A Billion Pixels From Mars

Don't miss the hi-res version.  Link and background info here:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-205&cid=release_2013-205


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Feynman's Red Book (on the Sino-Indian Frontier)

Today I bought a copy of "Feynman's Tips on Physics."   I wasn't sure about buying it, but this story in Ralph Leighton's foreword convinced me:  

"At a lonely border post high on the Himalayan frontier, Ramaswamy Balasubramanian peered through his binoculars at the People's Liberation Army soldiers stationed in Tibet ― who were peering through their scopes back at him. Tensions between India and China had been high for several years since 1962, when the two countries traded shots across their disputed border. The PLA soldiers, knowing they were being watched, taunted Balasubramanian and his fellow Indian soldiers by shaking, defiantly, high in the air their pocket-sized, bright-red copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao ― better known in the West as "Mao's Little Red Book."

Balasubramanian, then a conscript studying physics in his spare time, soon grew tired of these taunts. So one day, he came to his observation post prepared with a suitable rejoinder. As soon as the PLA soldiers started waving Mao's Little Red Book in the air again, he and two fellow Indian soldiers picked up and held aloft the three, big, bright-red volumes of The Feynman Lectures on Physics.

One day I received a letter from Mr. Balasubramanian.  His was among the hundreds I have received through the years describing the lasting impact Richard Feynman has had on people's lives.  After describing the "red-books" incident on the Sino-Indian Frontier, he wrote, 'Now, twenty years later, whose red books are still being read?' "   

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

The Jamesburg Dish

Mama mia!  That's an antenna!  This is the skyhook that the very hip people in yesterday's video (scroll down) are using to send very cool messages to Gliese 526.  With a setup like that, they may have a shot at a QSO!  

More on the antenna here: http://www.jamesburgdish.org/

As I suspected, real hams (not the hipsters!) are doing the tech work. 
 
Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

LONE SIGNAL: SETI gets cool. Perhaps TOO cool! (VIDEO)

Slashdot alerted me to this new SETI-like effort to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations.  It is called LONE SIGNAL.  Check out their video (above and here:
http://youtu.be/M-XcrnSKUog )

http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/crowd-funded-radio-beacon-will-message-aliens-130612.htm

The project has many features that put it in the traditional SolderSmoke area of interest, especially  "the use of a re-furbished radio telescope."   But one look at their video (click above) made me think that perhaps these folks are just too cool for a project like this.  I somehow can't see ANY of these people using a soldering iron.  On the other hand, if WE had videos like this, maybe we'd be able to bring more young people into ham radio!  Yea!  Why can't we be cool too? How about it, ARRL?


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

The Manassas Hamfest

Elisa heroically accompanied me to the Manassas Hamfest on Sunday.  We had fun.  I thought they had a good turnout of vendors and tailgaters, and it seemed like the sellers of real ham stuff were winning the battle against the encroaching computer people.  I saw many interesting old boatanchor radios, including two R-390A receivers, one HT-37, an HW-101 and several other Heathkits.

As for NEW technology, the fellows from the NOVA LABS maker space had a very interesting table, and their web site has a very kind acknowledgement that hams were "the original hackers, who organized build groups and hack labs similar to modern day makerspaces—back before people called themselves “Makers” and long before it was “cool.”  They had a 3-D printer that was doing its thing in a very impressive manner.  They also had some quadro- and octo-copters built by a group called DC Area Drone User Group.   Very cool.  Want one.

Inspired by Nick Kennedy, I have included in this post a picture of my purchases from the hamfest.  As you can see, I controlled myself.  But I couldn't resist the humungous flashlight!  I got a bunch of .1 caps (should have bought more!).  Got a Bud-box (maybe for an Arduino DDS project?)  The little circuit board with the IF cans is interesting.  I bought it (1 dollar!) for the 365 pf variable  cap, but I later realized that it is probably a complete All-American Five receiver on a single board.  I'm not crazy about tubes on PC boards, but this one may have some possibilities.  The roll of tape is supposedly coax sealer.  I also got a little 35 mm slide viewer, and a 12 volt wall wart.

I wore the "Real Radios Glow in the Dark" T-shirt that Elisa got me (on the recommendation of Rogier).  I got more positive comments on that shirt than on any other piece of clothing I've ever owned!

And we saw our first Cicadas of this 17 year cycle. 

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OOPS! Why the AD9850 DDS Boards are So Inexpensive

N3ZI has a very plausible explanation for the low price (about 9 bucks!):

My guess is that this is a liquidation due to a design build error, since they are being sold for a price of about 1/2 the price of the DDS chip alone. The modules are assembled and tested. The design error I noticed is that the wrong output filter is used. These boards use the 9850 running at 125MHz. A 125MHz DDS should have a 50MHz LPF, but it seems that these modules have the 75MHz LPF the chip maker recommends for the AD9851 running at 180MHz. My guess is, someone just copied the wrong filter from the wrong data sheet, and it wasn't caught until they went into production.
But for amateur radio applications they work fine up to about 40MHz. You can push them to 50MHz by adding a correcting filter, which is included in my controller PCB, but the output level is low in the 40-50MHz range.

N3ZI continues to offer some really interesting microcontroller products.  He has a controller board that allows you to simultaneously control TWO AD9850 boards.  This might be exactly what we need when we have a separate receiver and transmitter with different intermediate frequencies: Set up one board with the VFO freq for the receiver and the other for the transmitter with the resulting operating freq displayed on the LCD.  Viola! No more "Spot" or "net" and zero-beat by ear! (But I may be one of the last people on the planet still doing this!)   

N3ZI's site:  http://www.pongrance.com/

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R-390A and Homebrew TX put in Transceive Mode (VIDEO)

N8ZRY has a very nice video on his recent adventures with the legendary R-390A receiver (want one!) and his homebrew 20 meter SSB transmitter.  He manages to essentially put the receiver and transmitter into "transceiver" mode.  Very nice.  I wonder if he had previously used the old standard "spot" or "net" "zero beat by ear" method?  This video has me thinking about ways to bring my many separate receivers and transmitters closer together. The problem is that they all use different IF frequencies (the crystal filters are at different frequencies).  But using my Arduino-based DDS VFO, I guess it wouldn't be too difficult to program the thing to generate one VFO freq for transmit, and a different VFO freq on receive, in effect putting the transmitter and receiver on the same frequency. 

Both the R-390A and the homebrew transmitter look great.   Thanks Greg!


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Dutch Knack During WWII

 

 

There is a very nice article on the MAKE blog this morning: 
http://blog.makezine.com/2013/06/06/an-early-maker-story-from-holland/
 
Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Quote of the Day: On Tinkering

Finally, some justification for my "build first, design later" method:

"Contraptions, machines, wildly mismatched objects working in harmony -- this is the stuff of tinkering.  Tinkering is, at its most basic, a process that marries play and inquiry."

from www.exploratorium.edu/tinkering   Quoted in Massimo Banzi's book "Getting Started with Arduino."

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Alan Yates, VK2ZAY, is back in the knack!

I was getting kind of worried.  I hadn't seen any new articles on Alan's excellent web site.  But on my last visit I learned that he has moved to Seattle and is going to Maker Faires:  http://www.vk2zay.net/article/268

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Save 20% on Knack Books

Codeword: GLOW.   Very appropriate for Grayson's Thermatron book: 



http://www.lulu.com/shop/grayson-evans/hollow-state-design/paperback/product-20987562.html


And also for mine (tubes, QRP fireflies and all that):



http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/soldersmoke

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

1-29 MHz In One Small Box

 

This weekend I put the Arduino/AD9850 Direct Digital Synthesis device into a box this weekend.  It is sort of evolving into a general purpose HF signal generator and/or VFO.  It is really kind of neat that this little collection of boards can generate RF across that range, with accurate digital readout.  Thanks again to Richard Visokey, AD7C, for the circuit and the code.  As you can see, my cabinet making skills will never land me a job on the Discovery Channel,  but I'm kind of pleased with the box.  I picked up the wood panels from a hobby/craft shop. 



 

 

I left a lot of space in the box.  I envision an amplifier taking the output from its current .4 milliwatts up to around 10 milliwatts, followed by step attenuators (pads).

 

Here is the other end.  Of course, I could have just taken the ATMega chip out and avoided putting the whole Arduino board inside the box, but I'll leave that exciting digital adventure for a future project.


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Simple Homebrew SDR

I know that "simple" and "homebrew" aren't the words that come to mind when we think of Software Defined Radios, but minimalist guru Peter Parker, VK3YE, reminds us that with little more than an antenna, a diode, a crystal oscillator and a connection to the computer soundcard, you can dive into the world of SDR. 

I've been doing this for some time now, but my receiver uses a 40673 dual gate MOSFET and a universal VXO from George Dobbs, G3RJV.  I've been running mine with the FLDIGI and JT-65 HF programs.  Peter's video alerted me to the charms of SDRadio from Alberto, I2PHD.  This is a very nice program.  Of course, I'm always happy to add a dash of Italy to my operations.  Thanks Peter!  Thanks Alberto! Thanks George!


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Cliff Stoll DEFINITELY has The Knack! And he Kluges!

 

The Maker Blog has a nice article on Cliff Stoll, the author of "Silicon Snake Oil" and "The Cuckoo's Egg."   I liked Cliff's books and included quotes from them in "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics."  I was glad to see that Cliff is doing well and still tinkering.  Be sure to check out the video on his R/C fork lift.  FB OM.

I was, of course, very intrigued by the slide showing the symbol of the "KlugeMeisters of America." Can we get a pronunciation ruling from Cliff?  Can we nominate people for induction into the KMA?  

In Spiritu Klugo!  Non Vacuo Sine Glyptum!  Words to live by,  my friends...  Patrick Murphy explains all this here:  http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~pmurphy/kluge_where.html 

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Ham Radio, the tsunami, HW-101, Tek 465, BITX-20

I know many of you guys have seen this before. And I know that Farhan is tired of seeing it pop up again and again.  But it just appeared on my Facebook page today and I watched the whole thing and saw things I hadn't noticed before:  There's a Heathkit HW-101 (or maybe its an HW-100).  There is a Tech 465 oscilloscope. There is a BTX-20!  

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Peter Parker's Knobless Wonder Minimalist SSB Rig

 

Oh man, Peter Parker has done it again!   As he did with the Beach 40, he has come up with a circuit that will attract a lot of attention.  It is a single frequency SSB transceiver with no knobs (or windows, or menus!) 

Peter Marks recently had breakfast in Melbourne with VK3YE:
http://blog.marxy.org/2013/05/melbourne-meetup-with-homebrew-legend.html
There are some great pictures of the new rig, and the Beach 40.

Here's the message  from VK3YE (to the Minimalist Radio Group) that may
someday be seen as the start of the Knobless Revolution:

Some might reckon that SSB is inevitably too complex to be in the minimalist
class, but I beg to disagree.

I reckon you could build a whole SSB transceiver in 2 days of solid work. I
took a day to build what will be described below up to the stage where it
was receiving & producing a low level SSB on Tx.

Take this recipe:

1. Build the back end of the BitX http://www.phonestack.com/farhan/bitx.html
That is everything to the right of (and including) the Q2 & Q12 stages.

2. Use cheaply available 7.159 MHz crystals in the crystal filter and
carrier oscillator. Keep filter capacitor values the same. Remove L3 in the
carrier oscillator circuit. Use a slightly bigger trimmer in the carrier
oscillator (say up to 50 pF) and wire in series with crystal. Align trimmer
so carrier freq is 7160 kHz.

3. Build a power amplifier stage / relay / LPF as per the Beach 40. Just
the last 2 stages (using BD139s) should be enough. Output maybe 2w.

The result is a 10 transistor / 1 IC SSB transceiver on 7160 kHz. It's
crystal controlled but at least during the day 2 watts to a good antenna
should be enough for people to hear and reply to your CQ calls up to 800 -
1000 km away. Of course you could go a bit more minimalist and remove the
LM386, substituting 1 transistor instead (as per the original Beach 40)
which is what I did.

The main thing that's odd is it has no knobs - no tuning, RIT, volume, RF
gain etc. Just sockets - for mic, phones, antenna and power to feed it what
it needs (Rx RF, Tx audio, DC power) and give what you want (Rx audio and Tx
RF).

It is philosophically different to using any other transceiver. You either
accept what the radio dishes up (frequency, AF gain, mic gain etc) or you
don't. On or off - there is no other state. Take it or leave it. Like a
cat this is a radio that lives on its own terms.

Those used to fiddling with adjustments will find the 'knobless wonder'
transceiver causes them to be at a loose end. Those so afflicted will smoke
more, bite their nails more or eat junk food more. Sometimes elegant
simplicity in radio can be a health hazard - maybe knobless rigs should
carry health warnings.

On the other hand, and in my view this outweighs the above, there is the
aesthetic satisfaction that comes from using a rig that cannot be made any
simpler. Especially if it's a mode, like SSB, that's widely thought
constructionally complex. Plus it takes little in return - the power
consumption will be a fraction of what a commercial rig will demand.

73, Peter VK3YE
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Stacked Shields -- My Arduino DDS LCD Sandwich

You can barely see the Arduino board down at the bottom.  Above it is a homebrew shield that has the DDS board.  On that shield I also put a female header for a small 16X2 LCD board.   This arrangement avoids the rats nest of wire that often accompanies these digi projects.  This thing had me pulling my hair out yesterday.  I couldn't get the display to work.  After a lot of checking and re-soldering and testing, I concluded the LCD board was bad.  Good thing there is a Microcenter right down the road.  I got a new display and my composure returned.

Mark, K6HX, over at Brainwagon has been encouraging me to continue down the digital path.  Other SolderSmoke friends are wary of this digitization -- one wrote asking "Where is the real Bill Meara and what have you done with him?"

I like the Arduino projects.  This little device certainly demonstrates how you can do things with the digi stuff that would be extremely difficult to do with our beloved analog, discrete component circuitry.  On the other hand, as I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out WHY the display wouldn't display, I came across an e-mail describing Peter Parker's latest minimalist discrete component rig. Why, I asked myself, had I left the happy land of understandable circuits?   Why had I allowed myself to be sucked in by the siren song of Arduino? 

I guess it is good to try something new, to learn something, to get out of your comfort zone.  But excuse me now -- I'm going to fire up my 17 meter analog discrete component rig.  The one with VXOs in both the receiver and the transmitter.  But I'm going to leave the Arduino DDS on -- I like looking at the display.
 
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Thoughts on DSB PSK-31

To QRP-L: 

I have a JUMA TRX-1 cw and dsb transceiver. It seems to me that if I transmit an psk signal there would be two signals generated, one on usb and another on lsb. Is this correct? It does not seem like a good thing to do to me.
Thoughts?
73 Larry WB4HLX
-----------------------------

Larry: 

I've been experimenting with DSB PSK for the last few weeks.  Sure, you are using twice the needed bandwidth,  but in this mode that means you are using only an additional 31 HERTZ! That's not a lot.  Also, if (as I am) you are using a Direct Conversion receiver, in your waterfall you will also be looking at two sets of frequencies -- those going about 2 kHz above center AND 2kHz below.  This helps you avoid causing interference:  If the frequency looks clear on your screen, you can be reasonably sure you won't be bothering anyone with your extra sideband.

This is similar to the AM question: there too you are using additional spectrum.  But it is allowed.

Doug DeMaw and other esteemed technical gurus have promoted DSB as a useful mode that -- through its relative circuit simplicity -- encourages the building of homebrew gear.  DeMaw wisely advised against using high power when running DSB.

I've been having fun with PSK DSB.  I've had many contacts.  I'm running less than one watt to a dipole.   One curious thing that I've noticed:  PSK seems to be sideband independent:  When I tune in a PSK signal on my FLDIGI waterfall, the software will decode it even if I have the FLDIGI set for LSB or USB. 

You might also want to try JT-65.

Good luck. 

Glad to hear that I'm not alone.           Center             Glad to hear that I'm not alone.

73   Bill N2CQRhttp://soldersmoke.blogspot.com

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Ontario Knack Story

Bill:

I think I’ve finally earned the right to contact you.  I have a really severe case of the knack.  I did not realize it until I discovered amateur radio.  My thinking is that there is no hope for those afflicted with the knack.  I believe that amateur radio helps those afflicted to deal with the condition.  It alleviates the symptoms.   

For years I wandered through the technical wilderness dabbling in physics (I have a M.Sc. in Nuclear Physics), aircraft (I was a tow pilot at a gliding club for several years), high power rockets (www.napas.net), electronics and amateur radio.  The most enjoyable part of radio is not the QSOs it’s the building and the satisfaction of a working device. 

I am relatively new to amateur radio but I’ve always had a passion for all things electronic (and technical).  I am a self-taught electronics geek and have been playing around with digital electronics (PIC microcontroller) for some time know. I starting building altimeters for high power rockets that has the capability of setting off onboard charges  to separate the rocket.  When your rocket reaches 10,000 feet, you cannot open a chute at apogee because it’s going to drift too far and you need to open the rocket at apogee (no chute) and then open the main chute at about 1000 feet to minimize drift. I routinely travel to the US to attend LDRS (large dangerous rocket ships). 

Anyway I had to get my amateur ticket for onboard video camera and trackers (beacons).  Once I got my license and got into radio, it was like a drug!! 

I am now  home brewing everything in my shack.   

When I came across Soldersmoke that was like a super drug.  I downloaded and listened to EVERY episode (seriously!).  I followed you and Mike’s journey and I learned soooo much.  I was devastated when I found out about Mike.   

You inspired me to build my own transmitter.  Earlier this year I built a 20m CW transmitter for my rocket that will eventually send telemetry (in CW from a PIC microcontroller) completely from scratch – no kits – no one’s design. Your early episodes also pushed me to learn LTSpice which I used extensively to model transmitter design of others as well as my own. I’m thinking of calling the transmitter “kaputnik”. 

My design is based on a Chinese AD9850 DDS module which generates a square wave followed by a class E amp (with a tuned circuit).  Puts out 1 watt of power with harmonics down by about 40db.  The reason I used this module with that I can easily change frequency (with mod to tuned circuit)  – after all the DDS module is programmable.  All I need to do now is clean up key clicks because the carrier is turning on too fast.  I playing around with slowly increasing the bias on the mosfet to allow the power output to increase slowly.  Any advice/tips/tricks would be appreciated. 

Next project is a remote antenna switch.   However, you have me close to tackling a SSB transceiver.

Anyway, keep up the great work and I’m looking forward to listening to another 150 episodes!! 

Take care and “stay thirsty” my friend. 

73
Dave Rajnauth, VE3OOI

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Building an Arduino Shield

No, an Arduino shield is not something that will protect you from Arduinos.  Resistance IS futile! In the world of microcontrollers, "shields" are, in essence, PC boards with headers that allow you to stack them atop the main microcontroller board.  So instead of the digital rat's nest of wires that you see in my proto-board version of the DDS signal generator, we'll have the AD9850 board mounted above the Arduino on its shield.  But take heart, my fellow luddites:  I have left a lot of space on the board for the construction of a DISCRETE COMPONENT, ANALOG, NON-DIGITAL amplifier.  I'd like to get the output from the 9850 up to around 7 dbm.

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

SolderSmoke Podcast #152 Special Digital Edition

SolderSmoke Podcast #152 is available at

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke152.mp3

May 18, 2013

-- SolderSmoke's WWV Advertising Campaign! 
-- Bands Better -- Working DX!
-- Shack and Shed reorganization
-- Arduino Madness!  CW Beacon Machine!  DDS Sig Generator! (see video above)
-- Breaking and Fixing an Arduino
-- Reverse Beacon Network
-- The Cult of Arduino: QRP Computing with Italian Charm
-- PSK-31 and JT65 with Homebrew DSB Rig
-- SolderSmoke Book Corner:  Hollow-State Design!  Getting Started With Arduino!
-- Massimo Banzi has THE KNACK!
-- MAILBAG:  AA1TJ, G3RJV, AL7RV (now W8NSA), others...  

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Arduino Adventures: LCD screen added

Pretty impressive for a guy whose previous project was a crystal controlled DSB transceiver, don't you think?  They say that variety is the spice of life, and the Arduino board has been adding quite a bit of spice to my tech life lately.  That tiny board up above the proto board is the six dollar DDS-9850 board -- it arrived in an envelope from Shenzhen, China last week. I hope to connect it to the Arduino and the LCD to make a sig generator or VFO. 

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Earth-Moon-Earth!

I think the really cool thing about this is the "self echo."  Listen carefully when the operator in the video turns it over to the G station.  At first I thought they were doubling, or perhaps another station was on frequency.  But then I realized that when he releases the push to talk, the first signal he hears is his own signal, bouncing back from the Moon! c is real!

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

DSB Digital Success!

It's ugly but it gets you there.  I finally got the little 30 meter DSB/Direct Conversion transceiver that I built in Rome working on PSK-31 and JT-65.  It features a VXO circuit from George Dobbs, an AF amplifier designed by Roger Hayward, and an RF amp chain designed by Peter Parker.  It produces about 1 watt of RF.  At first I was manually switching the rig from transmit to receive, but this got old real fast, so I built a little VOX circuit -- the AF from the sound card does the switching.  Last night I fired it up on PSK-31 and stations were calling me (including one fellow in Cuba).   Then I went to JT-65 and had a complete QSO with KT1B. Another this morning with K0ASK.  It is kind of fun to combine the simple (this rig) with the complex (the computer and these digi modes).   I find that I can work both JT65 and PSK 31 while keeping the VXO at 10.139 MHz.   

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Drone Dudes

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Homebrew Adventures with JT65

My six dollar DDS board hasn't arrived yet, so this weekend I worked on the re-build of the 30 meter Direct Conversion/DSB transmitter that I built in Rome (originally for WSPR use).  I was hoping to use this rig to make at least a few PSK-31 contacts.   But I started seeing these strange looking sigs in the waterfall.  I found out they are JT65 (JT for Joe Taylor).  So I downloaded the program JT65-HF.  I got the receiver going very quickly (it is a 40675 dual gate MOSFET followed by the audio amplifier out of Roger Hayward's Ugly Weekender RX).  The transmitter is just a two diode singly balanced modulator followed by the RF chain from Peter Parker's Beach 40 Rig.   QSOs seem imminent.


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Now That's A Radio Shack! JH0JDV

I was at the workbench this morning, working on a 30 meter DC/DSB transceiver.  I had the Barebones superhet tuned to white noise on 17 meters.  Then I heard a strong CQ that sounded like DX.  It was Ely, JH0JDV.   He was the only signal on the band.  We had a very nice contact, no problems at all.  I was running my normal 10 watts to a dipole.  Afterwards I Googled him.  Wow, he has a REAL radio shack!  FB Ely!

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Making the World's Smallest Movie

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

WA0RBR's Fun-Rig

Last night I called CQ on 20 CW (with my Arduino keying the homebrew transmitter!) and was answered by Mark, WA0RBR.   I Googled the call and found that Mark is quite a homebrewer.  He wrote a nice series of articles for 73 magazine in the early 80's.   Here they are:

http://mikeyancey.com/73mag/listauthor.php?Author=WA0RBR


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Save 20% on "Hollow-State Design" and "SolderSmoke"!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/grayson-evans/hollow-state-design/paperback/product-20987562.html


http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/soldersmoke

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

"The Economist" on Raspberry Pi

http://www.economist.com/node/21576780

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Direct Digital Synthesis

I just bought one of these.   I hope to hook it up to an Arduino and turn it into a VFO.  Or a signal generator.  Six bucks!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009I7DR7E/ref=pe_175190_21431760_3p_M3T1_ST1_dp_1


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

A simpler DC motor

A few years ago Alan, VK2ZAY, showed Billy and me how to make a very simple DC motor.  This one looks even simpler.  I'm guessing that the bottom of the coil is making intermittent contact, setting up flux lines that get torqued by the magnets' field.  

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Grayson's New Book

Our friend Grayson's book about hollow-state radio is now available.  It looks like a great addition to the radio art.  Available from Lulu:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/grayson-evans/hollow-state-design/paperback/product-20987562.html  


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

King of the Nerds

Are you a super fan of STAR WARS, STAR TREK, GAME OF THRONES, LORD OF THE RINGS, or BATTLESTAR GALACTICA? Are you a GAMER who owns every console and maxes out trophies and achievements? Do you have an outrageous collection of TOYS and/or COMIC BOOKS? Are you passionate about MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS, or BIOLOGY? Do you build ROBOTS or PROGRAMS for fun? Are you obsessed with SUPER HEROES? Are you a D&D or WoW fanatic? Do you love everything SCI-FI? Are you ARDUINO proficient? Do you know at least 100 digits of Pi?Is your IQ at least two standard deviation above the mean? Do you consider yourself a GEEK or a NERD?

Submit a tape and possibly win 100K.

http://nerdking.net/
 
Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

McGyver

Mike, KL7R, was a fan of McGyver.  Mike would have liked this:

http://blog.makezine.com/2013/04/22/5-4-3-2-1-things-about-lee-zlotoff/


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

AA1TJ Crosses the Pond using an Electric Razor!

Take a look at Michael's Razor Rig, made from parts salvaged from his electric razor.   I was thinking that perhaps on the receive side a fox-hole receiver made with a rusty Gillette blade would fit in nicely with the shaving theme.   Very glad to see the AA1TJ blog getting more active. 

http://aa1tj.blogspot.com/2013/04/talking-to-france-via-my-electric-razor.html


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Arduino, K6HX's code, and an RBN (minimum) speed limit?

 

Hello Mark:  I've been using your code.  Very nice.   Easy to use and modify, even for a digital dunce like me. 

 

I've been using an Arduino and your code to key my 20 meter QRP transmitter.  I watch the Reverse Beacon Network to see how I'm getting out.  I think  your code let me discover something about RBN:  there may be a lower "speed limit" on the skimmers.  I noticed that when I left your code at the default 12 wpm, I was not picked up by the skimmers.  When I called CQ the old fashioned way (with my hand!) at 15 wpm I got plenty of spots.  This morning I changed the speed setting on your code to 15 wpm and -- sure enough -- immediately got picked up by an RBN station. 

 

Anyway, thanks for the code and for your Brainwagon blog. 

 

73  Bill  

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

MIT's Hobby Shop

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Yellowstone, Smoke-jumpers, and SolderSmoke on 20 CW

Bill,

It has been a long time since I have written to you.  I’m the ex-smokejumper up here in the great winter wonderland known as Montana.  I thought I’d drop a quick note to say howdy and fill you in on the crazy string of events that happened this afternoon.

To refresh your memory…. I stopped jumping fire in ‘09, I have continued to be employed with the US Forest Service as a radio technician.  Part of my duties is to do annual maintenance on all of the Gallatin National Forest VHF handheld radios.  So every winter I update the programming and check the VCOs, RX specs, modulation, and TX power on about 250 handheld radios (luckily the USFS provides me with a handy Aeroflex 3500 service monitor that speeds up this task, but I digress). 

Anyhow I had finished programming and tuning a large batch of radios and today I was making my rounds to deliver them to the various offices.  My route was from Bozeman (where my shop is) to West Yellowstone (where I used to jump out of) … through the North side of Yellowstone Park to Gardiner), then  following the Yellowstone river north up the Paradise Valley (where I grew up as kid) to Livingston (where I live now).  I must say it’s an absolutely beautiful drive that took me to 6 of my delivery points.  This time of year Yellowstone Park is closed to normal traffic, but official Gov’t use is permitted, so you see very few other vehicles, it’s a pretty neat time of year to be in the Park.

Continuing….I stopped at the smokejumper base to deliver their radios and visited with some of the “bros” for a bit then headed on my way.  As I drove off I was thinking of my very last fire jump in Yellowstone and it reminded me that I had written to you back in ’08 about my last jump and listening to “Soldersmoke” while waiting for my ride home.  So today as I drove on through the Park I turned on the old Yaesu FT-747 that I installed in my work truck to accompany me on some of these long drives.  I did not have the mic or key with me, so I was “voiceless”, but I put the 20m stick on my hustler antenna and turned it on anyway.  I enjoy tuning in to some CW while driving and just listening to random QSOs to make use of my drive time by honing my CW skills.  Just after I turned on the radio I heard some a W7 station calling CQ and listened for a while in hopes that it might be W7ZOI, I always am listening for the callsigns of the QRP gurus out there, no luck though it was not Wes.  I continued listening for quite a while.  On the final leg of my trip from Gardiner to Livingston, I was just north of Yankee Jim canyon in Paradise Valley when I heard a very rhythmic CW pattern.  It was almost musical sounding, so I tuned it in good, put the narrow filter on and listened.  It sounded like the OP was using a Vibroplex bug key, due to the long dash patterns, but the way he keyed it was almost like CW R&B..it was a little tough to copy but fun to listen to none the less.  Anyhow as I continued listening, his callsign was KC0MTC in Des Moines, IA and you can guess who he was talking to…none other than yourself, N2CQR!!  I couldn’t believe I had just been thinking about “Soldersmoke”, in fact I had even checked the podcast on my iPhone before leaving West Yellowstone to see if a new podcast was posted yet.   Then a hour or so later, I hear you live on 14.058500 MHz.  What are the chances.  I was frantically thinking of a way to jury rig a cable of some sort to plug into my key jack.  I was hoping you would make another contact so  I could pull over, take a 15min safety break,  rig up a key out of headphone cable or something and give you a call by touching the wires together.  Unfortunately, you disappeared right after the QSO with KC0MTC.  I think you went QRT after that.  I tuned all around the CW portion of 20 searching but no luck. 

Either which way, I got a big kick out of it and thought it was quite a coincidence.  I figured you would appreciate the story.  So here is your signal report into Montana …

You were just above the noise this evening, which is quite high S3-4 due to the engine noise in my mobile. You were readable most of the time but dipping into the noise occasionally.   I heard you tell him you were QRP but missed the power level you were using.  I’d give you an RST of 549, this was about 1730 MDT.  Not bad at all for QRP and 1800 miles or so….KC0MTC was booming in a solid 599.

Anyhow 73’s,

Kevin – AA7YQ

"The New Cool"

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Arduino Repaired (well, sort of)

Thanks to info from Leif, KC8RWR, about the purpose of the chip that was heating up on my Arduino board (an LM386 used to determine which socket was supplying voltage for the board) I decided to try just taking the hot chip off the board.  This afternoon I fired up my reflow station and blew some 466 degree F air on that chip.  It came right off and the Arduino appears to work just fine without it.  

This was only a semi-satisfying repair.  It would have been much better if I'd really known what I was doing, and if I'd really known what was going on with that chip.  

The removed chip is up by the tip of the pen (TOO SMALL!).  The transistor and the relay that keys the transmitter are on a piece of PC board above the Arduino. 

That Arduino called CQ for me on 20 meters tonight -- Mel, K4JFF,  in Georgia responded.  Thanks Leif! And thanks again to Mark, K6HX, for the code.

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Adventures with Small Computers

 
I've succumbed to the lure of the tiny computers and microprocessors.  This weekend I was playing with the Arduino that I bought (supposedly) for Billy.   You see, I have a little microprocessor-based keyer in my ten meter beacon rig (Demaw's "Lil'Slugger") .   It works fine once you get the desired Morse sequence into it, but getting that done is difficult and frustrating for someone (like me) unaccustomed to an iambic keyer.   So I was thinking that this would be easier just to replace the keyer with  an Arduino.  I was right.    With some help and advice from Billy, I got the Arduino going, and got the little LED blinking.   Then I took some code from Mark K6HX, modified it for my call-sign, and loaded it into the Arduino.  No problem at all.  Kind of fun.  And it opens your eyes to all the possible applications of this little board. 
 
Unfortunately, in the course of fooling around with the interface between the board and my rig I think I did damage to my Arduino.  I managed to blow out the blinking (pin 13) LED on the board.  I could live without that, but now the ICs get very hot (especially the little surface mount chip just below the 16 MHz crystal).   Anyone hope of fixing this?  (I've already ordered a replacement board,  but I feel guilty about this.)
 
Here's a good article describing the pros and cons of Arduino, Raspberry Pi and Beagle Bone:
 
http://blog.makezine.com/2013/04/15/arduino-uno-vs-beaglebone-vs-raspberry-pi/ 

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French Knack: F8ATA, F8KE, F8CKH, and K3DY

Hello Bill, It has been a while! I don't know if you remember but I emailed you back in September 2010, introducing myself as a fellow amateur listening to your podcasts. I had just moved from France and received back then my FCC vanity callsign K3DY.

It took me a while to get my ham shack back together but finally I was on the bands again! Recently, I started re reading your book, very inspirational. Since my very first license (as F8CKH) at 16, my interests have always been into the design / homebrew as well as QRP & CW. Why on earth would a teenager do that? I think I have the knack. My motto is: "Don't turn it on, take it apart!!!".

Anyway, it has been a lot of fun to work on some various projects (the one in progress now is a LC meter using a LCD display and a PIC 16F627). It took longer than expected to get to that point as I had to work on a PIC programmer interface as well as refresh my C language programming skills! I recently discovered that mouser is offering some nice project enclosures. In the past, my finished products were kind of "ugly" (to the average Joe not us of course!) so I am trying to work on that.

Oh also, last time I emailed you, I talked about my grand father EF8ETA, F8ATA then F8KE in the late 20s and how seeing his electronic lab and radios when I was 7 or 8 inevitably changed my life! After all this, I - had - to get my license and get involved! My father, also a ham, emailed me a picture of F8KE's shack in 1929/1930. My grand father was at the time 19 years old. Also attached to the email are two scans of his QSL cards dated as well 1929 or so. He was using a classic design for the era, based on a Hartley Oscillator. I am trying to imagine how it was to get the knowledge back then on how to build a station (TX, RX, antenna) but also how to get the parts! When people now complain that they can't finish up a homebrew project because they can't find a FT50-3 core, well they should think of how it must have been almost 100 years ago.

Have a great weekend! 73, K3DY Antoine

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Happy World Cosmonautics Day!

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Arduino and Bugs (real bugs! billions of them!)

http://blog.makezine.com/2013/04/10/swarmageddon-cicadas-helping-crowdsource-citizen-science/

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Imaging Across the EM Spectrum

Amazing images here:

http://blog.makezine.com/2013/04/09/somewhere-outside-the-rainbow-imaging-across-the-em-spectrum/

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A Nice Workshop in Germany

Wannabe-Choppers from Thorsten Indra on Vimeo.

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Sputnik Schematic Found!



We were searching for this last year.  Oleg, RV3GM, finally found the schematic for the transmitter in the Sputnik satellite. 

ftp://ftp.radio.ru/pub/2013/04/55.pdf


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

SolderSmoke Podcast #151

SolderSmoke Podcast #151 is available.

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke151.mp3

April 1, 2013

Topics:
-- Spring not yet sprung
-- Dominican nostalgia wave hits SolderSmoke HQ
-- Rebuild of my first transmitter
-- Dusting off the Barebones Superhet
-- SolderSmoke Book Corner:
      Ben Franklin by Walter Issacson
      How Arthur C. Clarke handled his Mailbag
      "The New Cool"  Dean Kamen's house/shack
      Transistor Radios by Ronald Quan
-- New SolderSmoke Advertising Campaign
-- QRP vs. QRO:
      Put 40 milliwatt "Shark Fin" QRSS rig on the air
      Being lured into QRO amp construction projects
-- Reverse Beacon Network
-- Looking for my Elmer (or his son)
-- MAILBAG

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20