Podcasting since 2005! Listen to Latest SolderSmoke
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
ANOTHER Great Workshop
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Field Day with Farhan, his Family and an sBITX Near Hyderabad, India
Farhan and his son Rayyan with an sBITX
The SolderSmoke crew thought it had a tough time this Field Day: Pete N6QW had hoped to do something, but was stymied by hot California weather. Dean KK4DAS had even worse weather. Bill HI7/N2CQR was at a remote QTH with an HW-8 and a wire antenna -- he managed just ONE contact (W7RN in Nevada on 15 CW). But none of us had as much trouble as our friend Farhan had. In his account of Field Day in Hyderabad, we see an intrepid ham standing up against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that Field Day often throws at true radio amateurs. Here is Farhan's Field Day story:
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You asked for it, so here it goes...
Monday, June 24, 2024
Some Really Amazing Test Gear
Thursday, June 20, 2024
The Starlink Constellation
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Amazing Homebrew from Japan -- 7L4WVU's All Homebrew Station
Monday, June 17, 2024
1,280 Antennas at 12 GHz -- How Starlink Works
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Sticker Madness, HI7, April 1
Our friend Lex astutely focused on the date of the release of our report about legal prosecution by the City of San Francisco. The truth is that we made almost all of this up. We did put a sticker on a lamp post at Haight and Ashbury. Dave AA7EE did visit the site and report that the sticker had been removed. But all the rest was made up. We did catch several people in this annual April 1 joke. Unfortunately, not everyone who was taken in was outraged by the city's supposed action. In fact, we got one e-mail SUPPORTING the prosecution. This fellow said, essentially, that we were getting what we deserved, that we should take this as a life lesson, and stop with the sticker-vandalism. He was serious. Jeez. APRIL FOOL! We will talk more about this in the next podcast.
I know the podcast has been delayed by a lot, but I am still getting things set up here in HI7 land. I hope we will soon be podcasting with particpation from California (N6QW), Northern Virginia (KK4DAS), and the Dominican Republic (HI7/N2CQR).
Happily, my Dominican ham radio license came through -- I will be HI7/N2CQR for the next year. At some point I hope to take the Dominican exam and get a real Dominican call.
Lex has been our main point of contact in Europe on sticker distribution (aka VANDALISM!). Lex writes:
Hello all,
Shocked to hear about the "Legal action against Soldersmoke" in podcast :
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.
Which could mean a few things :
- some official is trying to make a career and he will be very busy because there are a lot of stickers in San Fransisco to remove.
- somebody did remove the sticker because they are highly collectable and somebody at soldersmoke HQ saw a opportunity to made one of the best april fools jokes in soldersmoke history pulling the listeners (and readers) leg.
- somebody use photoshop and made one of the best april fools jokes in soldersmoke history pulling the listeners (and readers) leg.
Looking at the release date of the soldersmoke podcast 251, IMHO #3 is the most possible with #2 as a good second. When #1 is the real reason, that sucks big time :-( (so I'm hoping for the april fools joke outcome)
My XYL and I are just back from a holiday to Berlin and aside of the architecture, visiting a large number of museums and historical exhibitions, there was one place on my personal list I wanted to visit : the "Teufelsberg".
Lex PH2LB
home : http://www.ph2lb.nl/
twitter : https://twitter.com/lex_
call : PH2LB
"Life's like a role playing adventure. You
need to solve the puzzles first before
they let you go to the next level."
Friday, June 14, 2024
Greetings from Low Earth Orbit
Saturday, June 1, 2024
Farhan Talks Radio Tech at SolderSmoke HQ (EAST) (TWO VIDEOS!)
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
2014 "Off the Shelf" Regen Comes Off the Shelf (Two Videos)
Walter KA4KXX spotted an error in the schematic of my 2014 "Off the Shelf" regen receiver: The source resistor on the MPF-102 should be 2200 ohms, not 2.7 ohms. See:
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2014/09/schematic-for-off-shelf-regen.htmlMonday, May 27, 2024
Ham Radio in China -- Interesting info from 高大伟 David Cowhig
David Cowhig (aka WA1LBP, aka Gao Da Wei) was Hambassdor for 73 Magazine on Okinawa when I held a similar "position" on the island of Hispaniola. David is a real Asia hand, and is fluent in both Mandarin and Japanese. He is uiniquely sitated to provide info on ham radio in China. In a recent post he provides this info, and describes how we may soon be hearing from ham Taikonauts in space:
https://gaodawei.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/2024-ham-radio-in-china-soon-chinese-hams-in-space/
Thanks David!