Coming Soon! An N6QW Action Figure!

 

A few quick mods and Bob will be our uncle!  

(Pete will be our Fauci!) 

Think of the many possible accessories:  

A soldering iron!  A beret!  An Si5351!  Pasta!    

It's an INVESTMENT!

 

Exactly what we've been saying about Drake 2-Bs and copies of SSDRA!  

Argentine SSB (BLU) Homebrew from Guillermo LW3DYL

Really nice work.  BLU is Spanish for SSB.  (Juliano BLU?)

But I think Guillermo needs to build ONE MORE BOARD!  A VFO or a VXO.  Analog. To finish the job.    Guillermo tells me this is in the works -- he selected an IF of 11.0592 MHz specifically so that he can use a variable oscillator built around a 4 MHz ceramic resonator.  

Complete schematic and PC board patterns on his site: 

https://qrplw3dyl.blogspot.com/2021/04/transceptor-blu-para-40-metros.html?fbclid=IwAR0BLMVfVTxMlVy1WyUovVJ0FVrrkMulFxeuu24lkjdkW8j-6QX5g_yV05o

Click on the Bloc Diagram for a Better View:

Homebrew Lives! TWENTY N6QW Simple SSB Transceivers Under Construction in Northern Virginia

IF strip by Don KM4UDX

This has to be one of the most successful of SSB group-build projects.  Dean KK4DAS has been leading 20 members of the Vienna Wireless Society in the construction of N6QW's Simple SSB Transceiver, with Dean's "Furlough 40" additions.  This is very FB, and very encouraging.  Dean clearly has The Knack.  Just two winters ago I was smuggling a 3.579 MHz crystal to Dean for use in a Michigan Mighty Mite.  He has clearly made a lot of progress.  

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Dean writes: 

It has been just over a year since I completed my initial build of the Furlough 40 with much coaching and assistance from Pete. Mike and Don are two out of 20  members of the Vienna Wireless Society Makers group that is working on a group build the SimpleSSB project as enhanced by me to include features like CAT control for digital modes.  Beginning about six weeks ago the group is progressing module by module per SolderSmoke best practice advice.  We started with the audio amplifier, followed that with the Arduino/SI-5351 based controller module and the builders are just completing the IF module.  This week at our weekly meeting, Mike proudly showed off his success.  

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Read all about it, and see some really great videos here:  

https://kk4das.blogspot.com/2021/04/homebrew-lives-furlough-40-simplessb.html

Leon NT8D's Front Panel

What Kind of Car Would Have this Plate?

 

We are proud to say that the owner is a SolderSmoke listener.  Can you figure out what kind of car he is driving? 

(See comments for answer). 

For Your Vacuum Tubes: Isotopic Ionization Sources from U.S. Radium

One or two podcasts ago I mentioned radium in regulator tubes.  As I predicted, this provoked a number of comments about how silly it is to even mention such things. Nonetheless, I find it interesting.  It seems that real radios really do glow in the dark!   

More info on the company: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Radium_Corporation

http://radiumgirlsnhd.weebly.com/

RIP Isamu Akasaki -- Shared Nobel Prize for LED -- Analog Guy

From the obituary in the Washington Post: 

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Dr. Akasaki’s honors included a 2009 Kyoto Prize — Japan’s highest honor — recognizing developments in advanced technology. He found that some technology, however, needed no advancing at all. He took great pleasure, for example, in long-playing classical music records.

On that point, he joked, “I am analog.”

N6QW On 40 Meters with a Civil Air Patrol Dentron Scout -- WYKSYCDS

 

Pete is in the air with his Dentron Scout.   Check it out: 

http://n6qw.blogspot.com/2021/04/2021-conversion-of-dentron-hf-scout-is.html

WYKSYCDS = When You Know Stuff You Can Do Stuff.  Pete proves it.  

"The Perfect Trap for the Engineering Mind" -- Leo Fernekes' Stirling Engine

I did a post about Leo back in August: 

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2020/08/great-video-on-pc-board-techniques-with.html

Although it is not about radio, homebrewers will find much to resonate with in Leo's Stirling engine project.  

Warning:  There is a Part II.  And there may be more.  Proceed at your own risk. 

Shortwave Event: Brother Stair is Dead

https://www.live5news.com/2021/04/04/colleton-county-pastor-ralph-stair-dies/?fbclid=IwAR2g607BgdaxodCVIjQjdOYg_O-CHyr-LYFpKjbCyRmyTbYcGaieiaDPRQM

A Satellite Ground Station (Receiver) Made from Junk

Very cool.  This guy (who brew up on an island in Alaska) really knows how to use aluminum tape and the junk that fills most workshops. I like his use of the security camera mount as an az-el antenna rotator. 

I foolishly discarded a Direct TV dish.  I could have been receiving GOES images by now! 

Just last week I got the same RTL-SDR.com V3 dongle that he is using.  Very FB.   It does HF direct sampling with no hardware mods and no upconverter. 

More from the builder, Gabe Emerson (KL1FI): 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNLRcEn78Vc62C3GkMvBgtA

http://www.saveitforparts.com/

A VERY Successful April Fools' Day

 

I was worried.  It was early on the morning of April 1, 2021, and I had NOTHING. Maybe this  was because so much unbelievable stuff has recently happened in the world.  Or maybe it is because technology has been moving so fast that today's April Fools' joke is tomorrow's new device. Whatever the reason, for the first time in about 15 years, I had noting.  April Fools' Day has long been part of ham radio's culture and I was worried that I would not be making a contribution this year. 

Then something caught my eye.  Did you know that on Thursday they decided to change the rules of chess!  Yes indeed!  NO MORE DRAWS!   Fantastic!    This provided the inspiration for our announcement of the brutal FCC rule-making action regarding the banning of "legacy equipment."  

I knew that that headline would attract a lot of attention. And let me inform you that, according to the official rules of April Fools' Day,  if that headline did pull you in,  well that constitutes a "gotcha."  So far 1,758 people are in this category.  I thank you all.   

The comments attached to the announcement were really heart warming, even those that included profanity directed at my persona.  People recalled earlier April 1 events, like the time Pete was defenestrated from the QRP Hall of Fame.  Good times, my friends, good times!   

This was an especially happy April 1 for me, because I also launched two other highly successful operations: 

-- I teach a Zoom class.  On Thursday morning I told the students about new concerns regarding  the light hitting their eyes from the computer screens.  We were all being issued dark glasses and would henceforth have to Zoom with shades on (see above).  The students -- bless their hearts -- all agreed to do this.  

-- We are closely associated with a small company that has the word "native" in the corporate name.  As in "Native Vegetation."  Shockingly, last Thursday we got an e-mail from the Virginia Small Business Commission DEMANDING that we change the name of the company.  It seems that ANY use of the word "native" was now deemed unacceptable.  The people in this company (ALL OF THEM!) were really outraged by this.  I had to pull the plug before any legal actions were initiated!  

So, to all of you, Happy April Fools' Day!