Into Space (almost) with the Basic Stamp

L. Paul Verhage has been a leader in the edge-of-space balloon game for a long time now. This morning, Hack-A-Day led me to a site that has an on-line version of his book, and a collection of his balloon and Basic Stamp articles for Nuts-and-Volts. Inspirational stuff.

Here it is: http://www.parallax.com/tabid/567/Default.aspx

Clayton's Cool Solar QRSS Rig, WA5DJJ, TESLA!

Clayton (who is NOT crazy) has put together a really neat solar-powered QRSS rig with the two wires for the dipole antenna sticking out the ends of the transmitter box. During the testing phase he went the extra mile by first freezing the circuit into a block of ice and then heating it up in an oven. I guess he really wanted a wide range of temperature data! Clayton's web site on the project is very interesting and very well done. Check it out:
http://clayton.isnotcrazy.com/mept_v1

In other QRSS news, David, WA5DJJ, just back from vacation, fired up his QRSS rig only to discover that there are no grabbers on in North America. What's up with that? Can someone out there help out OM DJJ?

Did you guys see that Google is today marking Tesla's birthday. Clearly there are some Knack vicitms in the Google-plex.

The End of Field Day... and SDR

Deon, K6WH ZS1ACP has been having a great time with Software Defined Radios and stealth vertical antennas in San Diego. His blog site has this great shot of what the band (was it 40?) looked like at the moment that Field Day ended. Check out Deon's blog:
http://capesafari.com/hamradio/SDR/SoftRockLite.html

World Moonbounce Day

I was thinking that if you have World Moonbounce Day marked on your calendar, you probably have The Knack.

The picture above is of a dish in Tasmania.
Check out the article in Wired about this very interesting event:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/moonbounce/

Nice Video on 40 Meter Receiver Project

Tom, AK2B, put up a nice video about a 40 meter receiver that he made from the small circuit boards that Diz sells at PartsAndKits.com. Also, you will see KD1JV's digital dial and the New England QRP club's NEScaf. Nice work guys!

Links from #111: W7ZOI, VU3ICQ, AA1TJ

Here is the excellent discussion of bi-directional amps I mentioned. From the web site of W7ZOI:
http://w7zoi.net/Bidirectional%20Matched%20Amplifier.pdf

Here is Farhan's new JBOT 5 watt final amplifier:
http://www.phonestack.com/farhan/jbot.html

Here is the mysterious (and perhaps diabolical) Xtaflex from AA1TJ (the first rig EVER to promise "buns of steel.")
http://mjrainey.googlepages.com/xtaflex

SolderSmoke Podcast #111

Lunchtime on Ponza (with Palmarola Island in the background)

http://www.soldersmoke.com

In SolderSmoke 111:

July 5, 2009
Ponza and the Pontine Islands
The Xtal Set Society -- Great guys!
Spark plugs as lightning arresters
The Grundig Mini 300 SW receiver
Jupiter from Rome and from Mars
Saturn from the window
More tremors
Back to visual MEPT
Is my antenna down, or is it conditions?
W7ZOI on bidirectional amps
Farhan's simple "JBOT" 5W BJT amp
AA1TJ's Xtaflex
Regens from hell
WD-40
Sprat 139
Arthur C. Clarke's "Voices from the Sky"
MAILBAG

Check out the new book "SolderSmoke -- A Global Adventure in Radio Electronics. " Read the first chapter here:
http://www.lulu. com/content/ paperback- book/soldersmoke /6743576

The Pontine Islands

We were out on Ponza island this week. Amazing place. Part of the Pontine Island group. Brave Ulysses was an earlier visitor. Roman emperors used it as a summer place. It is only about 33 km from the mainland and you can get there from Anzio in about one hour by fast hydrofoil. We took a small boat over to the beautiful island of Palmarola. I did a bit of shortwave listening. More about this trip in the next SolderSmoke.

Video about SolderSmoke -- A Global Adventure in Radio Electronics

You can get the book here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/soldersmoke/6743576

Rocket-cam!

I liked this video of the launch of NASA's new lunar orbiter.

VK5DGR's QRSS Rig

David, VK5DGR, built this very fine QRSS rig, and is currently shaking up the grabbers with 20 mW.

I really like his way of putting that power level in perspective:

"Look around your room and find a glowing LED. Well a typical red LED has 2V and 10mA flowing through it, or about 20mW. It can barely make it a few metres to be detected by your eyes. Imagine detecting it at a range of 1200km! That’s what I find remarkable about QRSS - tiny power levels that go a very long way."

For more info, go to David's "Beer, Coffee and a little DSP" blog:
http://www.rowetel.com/blog/?p=118

Jupiter from Rome (and from Mars)

I was up earlier than usual this morning and decided to do some planetary astronomy from the Eternal City. The Heavens Above web site showed Jupiter high in the pre-dawn sky. A quick look out the window confirmed that from our courtyard it would be clear of the Trastevere rooftops. Soon the six inch Dobsonian Newtonian reflector was in operation. I got a very nice view of Jupiter and the four Galilean moons through fairly clear Roman skies.

The view was similar to that of the picture above. There are a lot of better shots of Jupiter available on the 'net, but this one is a bit unusual. It was taken from Mars:

Jupiter/Galilean Satellites: When Galileo first turned his telescope toward Jupiter four centuries ago, he saw that the giant planet had four large satellites, or moons. These, the largest of dozens of moons that orbit Jupiter, later became known as the Galilean satellites. The larger two, Callisto and Ganymede, are roughly the size of the planet Mercury; the smallest, Io and Europa, are approximately the size of Earth's Moon. This MGS MOC image, obtained from Mars orbit on 8 May 2003, shows Jupiter and three of the four Galilean satellites: Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa. At the time, Io was behind Jupiter as seen from Mars, and Jupiter's giant red spot had rotated out of view. This image has been specially processed to show both Jupiter and its satellites, since Jupiter, at an apparent magnitude of -1.8, was much brighter than the three satellites.

Text and image from:
http://publicdomainclip-art.blogspot.com/2006/06/space-final-frontier-jupiter-and-moons.html

The Xtal Set Society

The Xtal Set Society wins our "Good Guys of the Month" award. In an effort to improve the performance of my Vatican City Crystal Radio, and my hellish regen, I ordered a Hi-Z crystal earphone from the Society. It arrived very quickly, along with a free copy of their newsletter, their amazing catalog, and a free piece of candy!

There is great stuff in the catalog, and the newsletter seems like gold mine of technical info.

Check it out: http://www.midnightscience.com/index.html

SolderSmoke Podcast #110

http://www.soldersmoke.com

June 21, 2009
Day trips in Lazio and Tuscany
My SSSSSolder SSSSSSMoke SSSS problem
Crystal Radios pick up heavenly Gregorian chants...
... regen picks up screeches from somewhere else
Speech processing for DSB?
I0ZY's linear amplifiers
Book Review: "The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments" by George Johnson
MAILBAG (including an update from Dover)

DIYers: Dangerously Close to "The Knack"

Lots of potential here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8107803.stm

Herschel Space Telescope Opens its Eyes

First light for a new telescope is always exciting, and even more so when the 'scope is in space. Having all the instruments floating in liquid helium makes it all , well, even cooler.

Here is the BBC report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8099105.stm

Crystal Radios from Heaven, Regens from ?

Yesterday I was describing the heavenly sounds coming from my crystal radio. In a minimalist mood, this morning I fired up (an appropriate term!) my ET-1 regen rig. This is the single FET transceiver described in earlier blog articles. The contrast with yesterday's experience couldn't be starker. Instead of Gregorian chants, I was greeted by the screeches of excessive regeneration. The crystal receiver seemed to WANT to demodulate signals, the regen required all kinds of adjustment and coaching and, it seemed, black magic. All this made me think that while the crystal sets are heavenly, the regens seem like they are from the other place.
There is a Roman ham who has said he will try to have a contact with me using this ET-1 rig. One will be enough, then it will be back to direct conversion and superhets for me.

Gregorian Chants on a Crystal Radio

Last week I was telling Billy about crystal radios, and I followed-up by digging up the one we built in London. I don't have my really good, HI-Z headphones, but even with fairly LO-Z cans, I could pull Vatican Radio's 1530 kHz signal out of the ether using just a Germanium diode, a coil, a variable cap, and my all-purpose end-fed wire antenna.
I live very close to Vatican City (see above), but I think their AM transmitter is out of town, to the North of Rome. I visited the Wiki on Vatican Radio. Very interesting. Turns out that the Jesuits run the radio stations. Go here for a virtual tour:
http://www.vaticanradio.org/museo_tecnico/it/gal_fot_24.asp
It took me a few minutes to hook up the 4 parts of my crystal receiver; it seemed kind of fitting (and a bit eerie) to be rewarded with the faint sound of Gregorian chants.

Five. Two. Seven. Six. Three. Six. Nine. Eight......

Nick, KB1SNG, reports that he was brought into ham radio via an interest in the infamous "Numbers Stations." He sent along a link to a very interesting site on this subject:
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page30.html

Italian Experimental Station in the Good Old Days... And Today!

Today (he tells me it is 50 years later!) my friend Gianfranco is on the air as I0ZY.
Transmitter back then was homebrew except for a Geloso VFO purchased for 7000 lira (11 dollars at the time). Tubes were 6J5's and 6V6's. It ran AM. Two 807's in the final with 600 volts on the plates. Two 6L6's running AB2 as the modulator. His mic was salvaged from an old wire recorder. Except for the VFO, everything was from WWII surplus.
On the receive side, he had an HRO 5 by National that he picked pretty much in the same flea market area that we visit today. It was in such bad shape that they gave it to him for free! With a lot of patience and persistence, he was able to get it to work on 20 meters. Gianfranco clearly had The Knack!

And he still does! He now has a wonderful company (SPE) that manufactures in Italy some very advanced linear amplifiers. He is the designer and creator of the Expert 1K-FA. Check out this video on his company and his product:



Here is the link to the site for the Expert 1K-FA:
http://www.radio-ham.eu/Expert1K-FA.htm