Homebrew Tuner for Doublet Antenna

For now, I've put the Moxon project on the back burner.  I will take it up again once Old Sol starts showing some spots.  In its place a 135 foot doublet is going up.  I got at a hamfest a while back.  (It is the only HF antenna that I ever bought!) It is the SPI-RO Manufacturing Company's Model A-10.  It came with 100 feet of 450 ohm window line.   It will be up on the roof soon.  

Today I put the tuner on the wall in the car port right outside the shack. I even built a little shelf for the SWR meter (used one of those Whole Food grilling planks!).  I put a 25 ohm resistor where the feed line will connect.  I was able to tune it up on the two bands I tried: 40 and 17.  

There is a smaller coil inside the big one -- the smaller coil resonates with the lower variable cap. 

You can see all the homebrew rigs in the background -- waiting patiently for the antenna.  

I actually built the tuner back in 2012, but never used it.  Description here: 

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2012/01/2012-off-to-good-start-balanced-atu.html

I will try to provide a schematic and more details soon. 

Mars Weather Update: Dust Storm Continues

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/is-the-mars-opposition-already-over/

The Moxon Files from L.B. Cebik W4RNL

I had thought that the Cebik files were lost to us in some sort of legal copyright struggle.  But in my effort to better understand the Moxon antenna, I found a real treasure trove of Cebik's writing.  These should all be saved somewhere safe. 

I especially liked his description of the evolution of the Moxon antenna.  Les Moxon was apparently very unAmerican in his emphasis on reception (not transmit gain)  as the main benefit of the beam antenna.  He also sought to avoid superfluous luxuries like rotators, but Cebik hints that rotators have become an important part of our American way of life.   Indeed.   
Before I found these files I had been on the verge of giving up on efforts to replace my storm-damaged Moxon.  After all, solar minimum is still ahead of us.   But after reading OM Cebik's articles I have decided to build a 20 meter version and place it above the center point of a 130 foot doublet.  I will have the best of both worlds.  

http://www.antentop.org/w4rnl.001/mu0.html

http://www.antentop.org/w4rnl.001/mu2a.html

L. A. Moxon, in his HF Antennas for All Locations, provides the essential clue: "the main benefit [of a beam] accrues from the reduction of interference during reception, though the 4 to 6 dB gain provided by typical amateur beams is an important bonus and probably the reason which carries the most weight with the majority of amateurs."⁽²⁾Here is a theory of beam operation quite unAmerican is style: instead of gain, Moxon strives for front-to-back ratio as the most crucial aid to ham operation. His statement is an affirmation of the "good ears" theory of operation. Even more, it forms the basis for his rectangular improvement upon the VK2ABQ square.
...
 Moxon prefers matched elements, tuning each of them to optimum performance remotely. That way, he can reverse the beam and do away with expensive and maintenance-intensive rotators. However, rotators are a way of life in the U.S. (a TV rotator will likely handle a 3-band Moxon beam), and there are many uses for portable beams that are hand-rotated or fixed in the field. Thus, I decided to continue the exercise in unequal element lengths.

http://www.antentop.org/w4rnl.001/mox20.html

Finally, a treasure trove of Cebik's writing: 

http://www.antentop.org/w4rnl.001/radio.html

VU3XVR's Assembly Language 1K AtTiny-Si5351 VFO

Although Ram VU3XVR's project is in the digital realm, his barebones approach to the bits and bytes is, for me, very appealing. He takes a Si5351 and runs it with ATtiny13 with only 1k of space.  He makes intelligent use of every bit of that space.  He reveals his overall approach to rigs when he states in the video that his VFO will NOT have the traditional glowing numeral frequency readout because those bright lights can be so annoying and distracting.  I'm with your Ram!  Well done OM. Simplicity is a virtue. No more trouble with the Arduino and its fickle IDE.  No more agonizing visits to the Si5351 library.   

I see lots of applications for this little circuit.   Ram mentions beacon transmitters.  

He provides details here: 

https://vu3xvr.blogspot.com/2018/07/si5351-dds-clock-generator-using.html   

Tom Swift had The Knack

Thanks to Richard for alerting us this important piece of Knack history.  Not bad for 1910.  You can see Tom's shack and antenna in the cover image (above).  I don't think he was going for a fan dipole.  He built the kind of multi-wire antenna that was in fashion in the early days of radio. 

The full text of the book is avaialble free on-line.  The radio fun begins in  Chapter 20: 

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_and_His_Wireless_Message

Bless my door knob, this was a lot of fun! 

Bill, 

I am certain I missed the origin of “the knack” as used on your blog. I, wonder, however, if in your youth you read Tom Swift novels? Although now they seem somewhat politically incorrect, I feel that the word may have, for our purposes, evolved there.

In the first novel, “Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle” (sic) Tom repairs a butter churn’s “system of  cogs and handles.” When praised for his abilities he declares, “It’s just a knack.” Stick with me.

In a later novel, written around 1910, “Tom Swift and His Wireless Message” Tom is shipwrecked on an ebbing volcanic island. He saves the day by constructing a transmitter and receiver from the wreckage of his plane,  even though he “did not have the magnets, carbons, coherers and needles” needed. He strings “ wires from the top of the dead treed, to a smaller one, some distance away, using five wires, set parallel, and attached to a wooden spreader, or stay. (Fan dipole?) The wires were then run to the dynamo, and the receiving coil, and the necessary ground wires were installed.” Then,”once the impulses, or electric currents, are sent out into space, all that is necessary to do is to break, or interrupt them at certain intervals to make dots, dated and spaces.” He sent “C.Q.D. (come quick—danger) even though a “new code has been instituted for them, but I am going to rely on the old one, as, in this part of the world, the new one may not be so well understood.” Needless to say, a ship hears, responds and rescues the crew.

That”s “the knack", alright!

Never give up, and 73.

Richard, KD0NPM

Two Videos from Other Kinds of Workshops -- Dobson Makes a Telescope, Peter Builds an Airplane

Above you can watch a video showing the legendary John Dobson making a big telescope. Born in Beijing, Dobson is the former Hindu monk who left the monastery to show people how to make big telescopes out of shipping tubes and port-hole glass.  Think of it as the BITX of amateur astronomy.  Dobson is the founder of the "sidewalk astronomy" movement -- that's when you set up your 'scope on an urban sidewalk and show the wonders of the universe (or at least the solar system) to passers-by.  We did this in London with Saturn.  (Some of the cynical Londoners couldn't believe it was real -- they thought I had a transparency in the scope tube.) Dobson developed a very simple and popular method of mounting telescope tubes -- the "Dobsonian" method.   

More on Dobson here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dobson_(amateur_astronomer)

Below you can see a short update on Peter's homebrew airplane. 

Dust Storm on Mars

Damn.  Just as Mars gets close enough for me to see something with my 6 inch reflector telescope, a massive dust storm hits.  I was out there this morning at 0430 local.   Mars was bright and red in the southern sky, but when I got it in the telescope's field of view it was like looking at a red version of Venus -- just the disk, with no surface features visible.  The before-and-after pictures above (taken with far better equipment than mine) shows the extent to which the dust has obscured things on Mars. 

But Sky and Telescope reports that the Martian skies may soon be clearing.  Hooray!  

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/martian-dust-storm-2018/

On Field Day: The Marine Corps Antenna Manual

Don't let it be said that SolderSmoke made no contribution to Field Day!   Here is the USMC Antenna Manual.   Looks like there is lot of good info in there.   

https://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCRP%208-10B.11.pdf?ver=2017-03-15-092827-423

SolderSmoke #205 Solstice, Mars, Antennas, Displays, Phasing Fix, VFOs, Lexicon, MAILBAG

June 23, 2018

SolderSmoke Podcast #205 is available:  

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke205.mp3

-- Summer solstice.  Mars Observations.  Graduations.  Internships.  Fathers Day.

-- Antenna Angst:  Pete's tribander and Bill's Moxon.  Insulation and resonance?

-- Pete's work on color displays. 

-- Bill goes back to fix up older projects:  

-- Fixing the Frankenstein Phasing RX.  Found an open choke!

-- Tightening up the HRO Dial. 

-- Achieving Juliano Criteria stability on a BITX20 VFO. 

-- Lexicon additions:  "Scratch Built"  "Hardrock Radio"  

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/39551/where-does-the-saying-made-from-scratch-originate

-- PastaPete:  http://www.pastapete.com/

MAILBAG: 
Bob Crane W8SX Corrspondent at FDIM
Ralph AB1OP  Building LBS
Bruce KC1FSZ  Digital Pot
Jason W5IPA uBITX in Juliano Blue
Rogier KJ6ETL  ON THE AIR WITH A uBITX
Special thanks to Tim Walford for 25 years of Hot Iron.  

"Hot Iron" #100 -- Thanks Tim Walford!

Tim Walford, G3PCJ has put out issue #100 of Hot Iron, the Journal of the Constructors Club.  That my friends is a long time publishing a quarterly.  25 years!   And it is a wonderful publication, filled with ideas and inspiration.  

Tim tells us in #100 that he is passing the baton (the Hot Iron?) to Peter Thornton, G6NGR who will keep the iron hot from here on out.   Peter is looking for contributions for issue #101.  Please try to help him out.  

Thanks again to Tim.  Good luck with the farm and the house moves.  

Rockets and a Microcontroller -- Videos

https://bps.space/

Digital Pot

No, this is not some on-line mail order thing.  Bruce KC1FSZ has done something that I find both amazing and horrifying:  he using a "digital potentiometer"  as the AF gain control in his BITX.  Remember when pots were simple and pure, when they were just a metal wiper that ran across a crescent of carbon of increasing resistance?  Well, those happy days are apparently behind us my friends.   What now?  Will we have endless discussions about where to find the driver for the 10k pot?   Will Facebook or Amazon or Microsoft secretly seize control of the data on our AF gain, perhaps to sell us hearing aids?   But enough of my ludism.  Good going Bruce.  AGC beckons. 

Hi:

I've built a few BITX rigs from scratch now and I'm starting to move to a modular approach using fabricated PCBs to make it easier/faster to build/mix/match the stages.  My audio amplifier module is based on the LM386.  I know others have moved away from this chip, but it still works for me.

I've added one feature to my audio amp stage that opens up some good possibilities.  Instead of the traditional potentiometer between the AF preamp and the LM386, I've inserted a digital potentiometer (MCP4131-103) that is controlled by three extra pins on the microcontroller.  The digital pot lists for $0.81 on Mouser so it's no more expensive than a physical pot and it's way more versatile.

Why do this?

• The module is quick to make if you're building a lot of rigs.
• AF gain can be controlled via the CAT port.
• AGC control can be done in software.  This enables all kinds of fancy AGC "attack" and "release" controls that can be seen in the docs for commercial rigs.
• This is an enabling feature for remote ops, which is why I did this in the first place.
• AF gain can be controlled using the same encoder (different mode) as is used to control frequency, etc. if you wanted to build a more compact rig.

The board is shown below.  This is one of my first forays into KiCAD/PCBs/etc. so it's probably not as "tight" as it could be.  Also, I'm using through-hole components so it's old-school building.  But the board only costs $7 on OSHPark and it's pretty quick to wire up.  Anyone who wants to order one from them drop me a line and I'll send you the link.

Schematic below.

73s,
Bruce KC1FSZ