SolderSmoke Dreams (and Nightmares)

 

 

 

Bill,

I've just listened to Solder Smoke episodes 168-170 and I'm following your advice.  My Michigan Mighty Mite sits on my desk only lacking the variable capacitor.  I was amazed that I had everything needed in my junk box!  Including a 3.575611 crystal.  

Last night I dreamt that the incomplete breadboarded Mighty Mite was beckoning me.  I walked over to the desk and I had the palpable sense that the Mighty Mite itself wanted to oscillate, as if by arranging the components in this way I created something alive.  I touched the tank and it began oscillating by itself without the variable cap.  The universe seemed complete in that sweet moment.  

When I awoke I attempted to replicate the event unsuccessfully.  haha.  I definitely need a variable capacitor....  

Regards,

Bryan 

KV4ZS

 

 

Bryan:   You might be able to make your dream come true with a fixed value cap.  Do you have something of about 150 picofards?    Try that.   It might work.   Or do you have an old transistor radio that could sacrifice its tuning cap?   
 

I have had similar homebrew dreams.   Well, nightmares mostly.   I dreamed that in a fit of frustration I took ALL the parts off the BITX 17 board.   That was a scary one.   I'll cc Steve Silverman to see if he could help with the variable cap.  

73  Bill

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 Wizard of Warrenton: Jerry KI4IO

 

That's Jerry KI4IO of Warrenton Virginia sitting in front of truly impressive collection of homebrew gear.  The cream-colored box above the Vibroplex is Jerry's new 7 MHz phasing transceiver.   He has a wonderful write-up of this rig in the qrp-tech group files section:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/qrp-tech/files/KI4IO/

You may have to join the yahoo group to access it, but believe me, it is worth it.  Jerry took a very eclectic approach to circuit selection and came up with a very cool rig.  Lots of soul in that new machine!  Here it is in breadboard form:

 

 

Jerry worked in U.S. Embassies as a communications officer and is obviously a member of the International Brotherhood of Electronic Wizards.  From his QRZ page:

 

While in India I was licensed at VU2LHO and worked a lot of US hams with a 135' flat-top and open-wire feed. I had the antenna strung between two bamboo towers atop the embassy housing 2ND-story roof-top. I also put up a 3/8 wave vertical on the roof for 10 meters. That little antenna had 110 radials stapled into the roof scree and worked very well! The rig was a HW-101. I was in Kathmandu, Nepal from early 1980 to late 1982. I could not obtain a license there, but became good friends with Father Moran, 9N1MM, and would often spend time up at his place putting his Drake station on CW. Pretty cool being real DX!

 

Warrenton, Virginia is not far from my QTH (it is the birthplace of Cappuccio the wonder-dog). 

 

FB Jerry. 

 

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

Pete Shrinks the Transceiver (Video)

Pete writes:  This video shows the LBS XCVR shrunk down to a mainboard that is 2.5 Inches by 4.5 inches. The board contains the 20 Meter Band Pass Filter, the RxTx Mixer, a TUF-3, two bilateral amplifier stages a 5.185 MHz Homebrew Filter. a TUF-3 PD/BM. The Audio amp stage and the microphone amp. Not built as yet is the bi-directional stage that on receive is the RF amp and on transmit the Tx pre-driver stage. Extensive use of SMD components makes the size reduction possible. The transmit final stages will be on a 2nd board that is stacked on top of the mainboard. An Arduino Pro-Mini does all of the control for the Si5351 VFO/BFO. The final size will be 4X6X2. Oh it also has a color display! http://www.n6qw.com/.

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

Bob Crane's Interviews at Four Days in May 2015

Once again our correspondent in Dayton, Bob Crane W8SX, has done an excellent job in interviewing the presenters at the Four Days in May event.  Through Bob's interviews we hear from:

-- George Dobbs, G3RJV. George puts the "L" back in solder and is asked to comment on his recent (richly deserved) awards. 

-- G4GXL talks of his new duties as President of QRP ARCI.

-- K8IKE  Talked about looking at the amateur radio station as a system.

-- KC3BRA talks about coming to ham radio from the Hacker/Maker world.

-- KW5GP  talks about his new book on Arduinos in ham radio.

-- W1RFI talks about the work of the ARRL lab.

-- M0XPD talks about new trends in  ham radio involving microcontrollers.  Paul also talks about Pete Juliano N6QW.  Pete had asked Paul to accept on his behalf the QRP Hall of Fame induction plaque. Well done Paul.

You can listen to or download the podcast here:

http://soldersmoke.com/SolderSmokeSpecial FDIM 2015.mp3

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

A Really Interesing Interview with Elecraft's Wayne Burdick, N6KR

http://www.qsotoday.com/podcasts/n6kr
 
Eric 4Z1UG does a podcast called QSO Today.   He interviews interesting hams.   A few days ago I listened to his talk with Wayne Burdick, N6KR, as I worked on my Tuna Tin 2/Herring Aid 5 rig.   It was the  perfect accompaniment, but the interview was so good that I intend to listen to it again, this time with no distractions from melting solder.  Thanks Eric.  Thanks Wayne.   Here it is.  Just click on the "Listen to podcast"" button:

http://www.qsotoday.com/podcasts/n6kr
  
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

Two Party Balloons, an Arduino and an Si5351 FLY! ALOFT! UP IN THE AIR!

http://www.qrp-labs.com/ultimate3/balloon.html

Farhan alerted me to this.  This is clearly the coolest use so far of the Dynamic Duo (Arduino+Si5351).

It took me a moment to get my head around this.  It is so fantastic.  Let me break it down for you:

You take two party balloons.  You build a little payload consisting of an Arduino Nano, an Si5351 board, a GPS module and a battery.  You load the Nano with firmware that will take the GPS info and transmit it via WSPR and JT9.   Then you release the whole thing and sit back to receive the telemetry packets that tell you where the thing is.  Very cool.  Very cool indeed.  

THE Si5351 SERVES AS THE WHOLE TRANSMITTER.  It connects to the antenna.  (Steve Smith will, I'm sure,  insists on a low pass filter, even here!)

Here is a similar project: 

http://picospace.net/

And be sure to stop by the QRP Labs online store.  Lots of good stuff there:

https://shop.qrp-labs.com/

I've been interested in balloons for a long time.  A few years ago Billy, Maria and I released a party balloon over Northern Virginia with a note requesting that the finder send us an e-mail (It landed about 10 miles away, across the Potomac river, in Washington D.C.).   Here is a picture of a paper-mache hot-air  balloon that we built and flew near Lavallette, New Jersey (Ocean Beach Unit III) sometime around 1969.  Many of the kids in the picture are my cousins:

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

Farhan's ATU (and his new blog!)

Farhan has built a very cool antenna tuner.   More important, it is the subject of the first of what we hope will be many postings on his new VU2ESE blog.   I really like the re-purposed Sony meter, and the homebrew feedline for the multi-band (80-6 meters) doublet.  This is clearly a suitable antenna and tuner for the multiband Minima.  I have been inspired!  I hope to brew up some feedline soon!  No more store-bought transmission line for me! 

VU2ESE Blog:  http://hfsignals.blogspot.com/p/about.html

VU2ESE Tuner Article:  http://hfsignals.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-balanced-tuner.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

Doug DeMaw's Rigs Found, Donated to ARRL for Exhibit

http://www.arrl.org/news/museum-donates-doug-demaw-w1fb-homebrew-equipment

This is really good news (Thanks to Pete Eaton for the alert.)

I wonder if the Barebones "Barbados" Superhet was in this batch.

We KNOW where that Tuna Tin 2 is....  

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 Rigs but Old Mics

http://www.cbgazette.com/history_tommoss-turner.html

So now I have THREE BITX transceivers on the operating bench.  I've been getting tired of moving the old D-104 around as I change bands.  Surely each of these rigs merits its own mic.  This would allow me to avoid the hassle of having to adjust the level on the D-104 each time I change rigs.

Fortunately in the junk box I have some useable old mics.   An old "Turner SSB+2" mic  has been kicking around in there for decades.  I probably got it when I was a kid. The element was no longer working, so I just popped an electret element in there, took out the preamp circuit, but kept the adjustment pot.  At first I had a 3.3 uF coupling cap in there at the output, but this was letting too much 300 Hz energy through.   So I changed the coupling cap to .1 uF and this seemed to even things out a bit. 

I know, I know: It is CB gear.  It is painted BLUE and it looks like something George Jetson would use to talk to his interstellar Good Buddies. But it was preceded by a very similar mic made for hams (see above).   And I like it.  It even has the word "Transistorized" emblazoned in script across the PTT bar. 

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 Truly Amazing Workbench and Shack of VE7ZWZ (Video)

Brace yourselves.  This is almost too much.  Prepare for sensory overload and possible palpitations.
 
Wow.  This is really amazing.   Note the very casual way Paul manages to mix Eico 430 oscilloscopes with the latest Tek touch-screen 'scope.  Heck, the doesn't even mention the SP-600s!  He does briefly note "a very large transmitter." Indeed. And he has a microscope on the bench.

This video is part of an excellent YouTube channel called "Mr. Carlson's Lab."   Great stuff in there.  Paul works on everything from old tube type receivers to modern Yaesus and Icoms.

It took me a little digging to find his ham radio call sign.  There are many Paul Carlsons on QRZ.com, but Paul's pronunciation of "solder" gave him away.  It seems our Canadian friends also (like the Brits) pronounce the "L."  VE7ZWZ. 

Check out his channel.   Lots to learn there:   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqmegXoB7lA

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

Armand's Bench (and Hamfest Goodies)

 

Above is the workbench of esteemed long-time SolderSmoke listener and electronic wizard Armand WA1UQO.  Lot of good stuff on that bench. 

 

Armand made it to the recent Manassas (Virginia) hamfest.   Here is what he came back with. 

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

A Homebrew Compendium from Hungary

Stefano IZ3NVR sent me HA5KHC's very interesting web site.   Lots of ideas here. 

For example, check out WA7JHZ's 75 meter SSB transceiver.

http://konstruktor.ha5khc.hu/linkgyujtemeny/linkgyujtemeny.htm

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