SolderSmoke 98

http://www.soldersmoke.com

January 4, 2009
New Year's in Rome, Fireworks, Abruzzo snow trip.
AA1TJ and the compact fluorescent bulb rig; "Michael the red-nosed Rainey, you'll go down in history!"
Billy's Asus eeePC : Amazin' piece of gear.
The Lure of Logic: Fixing my old Global Specialties counter (chip needed).
The Joy of Troubleshooting.
N3ZI's FB counter.
Balsa boxes.
Todd, VE7BPO, also getting logical.
Hans, G0UPL, back on 30 meter QRSS from London.
Lawrence, KL1X grabbing VK QRSS sigs in N. China.
My sigs steady in ON5EX grabber.
Dan's deals.
Book of the week: "Empire of the Air." Armstrong as a teenage ham.
MAILBAG:
Todd K5TAK on new name for Knack (no!)
Rick KC0PET has new 'scope, analyzer, Elsie
Bill N8ET Kanga USA getting going again.
Alan WA9IRS on Pete Millet's free online tech books
Wayne VA7AT on SDR
Frank VK2AKG is NOT the solenoid musician
Bill N3HQB was in Ade Weiss's summer camp ham class!
Roger K7RXV on shaving resistors
Dino KL0S on other free books on-line
Gareth G1DRG on BBC Digital Planet Podcast
Tim Walford's FB ham construction magazine
A word about words from our sponsors

Homebrew Receiver from KC9KEP

Nice workmanship on this RX!

My 75 Meter "Kickpanel" DSB Rig

I've been talking about it so long, I thought I should let you guys have a look at it. The box on the top is N3ZI's FB freq counter. It sits on the top cover of the TX -- the cover is made from the side panel of a dead computer that I found on a street in London. The metal cabinet is a "kickpanel" -- the kind of thing they often put on the bottoms of frequently used doors. Mine was purchased at Farmer Brother's Hardware on Fulham Road, London. One switch is for T/R. The other is for spotting (netting). I put the LED in there so I wouldn't forget to turn it off (and because Billy likes LEDs!) Circuit diagrams and LTSpice models appear in previous blog posts.

Moving inside, we see that the "chassis" is actually a kitchen cutting board, this one from a Dyas store in Windsor, England. In the lower left there's a board with the AF (mic) amp. Center front is the VFO box (elevated above the main chassis by wooden blocks in order to put the tuning cap in a comfortable position). The balanced modulator is on the left. The long rectangular board in the center-right is the 4 stage amplifier. Note the black wire suspended above the connectors -- that's an antenna for the oscillator -- it allows me to hear the oscillator signal with my Drake 2-B while in "spotting" mode (while putting the TX and the RX on the same freq.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ROME!

Free Electronic Books Online!!!

Alan WA9IRS alerted me to this technical treasure trove. Pete Millett is an engineer who, in his spare time, scans and uploads books about electronics that are no longer under copyright. Great stuff! Thanks Alan! Thanks Pete!
http://www.pmillett.com/technical_books_online.htm

WebSDR Receiver Goes to Six Bands

Those intrepid digital hams at the University of Twente have temporarily put their WebSDR receiver on six bands (we should lobby to make the expanded freq coverage permanent). It is really great. I love the waterfall display. Audio quality here is excellent. (I'm listening to 75 meter SSB now.) Check it out:
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

You should also check out PA3FWM's SDR page: http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/
Very interesting. I thought picture above should be entitled "The Ultimate Dead Bug."

I have successfully completed troubleshooting my old (1983) frequency counter (found some bad CMOS gates), and I just finished assembling Doug N3ZI's very FB freq counter semi-kit (thanks Jerry!)... Now I'm listening to the Web SDR receiver... The SoftRock40 kit seems to be calling me.... I feel myself being pulled into the digital vortex! Quick, someone throw me an analog life saver!

Skn Flick Trailer

Steve, N0TU, has a really good one minute video that will (I think) be the lead-in for a longer flick on Straight Key Night. Inspirational stuff. Makes you want to warm up filaments and pound some brass. Thanks Steve!

The Beacon on the Echo Satellite

W8KHK gave a very nice Christmas present to the AMfone group. Check out the pictures (and descriptions) of the beacon transmitters that went into space on the ECHO satellite in 1960. Echo was the big inflated silver ball -- it was nicknamed "the satelloon." I was struck by how much the exterior of this rig looks like the solar-powered QRSS rig of Paolo, IZ1KXQ.

FROM W8KHK's POST: Here are a few more pictures of the ECHO beacon transmitter. These are identical to the actual flight hardware, used for testing and measurements. They now reside at the W2DU Florida QTH, and while the batteries have long since expired, if the solar cells are illuminated by a 100 watt bulb, or the actual sun, you can receive the transmitted beacon signal at 108 MHz. Low Tech by today's standards, but in those days it was hard to find transistors that would work above audio frequencies. Photo 21 shows a complete beacon system. To the bottom left is another transmitter, before potting. To the bottom right is another transmitter, potted and ready to be incorporated in the styrofoam "dish" assembly. Photo 22 is a close-up of the two transmitters from photo 21. Photo 23 shows an entire dish assembly, prior to potting in styrofoam. This space project, and many other early space projects from the Astro Electronics Products division of RCA will be chronicled in the soon-to-be-published Reflections III by W2DU.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ROME!

SolderSmoke 97

http://www.soldersmoke.com

December 21, 2008
Tiber flooding, Italian @ (snail!)
--------------
DSB 80 "Kickpanel" project:
Rig reform
Harder than SSB?
Do we need to match diodes?
Terminating balanced modulators
An antenna for my "spot" ("net") circuit, LED
Thinking of speech processing
Driver hotter than final
---------------
MEPT QRSS:
VK2ZAY crosses Oz on 470 micro-watts
Using 9H1LO's grabber engine as time machine
My beacon box: 10 and 30 in same enclosure
Knights QSY to lower bands (temporarily)
---------------
Theory:
Thanks for beta independence help
Why does feedback lower distortion?
W3JDR's Ne602 modeling
Grinding resistors for precision
Broken counter leads to learning logic
--------------
Miscellaneous:
Wes updates site
Kanga USA is back
There is no SPRAT 13
AA1TJ's lightbulb rig
---------------
MAILBAG:
Lyndon smells the smoke
Roger KA7EXM goes to Aikhabara
Mark KI7N hits Singapore's radio row
Bob KD4EBM's feedback on feedback
Mike KC7IT fixes Christmas lights with 'scope
Frank VK2AKG on YouTube solenoid concert
Mike AA1TJ working on return loss bridges
John K7JM says SS blog makes DXCC
Jerry NR5A on Solder-SETI, b'day
Ron WB3AAL 1K QSOs from AT
Alan N8WQ: Tree battery!
Jeremy N1JER and QRP-L QRSS group build

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!  

Homebrew Antikythera Mechanism

AA1TJ's Lightbulb Transmitter!!!!

This is a really excellent example of ham ingenuity. Michael, AA1TJ, has built an 80 meter CW transmitter from the components in one of the compact florescent light bulbs.

http://mjrainey.googlepages.com/dasderelicht

Free Logic Simulator

My frequency counter is broken, and this is providing an incentive for me to learn about logic, JK Flip Flops and all that. Hack-A-Day alerted me to what looks like a very useful simulator program (free download).

http://sol.gfxile.net/atanua/index.html

MAKE Resistor Video

MAKE made even the humble resistor interesting. Thanks again Make!


MAKE presents: The Resistor from make magazine on Vimeo.