A "Curiously Strong" Frequency Counter

I got a six digit San Jian frequency counter for use with my BITX20.  I was trying to figure out how to put it in a box and mount it on the rig when I realized that the counter fits almost perfectly in an Altoids tin.  THE RADIO GODS HAVE SPOKEN. 

I found the counter on Amazon.  I use an eight digit version with my BITX17.  But I think the six digit version is better (it fits in an Altoids tin!)

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 has a Blog!

Check out the new blog from Pete, N6QW.   We hope he continues to post.   Please link to his blog and help spread the word.    Here it is:

http://n6qw.blogspot.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

Mikele's Croatian Belthorn Transceiver

Mikele's rig is a real "International Brotherhood of Electronic Wizards" kind of project.   The Belthorn design is out of England.  N6QW has added a lot of California influence.  The Nokia screen adds a bit of Finland.  And of course Mikele's excellent construction makes this a profoundly Croatian rig.

We love seeing rigs in their "out in the open " phase.   Thanks Mikele!  


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

Dongle Update -- Dongles, FUNcubes, Meteors, QRP, and SPRAT

Hi Bill, Pete,

Ken Marshall G4IIB here the guy that wrote the SDR Primer in Sprat 162. I have been listening to your excellent podcasts. You guys cover a lot of ground in the May issue and touched on to the SDR dongle, its potential for future developments etc. I noted that you where going to buy another to cover VHF. Well if it ain't too late consider this New version by Newsky they are already getting difficult to get a hold of and are only available in the USA. It uses an R820T2 tuner (better LNA) an upgraded and stable crystal oscillator, a reinforced antenna coax and socket. The one I managed to get hold of also had a modified PCB with solder pads for the the Q channel (pins 4&5) to connect the toroid. Incredable at 22 of your Bucks. See the pictures and read all about it on amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QFCNNV0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00QFCNNV0&linkCode=as2&tag=rsv0f-20&linkId=VNHED72IVHA5O2KT

All we need is for them to slot a 12 or 16 bit ADC in and we could have a truly great SDR receiver.

I noticed in your podcast you mentioned radio astronomy and satellite reception. Ironicaly back in 2013 this is how I started with SDR dongles. I read an aticle on the web on meteor scatter and started experementing with a dongle. Meteor scatter hunting is a bit like watching paint dry unless there is a known storm. So this led me on to the Funcube satellites. The signals from which although QRP 200mW are very stong and you can receive them on almost any antenna. The funcube dashboard software is available for free from AMSAT and alows you to download telemetry. You can also listen to amateur SSB an CW transmissions. There are lots of satellite tracking software available too. This then led onto weather satelite picture reception I built a 4 ele turnstile antenna for this but I found that I needed an LNA for reception at my location. I then started to listen to the amateur bands. Like you Bill I became interested in radio at the age of 11 and got licensed in the early 70's but work commitments  meant I had a 30 year absence from Ham Radio until I stumbled on these SDR Dongles. They got me back into the hobby and I joined the GQRP Club. I noticed that almost no one in the QRP fraternity was talking about RTL SDR hence I started writing the Primer  and submitted it to George in late 2014 for publication in Sprat. As you know it appeared in the Spring Sprat and seems to have generated lots and lots of interest in the QRP community. I am delighted by this response and look forward to lots more interesting articles and podcasts. Have fun with your dongle.

Ken G4IIB

PS I wrote another article on getting these dongles to work under Linux. Linux uses completely different architecture so that the software used is completely different to windows. I notice that the software I use for Linux is also available on Mac OS which uses similar architecture (UNIX) so in theory it should also work on a Mac. Quite a few people have expressed an interest in getting a dongle to work on a Mac. As I do not poses a Mac I have not tried this out.

Funcube Dashboard

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

Ham Radio on the Kon-Tiki

Hi Bill

Just found a short Youtube QRP video which is quite fun. It's of the radio side of  Thor Heyerdahl's cross-Pacific Kon-Tiki raft expedition in 1947, operating /MM with 7 watts. I found a longer description of what they had and what they did - including a thrilling tale of drying components on coral reefs while they desperately tried to make contact having washed up on an island - but not of the unusual parrot incident with a hydrogen balloon-lofted antenna during the voyage. That's only in the video.

 

It's all gripping adventure radio stuff, and shows what HF and a bunch of tubes could do before the digital satcom age.

 

The video's here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEvM4HxQxSQ

and the write-up (excerpted below) is here - http://www.arrl.org/news/last-surviving-crew-member-of-i-kon-tiki-i-expedition-passes-away

 

"The expedition used call sign LI2B and carried three watertight radio transmitters. The first operated on the 40 and 20 meters, the second on 10 meters and the third on 6 meters. Each unit was made up entirely of 2E30 vacuum tubes providing 10 W of RF input. As an emergency backup, they also carried a German Mark V transceiver originally re-created by Britain's Special Operations Executive in 1942. Other equipment included a hand-cranked emergency set of the Gibson Girl type for use on the maritime bands, a special VHF set for contacting aircraft and two British Mark II transmitters. The Kon-Tiki also carried a National Radio Company NC-173 receiver. Dry batteries and a hand-cranked generator supplied the power."

73s

Rupert, G6HVY

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

Rocketry with Arduinos -- Update on Carbon Origins

I wrote earlier about these students and their cool Apollo telemetry device.  Here is an update. 

http://makezine.com/2015/07/21/carbon-origins-space-chase/


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

Some HB SSB History -The Belthorn Story

The Eden Valley, Cumbria, England

 Hello Bill, 

 

As per your discussion with Pete in #177 I can indeed confirm that the correct pronunciation of Belthorn is “Bell-Thorn,” like Bell and Thorn concatenated. I named the design the “Belthorn SSB IF Module” in honour of the village I was living in at the time I developed it. I wanted to put the village on the map and in doing so leave my mark.

 

The design was published as a two part article in RadCom May/June 2000 intended to offer an alternative to the Plessey SL600/1600 IF strips of the late 70s early 80s. These integrated designs opened up simple SSB construction to many but by the mid 80’s sources of SL600/1600 ICs had all but dried up. I thought that a new design using readily available parts would be worth developing to offer a simple and repeatable basis for building an SSB transceiver.

 

From the emails I’ve received over the years it was and still is a popular project with many hundreds if not thousands having been built around the world. When the MC1350 IF amplifier became an endangered species I returned to the drawing board to produce a new version using a home brew diode DBM front end, a simple cascode IF stage and NE/SA612 product detector/modulator. An interesting feature of this was an AGC system based around an 8 pin 12F683 PIC. This new design offered considerable simplification and retained excellent performance. It was christened the “Eden SSB IF Module” after the Eden Valley where I now live in the north of England. It formed part of a transceiver project published on Yahoo Groups (Search for Eden 9). The gentleman who created the Yahoo Groups site mistook my schematic revision number (9) to be part of the name, and so it unwittingly became Eden9!!!  Fortunately the NE/SA612 remains in production although should it become obsolete I would probably make things right by bringing out a yet another version of the IF strip, perhaps with a switching mixer.  Here are a couple of links from the “old world” to give you a flavour of Belthorn the village and Belthorn the design;

 

The village website -http://www.belthornvillage.co.uk/ (Note that they’ve just bought a pub!)

 

The origin of the name “Belthorn” is quite interesting – although of little relevance to radio! Before the industrial revolution the village used to be on a pack horse route. to this day there is a house at the top of the village called “Bell in the Thorn” many years ago this used to be an inn. It’s thought that it takes its name from when a Bell hung in a thorn bush or tree nearby was used to signal when a horse change over was required to carry loads up and down the hill, probably from the mines or quarries on the nearby moors.

 

The link for the “Eden9” which you may find interesting is; https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eden9/info There is a power point presentation in the files section which describes the project and which features a section on receiver design. It may be a useful primer for those interested in the design process.

 

You can still find my original website on the internet archive complete with an introduction to Belthorn the village and a few of my earlier projects here; http://web.archive.org/web/20090316093248/http://g4gxo.cwc.net/

 

73 Ron G4GXO

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

Interview on "QSO TODAY" Podcast with Eric 4Z1UG

Last week I was interviewed by Eric 4Z1UG for his podcast "QSO Today."  I was at first reluctant to do this, simply because of time constraints: I already have difficulty finding the time to record SolderSmoke.  But when I listened to Eric's interview with Wayne Burdick N6KR of Elecraft, and learned that they had been teenage ham radio friends, I wanted in!  Our interview was a lot of fun.  You can listen to it here:
http://www.qsotoday.com/podcasts/n2cqr  or via ITunes.

Please help Eric out by subscribing to his podcast and by linking to his site.   I'm sure he'd appreciate comments on our interview. 

Thanks Eric!  And as Shep would say: EXCELSIOR! 

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 Podcast #178: Anniversaries, ZIA, LBS II, Old Mics, Antenna Dreams, Interviews, MAILBAG

SolderSmoke Podcast #178 is available:

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke178.mp3

18 July 2015

Anniversaries:
Pete Juliano -- One year with the podcast
BITX20 -- Ten years of homebrew fun
SolderSmoke Podcast:  Ten years of podcasting

Bench Report:   Pete's ZIA and LBS II
Bill messes around with old microphones

Looking ahead:
Pete plans antennas
Bill lusts after ladder line (spurred on by Farhan's new blog)

On the Air Reports:
Pete on 20 with ZIA and LBSII
Bill having fun on 40 (even with the Spectral Purity Police)
Bill tries rock-bound QRPp.  It is hard.  (Spoiled by QRO BITX luxury)
Bill's verdict:  BITX40 with Yaesu filter, Si5351, and TIA best of the 3 rigs.
Catching Cubesats with Pete's SDR Dongle


Digitizing old paper logs (and finding a lot more HB rigs)
Interviews with Eric 4Z1UG on QSO Today Podcast
FDIM interviews by Bob Crane

Peter Parker's review of DSB kit

MAILBAG:
Parts from W8NSA
Colin's tuna Tin Mighty Mite
Dean's Tiny Tia
Bryan's MMM dreams
Armand braves the heat at the Manassas Hamfest 

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

Colin's Tuna Tin Mighty Mite (Video)

You will remember Colin as the builder of that beautiful BITX20 that he first used from his backyard and later used with great success from a hilltop in Northern England.  In this video we see Colin demonstrating his Michigan Mighty Mite.  Lots of soul in that little machine!   Colin notes that this rig worked well from the start.   The Radio Gods were obviously pleased by his use of a tuna tin as the chassis.  I think they also liked the MePads from W1REX and the Tek 465 'scope.   And of course the T-shirt was obviously a key element in Colin's success.  

Here is that beautiful BITX, now equipped with an internal speaker:



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

Dean's Tiny Tia -- Hardcore Homebrewing

 

Hi guys,

I've been on kind of a building hiatus due to various issues, but after seeing the work being done with the termination insensitive amplifiers I had to start noodling again.....as Pete would say.  Well I have decided to build a TIA (ZIA according to Pete) SSB transceiver.  I've decided to homebrew everything including the DBM, crystal filter, and even the Si5351 module.  As I wait for more parts to come in, I wanted to show the 2 TIA amps and crystal filter assembly I've built.  I've included a screenshot of the pass band response through the amps and the crystal filter.  It looks the same in both directions and everything fits into an area of 2 x 2.5 inches.  With the space left on the board, I hope to be able to put my SBL-1 clones on as well.  I follow up as I get more completed.

73

Dean AC9JQ 

 

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's LBS II Transceiver

Look at that.  That is the work of a master homebrewer.  More info and more great pictures here:

http://www.n6qw.com/LBS2.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