An MFJ Cub and a Piper Cub

I was very happy to get this e-mail from Jeff, KO7M. Jeff has been using his Cub transceiver with his Piper Cub airplane. Very nice.

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Hi Bill,

Long time no see! A while back I picked up a Kindle and have really enjoyed having an electronic way to tote around my Sprat PDF files and books. I decided to download a copy of Soldersmoke on the Kindle and re-read it and have enjoyed that very much. I am now reading your other book (just started) Contra Cross and look forward to enjoying that one as well.

Not much happening in the melting solder department, but I am working with an old National SW-3 regen receiver that I picked up on eBay. I am building a power supply for it and hope to have it on the air soon. Yeah, I know... I am from the dark side and enjoy regens. :)

We are having a stretch of nice weather out west and I have been flying as much as I can get away with as a result as it only lasts so long, eh? I flew up to the San Juan Islands and took the "Cub" transceiver with me up to Orcas Island camping a few weeks ago and had fun shunt loading a chain link fence. Made a few local contacts on 40 CW.

The cloud formations off the south end of San Juan Island the next morning were really cool! Check out the photos attached.

Hope all is well with you and your family. Take care, my friend.

73's

Jeff Whitlatch - ko7m

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

9 Volt Superhet with Russian Sputnik Tubes

Wow! Now that's what I call a Manhattan breadboard! Joe Sousa has an excellent article on a broadcast band superhet that he built with Russian rod-type tubes, the same kind of tubes that flew in Sputnik.
http://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/sputnik_9v_superheterodyne_tube_radio.html
Lots of other great homebrew projects on this site also. Thanks to Bob, WA1EDJ, for alerting us to this.
Joe's research may be of use to those radio fiends among us who are feverishly building their Sputnik transmitters. October 4 is almost upon us! Onward Fellow Travelers!

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Bud Waite, W2ZK, Antarctic Ham Hero

I really blew it in SS137, and in the original version of yesterday's blog post. I can't believe I actually reported that McMurdo Base was named for McMurdo Silver! This is like some weird self-inflicted payback for all my April 1 hoaxes. Sorry guys. McMurdo base is unfortunately not named for McMurdo Silver.

OM Armand, WA1UQO, came to my rescue! He provides a wonderful story (a TRUE story) about a ham who actually did have some Antarctic terrain features named for him. And deservedly so. Be sure to read the story of W2ZK in the links below.

By the way, we see here two additional examples of strong, distinctive names in the radio world: Armand Hamel and Amory H. Waite. Thanks to Steve "Snort Rosin" Smith for reminding me of another one: Philo T. Farnsworth. (Billy and I have long had plans for a kids novel built around a character named Excelsior G. Whiz --- the G stand for GADZOOKS!)

Hi Bill!
Listened to Soldersmoke #137 Sunday evening and was intrigued by the McMurdo Silver piece. It immediately brought to mind another Ham that was associated with Antarctica and had a Point of land and four islands named in his honor. His name was Amory "Bud" Waite (W2ZK). There was a nice write up about him in the November 2009 QST Vintage Radio Column by K2TQN. There is also a wealth of information about him on the Antarctican Organization website. I have a fond spot for Bud even though I never met him. As a novice in 1975 I responded to an advertisement in QST for a used Heathkit TX-1. My first transmitter! Bud was selling it as a favor for the widow of a SK. Had a really nice conversation with him one evening and he mentioned that he had once been on an expedition with Admiral Byrd! WOW! Little did I realize then that he had been one of the three men that had rescued Byrd from a forward camp. The story is amazing and can be found on these links. The first link is a video of a presentation that he gave to a New Jersey radio club in 1974. It's a little long but well worth the effort. You can see what McMurdo Sound looked like when he revisited it during the IGY (knew you would love that!). Anyway thought you would like to read about someone who really had the Knack. If you are looking for nominees for the Soldersmoke Ham Heros Hall Of Fame, I nominate Bud Waite ( and Doug DeMaw and Wes Hayward and Jean Shepherd). By the way, I still have the Heathkit Apache and hope to get it back on the air. As always keep the solder flowing and smoking and the podcasts comming.

73's

Armand (WA1UQO)

http://www.antarctican.org/antarctican_society/flash/Amory_Waite_presentation_1974.cfm

http://campevans.org/_CE/html/p-31W2zk.html

http://hamgallery.com/Tribute/W2ZK/w2zk.pdf

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McMurdo Silver -- A Man with The Knack

In the latest podcast I talked about McMurdo Silver. I noted that many radio pioneers (and many modern-day radio wizards) have very strong and distinctive names. This guy's name is clearly in that category. Here is a 1929 bio on OM McMurdo:
http://durenberger.com/resources/documents/MCMURDOSILVER0629.pdf

And here is some additional info. From http://hhscott.com/e_h_scott_2.htm:

E.H. Scott had several competitors. The most significant among them was a dashing young genius named McMurdo Silver. Silver was a continuous contributor to technical articles to Radio News magazine (the predecessor of Popular Electronics) throughout the 1930's. He was a polo player, gun collector, and is said to have been quite a bon vivant. Formerly the president of Silver-Marshall, Inc., he set up the McMurdo Silver Corp. and began building custom high-fidelity receivers in competition with Scott.

While good, his receivers were never quite the equal of Scott’s. One of Silver’s most famous owners was Dr. Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube. DeForest owned a Silver Masterpiece V and praised it in the final chapters of his autobiography. Throughout the 1930s, Scott’s and Silver’s advertisements would do battle trying to “one up” the other’s in technical achievement. Features were stolen and lawsuits initiated. Finally, Scott won the battle and bought out the failing Silver in 1940. Scott then introduced a new, bottom-of-the-line receiver and designated it as the Scott Masterpiece. I do not know if the gesture was meant as a tribute to his archenemy or to rub salt in the wounds. Silver eventually committed suicide in 1947.

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Jupiter In the Morning

Jupiter is high in the early morning sky now, and the weather is starting to cool off a bit here. Here is the configuration of the Galilean moons that I saw on September 11. This is from the Sky&Telescope on-line Jovian moon display.

I've even been able to do some "sidewalk astronomy" in the style of guru John Dobson: I have the telescope set up on my driveway, and I offer the pre-dawn dog walkers a look at Jupiter and Galileo's moons. They are always very pleased. It is a nice way to start the day!

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SolderSmoke Podcast #137

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke137.mp3

10 September 2011

Earthquake! Hurricane! Tropical Storm!
The Heathkit HW-7 -- An Undeserved Bad Reputation
Over-the-counter saltpeter
Movie review: Green Hornet, Captain America
How many 2-Bs? (11,571)
Ubuntifying dead laptops
Get the SolderSmoke blog by e-mail
Replacing a diode ring mixer with a diode...
...then trying the NT7S MOSFET detector
Where is boatanchor wizard Walt Hutchins KJ4JV ?
GREAT NAMES IN RADIO: MCMURDO SILVER
Sputnik update
Lew McCoy wrote about one of my projects
MAILBAG (with mail from Farhan and Wes)

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Some Encouraging Graffiti

Spotted on a picnic bench in Falls Church, Virginia. Billy's eighth grade science course is focused on physics, so we took this as a good sign.

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Pale Blue Dot

I'm reading Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot." I found this beautiful video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw

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

Take a look through the Chromoscope!

On this site you start out with a 360 degree image of the Earth's night sky. You move around using the mouse and you can zoom in and out. (I've zoomed in a bit on Orion in the image above.) Then the fun begins: You can look at the sky in different frequency ranges -- from radio to gamma ray. Very nice: http://www.chromoscope.net/

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Climbing a REALLY Tall Tower

This is the kind of thing that causes me to stick with sling shots and wire antennas. The comments added to the YouTube video were kind of funny -- most were in the vein of "Dude, not for a billion dollars!"

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

Carl Sagan on Ham Radio and Extraterrestrial Communication

"Stars" by M.C. Escher

I read this on the train this morning and immediately wanted to share it with my fellow radio amateurs:

"And what if we receive a message? Is there any reason to think that the transmitting beings -- evolved over billions of years of geological time in an environment vastly different from our own -- would be sufficiently similar to us for the message to be understood? I think the answer must be yes. A civilization transmitting radio messages must at least know about radio. The frequency, time constant, and bandpass of the message are common to transmitting and receiving civilizations. The situation may be a little like that of amateur or ham radio operators. Except for occasional emergencies, their conversations seem almost exclusively concerned with the mechanics of their instruments: it is the one aspect of their lives they are certain to have in common."

From "The Dragons of Eden" by Carl Sagan.

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The Oldest 2-B? (I say it's a 10!)

Harv: Wow, that's a beautiful 2-B OM. I give it a 10. If you compare it to mine, it's a 20! I checked our collection point for 2-B serial numbers and see that we have a couple that may be rivals in the title "Senior 2-B." Thanks for pointing out that they started at #2000.

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Hi Bill,

What makes a radio a 10 out of 10?

Good question. A real 10 to me means the radio is flawless, clean, not repainted and the best example possible based upon age and general appearance.

Here is one of my Drake 2B Communication Receivers with the matching Speaker/Q Multiplier.

This one has the S/N 2532 which, places the production of this radio close to early Spring 1961. The radio is not flawless. It has very minor metal edge dings in the paint.

I have the original Owners Manual and lots of special notes. At best my pictured radio above is a 9.5.

In my collection is also; S/N 4226 which was built near the end of 1961. I rate S/N 4226 as a 9.8 radio.

I’m impressed with the AVG recovery, general receiver sensitivity and the combination selectivity afforded by the Q-Multiplier.

I believe the Drake web site is spot on with the dating of the production runs for Drake equipment.

From talking to other Hams, it looks like the 2B started with S/N 2000 on their first full run of production in early April 1961.

It would be interesting to see if others find radios with a serial number less than mine still out there pulling duty.

I’m sure some pilot radios are out there in private collections. Let me know if someone finds an earlier serial number.

Keep up the great work Bill!!!

ENJOY

HARV -=WA3EIB=-

Albuquerque, NM.

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