630 Meter DX from Wasilla, Alaska

Kl7L's 600m Part 5 station

Hi Bill - It's been a few years and I'm sort of glad my global wanderings have been curtailed to a point and I'm now based out of Alaska and via a couple of call signs (KL1X KL7UK etc) have ended up with KL7L. I still travel with the Oil Company but no China on the horizon.

I had a chuckle when you and Pete mentioned the new 630 and 2200m bands - and the real estate requirements - Well, I've been active with the experimental callsigns since 2003 and very glad we have finally got the bands - so a small form to fill out on the UTC web site and a 30 days wait to check you are not within 1Km radii of the co channel PLC on Trunk power lines, if no "disapprove" away we go - and I and many have! 

Just turn off all those nasty dimmers, LED lights and SMPSU wallwarts - plonk your radio on 474.2kHz USB and decode using WSPR or JT9 and I think youll be surprised on what you can hear even on a short typical 80m or topband wire or so.  There a lot of activity all around you

The station for both band is homebrew soldersmoke heaven - transverter/PA and filters/Couplers/Phase meters etc with only my ol' TS850 doing the prime driving, or a Hans  Summers U3S.

Size does matter - but my best RX for both bands is a 2ft long active probe up a pine tree, that's all - and some 300ft of RG6, and the Tx antenna is a 60ft high  Marconi or more over an inverted L with a 3 wire top cap all nested in the Birch forest - loads or radials but still very lossy in the Summer - nothing special here - Of course with the QRP per se we have to use CW or digital modes mostly but DX can be done - after all my closest active neighbor on 2200/630m is over 2000Kms away!

So, for the first time I sparked up on JT9 on 630m this early morning and first blood to QSO with VK4YB @ 5W EIRP!

 Not bad for a first qso on what is a fairly typical back yard antenna - so, there is hope and many people appear to be putting transcontinental signals out this power, so everyone is on the same playing field - just the ground and location and latitude will change things! It tends to be more flaky, lossy and geo/solar events tend to hit us hard up here compared with say Seattle.

On 2200m TX its a loop of thick wire hanging in the trees - literally 500ft circumference and a beefy coupler to deal with the 50A or so of antenna current to make the 1W ERP or so - still its getting out OK and again should be putting signals over the Pole to EU and across the Pacific as it becomes more and more dark up here.

I'm now caught up with past Soldersmoke pod casts and thanks to you and Pete for making me smile

Take care

Laurence KL7L  aka G4DMA et al
Wasilla Alaska 23rd Oct 2017

Woz with Soldering Iron; Wooden Enclosures for Electronics (Video)

The Woz scared me for a second -- I tought he was going to leave a hot iron on the desk amidst paper and other flamable items.  But no -- he put the soldering iron in its holder. 

Later we hear Woz talking about the need to update schematic diagrams.  And I was esepcially taken by the use of wooden enclosures for electronic projects.  My BITX rigs have followed the Apple example. 

Cliff Stoll -- K7TA -- Has THE KNACK. And a GREAT NOVA Video

Hack-A-Day had a piece on Cliff Stoll of  "The Cuckoo's Egg" and "Silicon Snake Oil" fame.  I read these books years ago.  I included a quote from Cliff on page 45 of the SolderSmoke book (the quote seemed to foreshadow my aversion to SDR). 

I didn't know that NOVA produced an hour-long program on Stoll's Cuckoo's Egg adventures.  It is really good.  Many of those involved play themselves in the video.  Very cool. See above. 

I checked Cliff's QRZ.com page.   We wrote several years ago that Cliff has THE KNACK.  Note below his preference for thermatrons and the affection for Heathkits.  Diagnosis confirmed. 

From QRZ.com: 

   Hi gang!   This is Cliff Stoll, K7TA

   Way back in the Jurassic, I was licensed as WN2PSX, in Buffalo NY.  Got my general ticket around 1967 as WB2PSX, and helped build ham radio stations at Hutch-Tech high school, University/Buffalo, and University of Arizona.   When I went to Tucson for grad school, I passed my extra ticket and snagged the call K7TA (back when this meant 20wpm cw).  I held a first-class commercial ticket, which let me engineer at WBFO radio, but I don't know if commercial licenses even exist anymore.

   I now live in Oakland California, and occasionally get on the cw lowbands with old heathkit gear ... just rebuilt my novice NC-270 receiver with filaments that glow in the dark.  Gotta restring my 40 meter dipole that came down in a windstorm.  

   You can guess that I'm pretty much retired.  Along the way, I've worked in FM radio, planetary physics, computing, writing, speaking, teaching, and math.  Best way to reach me is through my website www.kleinbottle.com

   Warm wishes to all -- 73's,

-Cliff

Info on Cliff's latest gig: 

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/spring-2016-war-stories/how-berkeley-eccentric-beat-russians-and-then-made

The First "Transistor Radio"

I'm a few days behind on this.  On October 18 Bob Crane pointed out that Garrison Keillor marked the anniversary of the broadcast band "transistor radio."   I had mine (a 1970s version), and it did indeed allow me to listen to that seditious rock music without parental interference. Looking around the shack, I still have items in use that have "Transistorized" as part of their product name (like my Lafayette Radio Electronics Transistorized DC Power Supply." 

Garrison (on October 18, 2017): 

It was on this day in 1954 that the first transistor radio appeared on the market.

Transistors were a big breakthrough in electronics — a new way to amplify signals. They replaced vacuum tubes, which were fragile, slow to warm up, and unreliable. During World War II, there was a big funding push to try to update vacuum tubes, since they were used in radio-controlled bombs but didn't work very well. A team of scientists at Bell Laboratories invented the first transistor technology in 1947. But the announcement didn't make much of an impact because transistors had limited use for everyday consumers — they were used mainly in military technology, telephone switching equipment, and hearing aids.

Several companies bought licenses from Bell, including Texas Instruments, who was bent on being the first to market with a transistor radio. Radios were mostly big, bulky devices that stayed in one place — usually in the living room — while the whole family gathered around to listen to programming. There were some portable radios made with vacuum tubes, but they were about the size of lunch boxes, they used heavy nonrechargeable batteries, they took a long time to start working while the tubes warmed up, and they were fragile. Texas Instruments was determined to create a radio that was small and portable, and to get it out for the Christmas shopping season. They produced the transistors, and they partnered with the Regency Division of Industrial Development Engineering Associates, who manufactured the actual radios. Their new radio, the Regency TR-1, turned on immediately, weighed half a pound, and could fit in your pocket. It cost $49.95, and more than 100,000 were sold.

Texas Instruments went on to pursue other projects, but a Japanese company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo decided to make transistor radios their main enterprise. They were concerned that their name was too difficult for an American audience to pronounce, so they decided to rebrand themselves with something simpler. They looked up the Latin word for sound, which was sonus. And they liked the term sonny boys — English slang that was used in Japan for exceptionally bright, promising boys. And so the company Sony was born. Soon transistor radios were cheap and prevalent.

With transistor radios, teenagers were able to listen to music out of their parents' earshot. This made possible the explosion of a new genre of American music: rock and roll.

The Quantum Indians

Beautiful video.  Strongly  recommended.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=350&v=bI7sasQsQWI

Ham Radio, Dilbert, Dating, and the Baofeng Breakup

Was the young lady turned off by his obvious "appliance op" status? Was it the Baofeng?  Would he have fared better with a homebrew rig? 

Dilbert addressed the relationship between ham radio and success in the dating game: 

I blame Peter VK2EMU for this digression. 

SolderSmoke Podcast #200! 17, Knack Nobel, QCX, 630, UHF, Fessenden, TROUBLESHOOTING

DL3AO 1950

SolderSmoke Podcast #200 -- TWO HUNDRED!!!!-- Is available

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke200.mp3

-- Old friends on 17 meters.  

-- Another Knack Nobel in Physics.  

-- Hans Summers' QCX transceiver:  $50 IS THE NEW 10 GRAND! 

-- New Bands!  630 and 2200 Meters.  BIG ANTENNAS! 

-- Nuke Powered QRP.  No joke! 

-- The Challenge of UHF.  Not for the faint of heart. 

-- Reginald Fessenden, Father of Phone. 

PETE'S BENCH REPORT:   The New Simple-ceiver.  Soon to be a Transceiver. 

BILL's BENCH REPORT:  Discrete, Direct Conversion, Ceramic Receiver in iPhone Box.  

THE EDUCATIONAL PORTION OF TODAY's PROGRAM:  
HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT A HOMEBREW RECEIVER. 

MAILBAG. 

DL3AO 1950

SPRAT -- The 007 Connection

The eagle eye of Brent KD0GLS spotted this frame in the 007 movie "Casino Royale."  
Wow -- I just knew those GQRP guys had to be much cooler than they seemed.  I guess there were some indications: They do seem to talk quite a bit about "Q".  There is that weird fondness for Parasets. I understand that several of the senior GQRPers drive Aston Martins.  And that Dobbs guy -- a kindly retired Anglican minister you say?  Really?  I can just hear him saying it:  "Dobbs, George Dobbs."  

DL1YC's Flat Moxon with Armstrong Rotation

DL1YC Moxon

I had a very nice contact on 17 meters yesterday with Jan DL1YC.  It was a rare Moxon-to-Moxon contact, with homebrew 17 meter Moxons on either end.  Jan's is a bit cooler than mine:   His is flat, without the "blownout umbrella" support that we see in mine (below) and in the Hex Beams.  Jans told me that he achieved this flatness by starting out with very long telescoping fishing poles -- he discarded the the thin portions of the pole and used only the more rigid pieces.  (I used 16 foot, 5 piece Shakespeare Wonderpoles from Amazon.) I think he also used thin wire for the elements.  The crossbar that you see in the picture above is there to support a balun at the feed point -- without the cross bar the balun and the feedline would cause the balun to droop. 

I couldn't resist a little front to back testing.   Jan's antenna does not have a rotator -- he used the "Armstrong" method of antenna pointing.  I didn't want to make him go outside to spin the thing around by hand, so I just turned mine and asked him to take note of the difference front to back.  He saw 3 S units.  18 db.  Not bad.   

Jan said his antenna weighs about 8 pounds -- mine is very similar at 9 pounds.  Jan expressed some concern about UV deterioration of the fishing pole fiberglass.  Mine has been up there three years without any problems.  

Like me, Jan had considered "nesting" an element for another ban (perhaps 20 or 12) but -- like me-- had concluded that this would be too difficult. 

N2CQR Moxon

A Direct Conversion iPhone!

Well, really a DC receiver in an iPhone box.

I think the Apple iPhone boxes have great potential as project enclosures.  They are cardboard, but they are very rigid and solid.   I decided to use them for a Direct Conversion receiver project I've had in mind.  

This is a 40 meter DC receiver.  No chips.  Ceramic resonator VXO tuned by a varactor diode. 9V battery as the power source.  Ear buds as the transducer.  Passive, two diode, singly balanced detector.  It sounds great -- so great that I may have to add a gain control. 

The nice fit is no coincidence -- I cut the board so it would fit in the iPhone box.  

Take a look at that top cover.  It is all, well, empty.   I could put another board in there, right?  Maybe a balanced modulator,  a mic amp and an RF amplifier.  Then this thing would be a Double Sideband transceiver.  We could even make use of the little microphone that comes with most of the ear buds.  

I'm thinking that this might be the kind of project that people would like to take on this winter.  Build the VXO first.  Then the AF amp.  Then the product detector and front end. At that point you've built a receiver.  For extra credit you could go on to the transmitter.  No need to use Apple boxes (but they are cool...)  I will try to get the schematic done soon.  My nephew John Henry will test the prototype. 

IZ7VHF's Video on on Hans Summers' QCX Rig, and a Video from Hans

Thanks to W8SX for alerting me to this. 

There is a lot of good stuff on Roberto's site.  He obviously has THE KNACK. 

http://radio-signals.com/

Hans himself has a less detailed video on the rig:

VE3BOF's Regens and DC Receivers

VE3BOF BENCH

Hi Bill:

This is Clark, VE3BOF, in Hensall, Ontario, Canada.

Hensall is located in southwestern Ontario, north of London and a 2  

hour drive west of Toronto.

Last Sunday night, 2017-10-01, I tuned in to 7277 kHz to listen to  

the BitX40 net. I heard you and 2 or 3 others.

Your signal was 5-7, perfectly readable.

The receiver I was using is a modified version of the WBR receiver.

It is still on the piece of chipboard that I mounted all the modules  

onto.  It's an excellent little regenerative receiver.

In the same state of incompleteness, is a modified version of the  

Easy Receiver (QRP Kits) direct-conversion receiver,

I use this receiver for the CW end of the 40M band.

Both receivers have been fitted with 10-turn pots for easy tuning,  

and also lcd frequency counters for displays.

I'm a former Motorola Communications tech, and used to maintain the  

radio systems of District 6 of the Ontario Provincial Police and our Ministry 

of Health emergency services radio system.

Being retired now, I have more time to check Soldersmoke every day  

and listen to your

conversations with Pete, N6QW.

Thank you for very interesting and worthwhile QRP information and  

programming.

Clark Forrest, VE3BOF