Mama Mia! N2HTT's Regen Receiver (Video)

I am fairly certain that Pete Juliano will take pride in N2HTT's success on this project, and will attempt to attribute it, in part, to the Italian ancestry that they share.  The Tarantella background music will definitely encourage that kind of thinking.  

In presenting this nice video, we continue with our "rigs not yet in a box" theme.  There is something especially nice about the sound of receivers that are not yet boxed up. 

Mike has some great information on the construction of this receiver (and other projects) on his blog:

http://n2htt.net/  

Bravo Michele! 

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

Video of Colin's First Contact with his Homebrew Scratch-built BITX20

I love this video.  Colin finished his BITX a week or so ago and has been waiting for an opportunity to test it.  Over the weekend he braved the winter of Northern England and, with his son,  set up his new rig out in his snow-covered garden.   Appropriately for a first contact with scratch-built rig, the circuitry was unencumbered by any kind of case or box.  That's the way it should be done!  Well done Colin!  You are well and truly a member of the International Brotherhood of Electronic Wizards, and the diagnosis of "The Knack" has been confirmed (a severe case, it appears). 

Hi Pete and Bill,

It's been a lovely fine day here in West Yorkshire, so I took a table out into the garden and set up my BITX circuit on it. I set up my SOTA dipole on a 9m fishing pole.

I heard a strong German station calling CQ, so I gave him a call and hoped for the best!

How amazing to contact someone in another country using a rig and mic you've made yourself! Do I qualify as a REAL radio ham now? Do I have a confirmed case of the knack? :-)

Although I may appear underwhelmed in the video, (besides the air punches!), I did really get a kick out of the QSO.

73 and huge thanks to both of you for the encouragement and support.

Colin, M1BUU

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

Brian's Mighty Mite

Bill,
All the parts finally arrived from China so the MMM lives :)
Good to finally join the CBLA!!

It made for a very enjoyable Saturday afternoon while the snow fell!
I left some room between the antenna connector and the coil for the low pass filter I'm going to build if the caps ever arrive.

Thanks for the crystal and the inspiration to get busy and build something; it brought back a few childhood memories of building things for the homebrew contest at the local hamfest.

73,
Brian
KA0PHJ

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

SolderSmoke #171 DC RX in QQ, Power Supplies, Small Screens, 12 Buck Counters, HW8 Error?, KX3 RX

SolderSmoke Podcast #171 is available: 

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke171.mp3

Bench Report: 
Pete's Small Screens (in Color!) 
Si5351s
Bill's Graph Paper Frequency Readout
Bill's Broadened Barebones Barbados RX.  DIGITIZED! 
Another AD9850 DDS using M0XPD Kanga UK Shield
New 13 dollar Color Display (Prettier than Graph paper!) 

Pete and Ben's Article in QRP Quarterly Available free here: 
http://www.qrparci.org/qqsample/qqsample.pdf

The DEEP SPIRITUAL REWARDS of DC Receivers 
The Importance of Good Power Supplies
SPRAT Article on HW8 Design Error
Latest Edition of Hot Iron
Elecraft KX3 -- Has one of the best receivers in the world  

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

15% Off on SolderSmoke and other books at Lulu This Weekend

All three of my books are here:  

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/soldersmoke

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

More Glowing Numerals! BIG! BLUE! $13!

Even though my pencil and graph paper frequency readout for the BITX rigs has its own undeniable charm, this little device could get me to go digital.  I heard about it from Chuck Adams and the folks on the qrp-tech mailing list.  13 dollars.  It covers .1 MHz to 2.4 GHz.  You just hook up a 9 volt source and the RF input.   It also does IF offset.  The construction looks great and it would be very easy to put into (or aside) any rig.   Here is where I got mine: 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400732593471?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

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

Beagle 2 Found On Mars

I was one of the millions of people who woke up that Christmas morning in 2003  thinking not of Santa Claus but of Colin Pillinger's Mars Lander, the Beagle 2.  We were in London by then, and later on I got to meet Colin Pillinger.  I still have the books about Beagle 2 that he gave to me.   Wow, it looks like they came very close.  Too bad Colin did not live to see these pictures. 

The Planetary Society has a very good article on all this:  

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/01160800-beagle-2-found.html

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

Back Into the Digital Morass

Using a very nice M0XPD AD9860 shield from Kanga-UK and software by Richard AD7C I put together another little DDS VFO.  This one went together without a lot of hair pulling.  I put the LCD, brightness control and rotary controller on one piece of vero board -- this will also serve as the front panel.  

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

The Battery That's Been Working for 175 Years

In case you missed this.  Makes you think, doesn't it?  I'm thinking of a QRPp QRSS transmitter that would just keep on going.  Battery designed by Giuseppe Zamboni.  

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-battery-has-lasted-175-years-and-no-one-knows-how

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

New Analog Frequency Readout for BITX17 VXO

I've been getting tired of being in the dark about the frequency on which my BITX17 was operating.  So I pulled out some graph paper, my frequency counter, and a pencil.  You will see two frequencies at each point -- that's because  I use two crystals, switched by the black knob on the left.  I realize this paper and pencil approach is hopelessly out of date, but I see it as "appropriate technology" for a discrete component all-analog transceiver.  

Pete set me straight on how to come up with the numbers: VXO frequency minus  ACTUAL carrier oscillator/BFO freq.  After doing this I took great delight in going on the air and asking guys with fancy "glowing numerals" rigs to compare their freq readout with my pencil and graph paper readouts: they were painfully close.    

But I am not slipping completely into stubborn Luddite-ism; this weekend I worked on a DDS-based AD9850/Arduino VFO with I-Q output based on Paul M0XPD's Kanga-UK Arduino Shield.   STAY TUNED! 

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

Jailed for The Knack: Gerry Wells, Homebrew Hero

Thanks to Thomas of the "SWLing Post" for alerting us to the story of UK radio legend Gerry Wells. As Thomas said in his post, you really need to drop what you are doing and listen to this great BBC program about Gerry: 

http://swling.com/blog/2011/02/radio-documentary-the-wireless-world-of-gerry-wells/

The poor fellow was actually JAILED for his "radio obsession."  Wow.  That was kind of harsh.  But Gerry overcame adversity and had a very happy life in radio.  

Thomas has more on Gerry here: 

http://swling.com/blog/2014/12/jonathans-interviews-with-gerry-wells/

Thanks Thomas!  And thanks to the BBC. 

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

VE3MKC's Teensy Si5351 SDR Receiver with a Tiny Color Screen (video)

From: Rich 

To: "soldersmoke@yahoo.com"  
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2015 9:22 AM
Subject: Cheap, open source Arduino SDR project

Bill

First, thanks for Soldersmoke and all you do for us QRP hackers around the world. I'm a big fan!

I've detected you are getting sucked into the world of microcontrollers of late. I know you are not really that excited about SDR but this is a radio that combines Arduino, the currently popular SI5351 and a Softrock to make a very functional SDR. I started this project last year which uses the fabulous Teensy 3.1 and companion audio shield. I recently packaged it all up and it looks like a QRP radio now. Still doesn't transmit but as I like to say thats "just a small matter of software".

There are several posts about it on my blog. The most recent:

http://rheslip.blogspot.ca/2015/01/teesy-sdr-project-update.html

There's a link to a video and a link to the code in that post.

Rock on Bill!

73, Rich Heslip

VE3MKC

From: solder smoke

Sent: Friday, January 23, 2015 4:09 AM

To: 

Subject: Re: Cheap, open source Arduino SDR project

Wow Rich that is really beautiful.  Amazing!   I am also sending this to Pete Juliano, but I was at first hesitant about this because I feared that your combination of Si5351 and TFT display might be TOO exciting for him. Deep breaths Pete...  

73 and Thanks,  Bill 

From: jessystems@verizon.net
To: soldersmoke@yahoo.com; 
Subject: Re: Cheap, open source Arduino SDR project
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 06:03:40 -0800

Hi Rich & Bill,

Wow –really exciting project Rich! Congratulations and Bravo!

This is so exciting, for all hams, as this just shows the power of the available low cost technology that is now on the market. Your project is really tempting as I have a V6.2 15M softrock sitting in a box (somewhere). I was somewhat put off with the Power SDR as the opposite sideband rejection is not too good –it is clear you have cracked that nut.

Thanks for sharing Rich and yes Bill I am taking very deep breaths.

73’s

Pete N6QW

  

• Jan 23 at 9:27 AM

• Pete Juliano
• me

Thanks guys! When I saw the Teensy 3.1 with the companion audio codec board the first thing that came to mind was a portable SDR. Since its Arduino compatible I am able to leverage the SI5351 library, encoder library etc so its mostly just putting software blocks together. The digital filter design is a bit tricky but Loftur VE2LJX did quite a bit of work on that and now it works really well.

I hope to add CW decoding and PSK31 at some point. I've used less than half the flash on the Teensy so lots of room for new features. I'm hoping if the word gets out I won't have to do this all myself!

Pete - too bad you missed the Black Friday sale - Teensy 3.1 and the audio shield for $18. Deep breaths... 

: )

73, Rich

VE3MKC

---

---

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