A Rare Tour of the HP Garage

Kim, VK5FJ, sent this to us. Amazing pictures. Inspiring! Look at that work bench. Note the ARRL antenna book.

http://dvice.com/archives/2012/03/rare-tour-of-th.php#25


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

SolderSmoke Podcast #142

March 19, 2012

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke142.mp3

SWR meter as a poor man's spectrum analyzer
QRP Quarterly: Pete Juliano's SSB Rig, Idea Exchange, Mike's articles
Great contacts on 17 SSB
Squeezing the birdies out of 17 meter rig. Again.
STOP MURPHY'S WHISKERS! A PLEA FOR BELDEN 1671A!
My new 'scope
Zen and the Art of Telescope Maintenance
SETI Live: Search the waterfall for ET's sigs
Ade Weiss's wonderful new book
Chinese Knack?
Soul in the Machine: Billy's earliest toroids
Re-cycling my 20 meter CW rig (from cycle 22)
Winterfest report
Relay repairs and back EMF dangers
MAILBAG

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

The Allen Telescope Array

I'm really getting into the SETI Live project. Whenever I get a chance I go to the SETI Live page, log on, and classify a few signals. Today I was looking at the tech aspects of the antenna array. Very interesting, and very appealing to homebrewers. They are making use of dishes that were made for TV reception. And they are using software-defined receiver systems. All of this makes upgrades relatively easy.

Jill Tartar of "Contact" fame is running this project.

Check it out: http://www.seti.org/ata

So, I'll be I'll be using a big array to listen (watch really) for the REAL DX on .5 to 11.2 Gigahertz. I'll let you guys know if I hear any "new ones"!

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

UK Balloon Launch and a North Sea Splashdown

I like balloon projects.
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

SETI Live!

Wow, this is really very interesting. The Allen Telescope Array (seen above) is back in operation and they are looking for on-line volunteers to analyze the signals that are streaming in. But unlike the now-familiar SETI-AT-HOME screensaver system, in SETI Live, they want you to personally evaluate signals -- very recent signals -- from the Allen Array. You'll be looking at waterfall displays similar to what we see with SDR rigs. They want you to mark and classify the signals and then upload your work. They are trying to screen out terrestrial sigs, man-made satellites, etc.

This is just the thing for those days when the solar flux is low and 17 meters is dead!

Check it out: http://setilive.org/

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

Planets Galore!

Good times for astronomy in Northern Virginia. The temperature is freakishly high, and daylight savings time has pushed the darkness into my early-morning shack time. My telescope troubles are sorted out, and I just discovered that with my current contact lens prescription, my right eye is much better for telescope work than the left. (Who knew!) I found an excellent and inspirational book on astronomy: "The Four Percent Universe." And this morning, while fooling around with my Stellarium program, I noticed that Saturn is high in the South-West before dawn. Coffee cup in hand I went out and was rewarded with a spectacular view of the ringed planet. I could even see one of the divisions between the rings. Titan was also visible. Last night Maria and I were looking at Mars. I can make out the ice cap and (vaguely) some the big valley features. No canals.

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

Happy Pi - Einstein Day!

The card is for a special event sponsored by the Lake Effect Amateur Radio Club:
http://www.lakeeffectarc.info/Event-PiEinsteinDay/PiDay.htm

I've been reading "Math and the Mona Lisa" so lately I've been more into Phi than Pi. When will we have Phi Day? January 6th?

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

Twisted Waves Across the Venice Lagoon

I don't really understand the physics behind this, but it seems to be important. And the video is a lot of fun. There is much Italian brio and bella figura in this. They even got Princess Elettra Marconi involved. And the video features audio from Marconi himself.
Hypertuning! Radio Vorticity! Helicoidal Parabolic Antennas! Gondolas! Segnale Ricevuto! Bravi!

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/48869

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

Mars in Opposition

Jupiter and Venus are getting all the media attention because they happen to appear close in the sky, but Mars is the real object to see this month. It is in opposition (see diagram). This happens every two years. Last time we were out in the Sabine Hills north of Rome (sniff, sniff).

I cleaned the 6 inch mirror on my Dobsonian telescope a while back, and when I put the whole thing back together, something wasn't quite right. I was getting dim and blurry views. So yesterday I went into telescope maintenance mode and, as the Brits would say, got it all sorted.

I was out looking at Mars last night. The view is not nearly as spectacular as the image above, but it is very nice. But I can't see much of the northern polar cap -- it is, after all, summer time in the Martian Northern Hemisphere.


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

Ralph Baer, Electronic Wizard

Here is a another nice video, this one about Ralph Baer, one of the pioneers of video games. At age 90 Ralph is still creating things at his workbench.

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

Amazing R/C Airplane Video From Germany

Wow, this is real techno-art. Take seven minutes, put it on full screen, crank up the audio and sit back to enjoy a unique aerial view of a beautiful part of Germany. Thanks to Bill, N5AB, for alerting us to this.

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

JBOT Thoughts

Posted today to the BITX-20 Group:

Good to see so many JBOTs under construction. I recently built two of them. Farhan has asked me to share with the group my experiences using -43 core toroids. Ironically, TV cores are a bit harder to find here, so I had to go with the fancier toroids!

In my first amp (used in a 17 meter DSB rig) I used the smaller FT-37-43 cores in all three transformers. T1 and T2 were wound and placed in the same way that Farhan did with the TV cores. For T3 I used superglue to stack 4 of the cores 2x2, then wrapped them with a bit of electrical tape. I wound T3 so the input wires were on one side and the output on the other. (On this amp, I had started out using some large binocular cores from the junk box, but I had a tough time getting the amp stable with these cores, possibly because using them resulted in longer lead lengths. So I went back to the smaller FT-37-43 cores).

In the second amp (used in a 17 meter SINGLE Sideband rig) I used FT-50-43 cores for T1 and T2. The bigger gores were a little easier to work with. I glued them vertically to the copper clad board. For T3, I again went with 4 FT-37-43 cores. (I tried using 4 FT-50-43 cores for T-3, but I found that output was low, so I went back to the smaller cores for T3). Note that on the second amp, I put some insulation between the heatsinks and the copper clad board (gorilla tape) -- I was worried about possible short to ground if the anodized layer on the heatsinks got breached.

In building my amps, I used the photo on Farhan's Phonestack page as my guide.

As is always the case with amps that I build, I found that a certain amount of "taming of the beast" had to take place before I got the devices stable. This is certainly the result of the kind of homebrew devices into which they are being inserted! Following advice from Doug DeMaw, I made liberal use of ferrite beads. I put one on the lead carrying 12 volts to the amp board. I put another on the lead from the 12 volt line to the final's RF choke. And I put one on the line carrying the .6 volt bias to the secondary center tap of T2.

I put a bit of shielding (copper-clad board) between the low pass filter and T3.

These steps allowed these amps to work nicely with my contraptions.

As long as we are talking about JBOTS, I have a question for the group:

On my second amp, I noticed that the output was a bit lower than it should have been -- only about 1.5 watts. I did a lot of troubleshooting, then I finally checked the bias currents in the first two stages. I found that BOTH were running at about 50 ma.

I looked at Farhan's JBOT notes and found that the second stage is supposed to be running at 100 ma. I found that the base bias voltage on the second stage was 1.13 volts, while the first stage had 1.9 volts on the base. That didn't seem right.

I then turned to the bias.exe program that comes with EMRFD. I plugged in the values from the JBOT schematic and, sure enough, the predicted collector bias current was 50 ma, not the 100ma the design was looking for.

Using that program, I made some changes to the base resistor in the second stage. I found that with 150 ohms instead of 100 ohms, the collector bias current goes up to the desired 100 ohms. This also seemed to bring power output up to the desired range of 3-4 watts (output should be a bit lower at 18 MHz, right?)

More info (and pictures) on my JBOT adventures can be found here:
http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search/label/JBOT

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR JBOTS!

73 Bill N2CQR
http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com

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