But hopefully it is an indication that Ole' Sol is coming back to life.

From Italy to Virginia: Move update

We're still in a temporary apartment, waiting to move into our new place. The new QTH has some good tall trees suitable for wire antenna support. I have my eye on a room for the shack.

Not much radio activity this summer. I do have my Sony shortwave receiver with me -- I've been listening to 75 meter AM. My Heathkit VF-1/DX60 combo will be coming out of storage, so I may soon be joining in.

My kids got I-phones and are having a lot of fun with them. As we drive along they are in multimedia contact with friends back in Italy (and elsewhere), texting, e-mailing, Facebooking, video-texting, etc. The I-phone 4 is an amazing piece of gear.

Summer reading: I kind of got bogged down in "Is God a Mathematician?" by Mario Livio. Good book, but as he gets deeper into it you really need to focus -- I'll get back to that when things settle down. I'm currently reading "Why does E=MC^2"by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. I was attracted to the book because it promises to discuss the role of special relativity in things like toroidal tranformers. (There is a section called "Einstein in the Transformer in SolderSmoke -- The Book.") I like the authors' approach to math: they actually explain where the formula for gamma in special relativity comes from.

"Wired" looks at Radio Shack

Art, KG6ZWD, sent this link to me. Looks like Wired magazine has an interesting article about Radio Shack.

http://blakegonzales.com/2010/06/30/growing-up-with-radioshack/

I always liked these stores. They were never perfectly aligned with our needs, and they seem to be drifting even further away, but over the years I picked up lots of good gear and needed parts at these stores. Ideas too! I have those "Mini Notebooks" by Forrest Mims. Great stuff!

Modular Magic from AK2B

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrDYEbRGEds

This video really made me yearn for my shack and soldering iron (all my gear is still on the high seas). OM AK2B is doing amazing modular things in an apartment in NYC. Richard Fenynman would be proud! I was pleased to see the circuits and kits of so many FB radio amateurs (including KD1JV, W7ZOI, and KA7EXM) in this rig. Thanks to Jonathan-san, KC7FYS, for sending this video to me.

Save 20% on SolderSmoke -- The Book

Lulu just announced a big summer sale, good through August 1. This is a good chance to get "SolderSmoke -- The Book" in time for that late-summer beach trip. Just use the coupon code SANTA when checking out. (U.S. buyers may find it more advantageous to use the summer-long free shipping offer.)

Find the book here:

http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm

Back in Northern Virginia, SUMMER SALES

It seems like I have personally moved back several chapters in "SolderSmoke -- The Book." After being away for 10 years, we are back in the same part of Northern Virginia that we lived in before. The SS Shack is still out at sea -- it is due in sometime next month. We should be settled by early September.

The "free shipping"offer for the SolderSmoke book is still in effect. That is for shipment in the U.S. only, but buyers elsewhere can take advantage of a special 15% off option by using coupon code BEACHREAD305 on the U.S. version of the book.

I hope everyone in the Northern Hemisphere is having a good summer, and that our "down under" listeners are having an easy winter.

73 Bill

The Future of SolderSmoke

We're now in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, visiting my wife's family.

I've had some time to think about the future of the podcast. There will have to be a summer pause -- my shack is now in a bunch of boxes, out in the Atlantic ocean somewhere (hopefully above the surface!).

I want to use the move to improve the podcast and the associated blog and websites. Here are some initial ideas:

-- Reaching out to a broader community of Knack victims. It would be good thing could use the podcast to pull in guys who are solder melters, but who are not (yet) hardcore QRP homebrewers.

-- Better audio. I need a real microphone. Maybe a simple equalizer. I need to REALLY get rid of the SSSSSS problem.

-- Easier-to-use software. I'm still using the collection of software that Mike, KL7R, and I threw together five years ago. It all starts with Audacity (which works very well). But then for updating the website I'm using an OLD version of Mozilla composer. Updating the .rss feed is even more rickety -- I manually go in and change the text using Microsoft's notepad. There has to be an easier way of doing all this.

-- Self-hosted blog. I'm currently using Google's Blogspot to host the blog. But I see some advantages in moving to a self-hosted blog. I'd like to have a better comment/dialog feature, something more like the discussion board on the "AM Window" and other similar blogs.

-- More video. Don't worry. I'll stick with the audio podcast. But video is fun and useful, so I want to try to do more videos.

-- More guests on the show. I often say this, but in practice doing this makes it a lot harder to do a podcast. But maybe this will get easier now that I'm in the East Coast time zone.

Let me know what you think. 73 from Santo Domingo

Miami SolderSmoke

The family and I are now in Miami. We departed Rome on Thursday, made a quick visit to San Diego (to see my brother and his family) and are now in beautiful Miami, right on Biscayne Bay. We'll be here for a few days. No radio activity to speak of -- the move kept me quite busy. But I picked up a good book at the airport -- "Is God A Mathematician?" by Mario Livio. It provides a lot of useful info on some of the math-in-electronics issues that we talk about on the podcast and in SolderSmoke -- The Book.

It was hard to leave Rome, but we are happy to be back in the USA on the the 4th of July. We'll watch the fireworks tonight.

Homebrew Fusion Reactor in New York City

Not really a QRP project (the goal of course is definitely QRO) but Knack victims will find this article and the associated video interesting. We've covered homebrew fusion before. This fellow is the 38th successful "amateur fusor" in the world. Go Brooklyn!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10385853.stm