W5USJ's AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL Mighty Mite

More beauty and technical details at his site: 

http://www.w5usj.com/mmmassytest.html

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Goats, a Paraset, and a QSO with a Mighty Mite! (Video)

This is a really wonderful video, made even more wonderful near the end by the appearance of a Michigan Mighty Mite!  Thanks Steve!  Thanks Nick!  

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Nick's BITX

Good Evening Gentlemen,

Pleased to report that, inspired by Pete’s help before Christmas, and innumerable comments by Bill over the last few months, I have a working BitX receiver strip – first light about 30 minutes ago on a short length of random wire but still heard a couple of Italian stations.

Followed Pete’s example and built each stage as a module, I used MePads, having noodled the layout, which is far from optimum, but did mean that I could tinker and, more to the point, test each section before I connected it together, so that starting from the amplifiers (Pete’s design), I was able to test the mixer after a bit of thought and then slowly work my way back through the filter, via the amplifier blocks, DBM, and back to the BP filter … Came together surprisingly quickly working as you suggested Pete, and nice manageable chunks too. I think about 2 hours for each module to noodle the layout, test it and document what I’d done.

Still lots to do, using a semi commercial BP for now as I need some bits that I’ve ordered to build a homebrew BP filter, the crystal filter isn’t optimised and just uses Fahran's suggested values, nothing is properly tweaked so far, but, it does work – thanks guys !!

I’ll follows Fahran's suggestion and tinker with it on rx for now, might build a VFO so it’s ALL discrete devices. Currently all 2n3904s except for the 2n3906 in the audio stage, and of course the Chinese DDS with an Arduino so I have followed the path that Bill set out a while back – it’s a little deaf against my FRG7 so far but tweaking the filter to match the impedances a little better will probably help, and the filter has a lot of ripple.

Next stage will be to build a microphone amp and test it on the Tx side, then tackle a small linear amplifier for it, I’ll stick to around 5 watts for now, and inevitably, I can see it being tinkered with in the course of time.

VERY pleased – thank you both for your help and inspiration

73s

Nick, G8INE

Hi Nick,

 

Congratulations – very nice looking and the other bonus of building it large the 1st time through is when you build the 2nd one –you 1) know the circuit works and 2) you can optimize the layout. I frequently said that I often build two of the same, learning from the 1st and applying to the second. See below. Version 1 was a larger board in comparison to the whole radio in version 2.

 

Bravo – in short order you should be making lots of QSO’s

 

Pete N6QW

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25% off On SolderSmoke Book (and on "Us and Them") through Jan 8

You can find all the books on this Lulu site: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/soldersmoke
Just plug in the code FLASHY15 when checking out. 

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

Who is this earnest young radio amateur?

Name that ham!  Here are his comments:

This is vintage early 1960’s and my call sign at that time was K3???.   One of my favorite rigs was the Johnson Adventurer which I built and had a 6AG7 driving an 807 –50 watts input. On the top shelf near the lamp is the screen grid modulator for the Adventurer. I was in tall clover.

 

On the bottom opening is a 40M CW transceiver I built – it had a 6CX8 MOPA—about 5 watts. The RX was a two tube regen.

 

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A Thatched Roof, Some Palm Trees, A Dipole, and a Homebrew Rig

 

Look at the drawing above.  That is the banner logo of Rod Newkirk's column in QST magazine.  For many years Rod regaled us with exciting reports on the activities of intrepid foreign radio amateurs, transmitting from exotic locations using ingeniously devised homebrew radio equipment.  Look at the picture on the left side.  See the palm trees?  See the thatched roof shack with the dipole antenna?  Well, that's pretty close to what it was like for me out on the Samana Peninsula in the Dominican Republic last month. 

I set up the station under the thatched roof in this picture:

The red pins mark the spot:

Here I am, tuning the rig while looking across Bahia Rincon: 

The rig was my Azores-built, oft-modified, NE602-based, ceramic resonator DSB transceiver with a recently added India-designed BITX IRF510 RF amplifier chain.  A little article I wrote about the ceramic resonator VXO was featured in SPRAT 127.  My antenna was a half wave dipole strung up in the thatched roof. Power came from 10 AA Batteries.  So this was the Double A, Double Sideband, Dipole DX-pedition.   

I had given some thought to building an SSB rig for this trip, but because of the efforts of Peter Parker, VK3YE, I felt compelled to take a DOUBLE Sideband rig with me to the beach. 

Here is an old (2006) video on the rig.  The power amplifier has been significantly modified: 




Here is some more information on the rig, including a schematic for the receiver and the SPRAT article on the Variable Ceramic Oscillator:

http://www.gadgeteer.us/PORTABLE.html
 
Here is the log book for my contacts.   

17 DECEMBER 2014

W1JPR PAUL MT. DESERT ISLAND MAINE

8P6AE (BARBADOS) COULD BARELY HEAR ME, BUT GOOD QSO

18 DECEMBER 2014

N4USA DAVE IN FLOYD, VA. FAIRS NET. (KK4WW.COM)

KE4UGF DON ALSO FAIRS, NICE GUYS. FUN CONTACTS!

KA4ROG ROGER NORTH OF ORLANDO

19 DECEMBER 2014

WB2HPV GUIDO TALKING TO ITALIANS EVERY MORNING FROM WAYNE NJ.  HE HAD TROUBLE HEARING ME.   

CONDITIONS SEEMED POOR, BUT I WAS HEARING AUSTRALIAN STATIONS

W8GEO GEORGE IN THE INTERCON NET.  HEARD ME.  ALSO ON INTERCON: KA4AOQ AND 6Y5MP (JAMAICA) ALSO HEARD ME.

N4PD PAUL

W3JXY/4 NAT IN KEY WEST

N1FM TOM, NORTH OF MIAMI SOLID QSO.

KM4MA PAUL IN ORLANDO WITH MARITIME MOBILE NET.

20 DECEMBER 2014

NA2LF LLOYD IN NY

WB8YWR JIM IN DALLAS 

KM4MA.

W1AW/3 IN MARYLAND (TOOK ME A WHILE TO GET HIM)

21 DECEMBER 2014   NICE 4 WAY SPANISH LANGUAGE QSO:

KI4PZE MIGUEL

CO8OT JUAN IN SANTIAGO DE CUBA

WA4RME RAFA IN CHARLESTON S.C.

C08KB MARCO IN CUBA

Here is a short video showing the station and the location.  Note the little birds (Golondrinas or Swallows) flying by.  They nest in the thatched roof.   They often got confused and flew inside the house.  Billy and Maria rescued many of them.  Whales breed in this bay in January and February.  There are also  manatees.  It is really a beautiful place. 

There were obviously other attractions (!) so I didn't spend a lot of time on the radio -- just a half hour or so every now and then.  But it was really very satisfying to carry this little homebrew device with me, set it up in this amazing place, and use it to send my voice across mountains and hundreds of miles of ocean.   I built this rig in the Azores and have used it in the UK, France, Italy and the Dominican Republic.  It contains circuits devised by members of the British QRP club and by my friend Farhan in India.  The ceramic resonator circuit is something I cooked up on my own.  The microphone is from my old Sony Walkman and the pen that serves as its support is from that wonderful magazine "Electric Radio."  In short, there is a lot of soul in this little machine.  And it was a lot of fun to take it to the beach.  

Thanks to Elisa for finding us this wonderful place.  And to Rod Newkirk and QST for the DX inspiration. 


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N2HTT's MMM Makes Contacts (the little rubber feet are important)

Hi Bill and Pete,

Some further adventures of the Michigan Mighty Mite - I have added several amenities since first oscillation:

- a low pass filter on the output

- bnc connections for antenna and a rcvr, and a tx/rx switch

- coaxial connector for power

- stereo jack for the key

- LED tx power indicator, and

- little rubber feet

Of all of these, I cannot sufficiently emphasize the importance of little rubber feet. A project just cannot be considered complete without them.

More pictures and details of the low pass filter are on my blog at http://n2htt.net

I've been heard on RBN on 40m several times, but haven't gotten any replies to calling CQ. This weekend was the December SKCC Sprintathon, and I pretty conclusively proved that if there are any other signals on the band the MMM is not likely to be heard.

After the contest ended, I posted on the SKCC sked page, and two stations, KC9W and KT4TN agreed to listen for me. We made successful contacts on 7059 kHz. Both stations are in Tennessee, and coincidentally both ops are named Randy.

As Bruce KK0S observed in his report, the rig seems to operate about 1 kHz above the nominal crystal frequency, as confirmed by both Randys.

I've had a lot of fun with this little rig, it's a keeper.

Keep up the great work with the podcasts, and Happy Holidays

73

Mike N2HTT

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Larry's Mighty Mite

Larry's rig looks like it is almost ready to go for Straight Key Night!   FB.   I was glad to heat that the crystal survived the rough treatment dished out by the US Postal Service these days.  Apparently all envelopes are sent through a steam roller!  Who knew?

Hi Bill and Pete,

As usual life has intervened in my plans, but after a delay for professional and personal reasons I can now report success in yet another additional the the CLA.  I was able to successfully transmit into a dummy load yesterday with my new transmitter.  It is not the prettiest device I have ever built but it is functional.  I tried the home made mepad construction and it works fairly well.  I did discover a few things while building and testing this unit.  First, I need a new soldering iron with a little better temperature control.  Second, before using this transmitter on the air (currently on a dummy load), it needs a low pass filter.  I can see several harmonics imposed on the generated signal.

The first picture show how everything is mounted to piece of scrap wood for stability.  I even screwed down the old key for stability during testing.  The alligator clips are for the dummy load connection (the dummy load is also home built from 20, 1K ohm resistors which is located just on the right edge of the picture).  

Even without an antenna I was able to receive the transmitted signal on my IC-7200 in the shack.  

The signal on the scope is messy but the tome received on the IC-7200 sounds good.

Next steps are the additional of a Low Pass Filter and better matching to the dummy load (currently I'm only at about 49 Ohms).

Thanks again for the encouragement.  I plan to do a little more tweaking on this unit and will keep you updated on any progress.

Have a great holiday and a Happy New Year,

73

Larry

AE7TM

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Mac's Mighty Mite

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

Sputnik 40 Launched from MIR in 1997

Bill,
I'm new to SolderSmoke, and have made it up to episode 135. around episode 130  you entered a "space" phase that I enjoyed. With Sputnik being mentioned, I thought I would send you a recording of Sputnik 40 that I made on November 23, 1997. I used a home made turnstile antenna and an HT.

73,
Jeff Tucker
W9TLT

Listen to Jeff's recording here: 

http://soldersmoke.com/sputnik97.wav

Sputnik 40, also known as Sputnik Jr, and Radio Sputnik 17 (RS-17), was a Franco-Russian amateur radio satellite which was launched in 1997 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. A 4-kilogram (8.8 lb) one-third scale model of Sputnik 1, Sputnik 40 was deployed from the Mir space station on 3 November 1997. Built by students, the spacecraft was constructed at the Polytechnic Laboratory of Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria, whilst its transmitter was assembled by Jules Reydellet College in Réunion with technical support from AMSAT-France.

Sputnik 40 was launched, along with a backup spacecraft and the X-Mir inspection satellite, aboard Progress M-36 at 15:08 UTC on 5 October 1997. A Soyuz-U carrier rocket placed the spacecraft into orbit, flying from 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan: the same launch pad used by Sputnik 1. Progress M-36 docked to Mir on 8 October, and the satellites were transferred to the space station. At 04:05 UTC on 3 November, during an extra-vehicular activity, Sputnik 40 was deployed by cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Pavel Vinogradov.

On 4 November, the day after it was deployed, Sputnik 40 was in a low Earth orbit with a perigee of 376 kilometres (234 mi), an apogee of 382 kilometres (237 mi), an inclination of 51.6 degrees, and a period of 92.13 minutes.The satellite was given the International Designator 1997-058C, and was catalogued by the United States Space Command as 24958. It ceased operations on 29 December 1997 when its batteries expired, and subsequently decayed from orbit on 21 May 1998. The backup satellite remained aboard Mir, and was destroyed when Mir was deorbited on 23 March 2001.

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Jean Shepherd Meets Lee DeForest (video)

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Colin Gets His BITX Receiver Going

Pete and I congratulated Colin on the First Sigs heard by his BITX (sort of like First Light for a telescope.)  He is clearly following the advice offered by Farhan in the original BITX20 article:  Take a break when the receiver is done; sit back to enjoy the sounds of success.  I told Colin that having a small error in the build, then finding it and fixing it, well, that's icing on the cake OM.   This also shows the benefit of having an oscilloscope. Here is Colin's report:

Hi Pete and Bill,

I really enjoyed the latest SolderSmoke! I think you two have got a winning formula, humour interspersed with valuable technical knowledge. Some podcasts are just too serious, there's nothing wrong with having fun in your hobby!

Progress is slow here, as always, but each week I have managed to move a little bit further forward. This week I aligned my BITX band pass filter and made a rough measurement of my crystal filter using the DDS signal generator that I built last week.

My oscilloscope is a Tektronix 465, older than me I believe! Of course there is no fancy signal level readout like the modern digital scopes, so I had to just peak the injected signal through the crystal filter and measure the frequency using a frequency counter connected to the IF amp. I followed the BITX ver 3 build instructions and my results seemed to match very closely to the Indian kit. I'm going to set my BFO at the -20dB from peak level as suggested in the ver3 instructions, I guess I can fine tune the setting later.

At first I had no signal making it out of the last RX IF amp, I traced the signal right through to the base of the first transistor but then the signal was lost. I had thought that band conditions were poor when I tried my BITX in RX last week when in fact it turns out that I'd made a small mistake building the IF amplifier that follows the crystal filter! I had wired the 4k7 resistor in the wrong place! I made the circuit good and hey presto, lots of signal coming out of the amp!

I was eager to give the receiver another try. On Fridays work finishes at 1pm, so a great chance to try out my rig during daylight hours. I hooked up the rig to a random piece of wire and I was amazed by the great noises coming from the speaker! I hadn't even set the BFO but voices were just leaping out. Man that rig has a lot of AF gain! I obtained a switched 10k log pot which I intend to use for power on and AF gain so hopefully the volume control will be OK. As a side note, it was nice to hear HF0YOTA down in the CW portion, I'm guessing that it is youngsters on the air station, I must do a search on the call later.

73, Colin M1BUU

So the little signal generator has already earned it's keep. I guess I can would have been scratching my head for a while without it!

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