Ham Radio -- Practicing Social Distancing for over 100 Years!

I really liked this picture. 

Words to Live By -- From Allan WA9IRS

SolderSmoke Podcast #219 SPECIAL CORONA VIRUS CRISIS PODCAST

SolderSmoke Podcast #219 is available for download: 

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke219.mp3

14 March 2020

SPECIAL CORONA VIRUS EMERGENCY EDITION

We thought it would be nice to put out a special edition of the podcast to help listeners keep up their morale during this difficult time.  So we’ll do our regular kind of show, but we’ll try to emphasize things you can do to stay busy and keep up morale while stuck at home.

BILL’S BENCH (and operating position)

--NOVICE RIG ROUNDUP.  NRR.  Continues through this weekend.  Lots of fun.  Cool rigs worked:  Jon WS1K’s "Scrounger."   Greg AA8V’s 6X2 superhet.  And WN4NRR. 

-- S-38 MANIA.  My S-38E story.   Bought parts.  Bought a junker.  Fixed the first one then used the parts to fix the junker. Now I have 2 S-38Es. 

-- Got capacitor kit from Hayseed Hamfest.  FB.

PETE’S BENCH

Hilbert Transforms

AD9833 glued onto a Nano

Teesny and Radig and ZL2CTM

PWKSCDS 

More Mint

SOME THINGS TO DO DURING COVID 19 CRISIS

Sampson Boat Company Tally-Ho videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA

WebSDR  NA5B  http://na5b.com:8901/

NRR http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2020/03/novice-rig-round-up-march-7-march-15.html

Revive an old boatanchor

Get back into shortwave listening.

Get on the air—make some contacts! 

Take a walk.  Get some exercise.  Listen to SolderSmoke and other podcasts when you walk.

Cook something from the famous Pasta Pete web site. http://www.pastapete.com/

Help someone who needs help.

MAILBAG

QSP – What a cool magazine!  Pete and I both have articles in there.

Hot Iron – great new issue also.  Lots in there.

Tony Fishpool G4WIF  Words of Wisdom on the NanoVNA.

Thoughts on How Hams Can Use the Shortwave Broadcast Frequencies

Ed DD5LP sent us some very interesting information about a resurgence of shortwave broadcast activity in Europe.  Thanks Ed. 

Here is a collection of QSL cards sent out last year by some of these new stations.  

https://www.myradiowaves.com/

Hi Bill,

I'm just listening to the latest podcast and note your returning lovefor AM Broadcast stations and wondered if you also see the trend in the US that we are seeing in Germany?

 I know you have WTWW but that's a commercial SW AM Broadcast radio station, that has always been owned and run by a family of Hams. What we are seeing Germany is that when a commercial broadcaster such as Deutsche Welle closes down their Shortwave Broadcast stations, Amateurs are applying for and getting licences to the freed up frequencies. This started about 5 years ago with channel292 (Channel292.de) on initially 6070 kHz and then later also  on 7440 kHz. This amateur is located near Ingolstadt in Bavaria and runs 10 kW using the driver stage from the old DeutscheWelle 100 kW transmitter on the same frequency. He is partnered with a group in Austria who run a major AM station near Vienna that has two 500 kW transmitters and some fantastic massive antenna systems with 20dB gain across the whole  of the HF spectrum. That Austrian station is still owned by the Austrian government in case they need a broadcast station to transmit around the world at any time. It's kept "idling" at 100 kW in the meantime and like Channel 292 includes the German language "DARC Radio" amateur radio program in what it transmits.

New on the scene is "shortwaveradio.de" - Yes the station name is the same as their web address. They currently run just 1 kW into an Inverted-V wire antenna on 3975 kHz (in the 75m BROADCAST band over here) and 6160 kHz in the 49m broadcast band.  As they are located in North Germany, I don't get much of a signal from them down here in the south and the recording is using a WebSDR receiver. Their dipole is orientated to cover the Benelux countries and the UK. The lads at this station are always looking for English content, so if you want part of Soldersmoke to be transmitted on a shortwave AM broadcast station, (as you mentioned in the latest podcast) I can easily put you in touch with them.

One more for the list could be Radio Caroline in the UK. The station, which once was the main pirate radio station off the coast of the UK is now a volunteer historic preservation society (with some radio Hams involved) who have been granted a local radio service licence using a frequency (648 kHz) and transmitter site previously used by the BBC world service! Their old nemesis ! (http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html )

73  Ed DD5LP / G8GLM / VK2JI.

QSO Today Interview with Dale Parfitt W4OP

Eric Guth 4Z1UG interviewed Homebrew Hero Dale Parfitt W4OP on the QSO Today podcast.   The interview is really great.  Listen here: 

https://www.qsotoday.com/podcasts/W4OP

Wow, libration fading.  Who knew?  

Dale has appeared in many SolderSmoke bolg posts and podcasts.  He is definitely in the Homebrew Hero category.  

Check out some of those blog posts here: 
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=Parfitt

and here: 

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search/label/Parfitt--%20Dale

Thanks to Eric and Dale. 

The Woz on Technology, Surplus Parts, Intercoms, and Ham Radio

Thanks to Dan Random for alerting us to this.  During the first five minutes Woz talks about being an "electronics kid" and becoming a ham radio operator.  For me also, wired intercoms were a precursor to ham radio. 

More SolderSmoke blog posts on Steve Wozniak here: 
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search/label/Wozniak%20--%20Steve

The Homebrew Rigs I Worked During the First Day of Novice Rig Roundup (NRR)

The Thing-of-Beauty above is "The Scrounger" homebrew transmitter of Jon WS1K. Jon writes: 

The rig I used this morning was the Scrounger.  I built it a couple of weeks ago.  It took me about 2 months of trolling a local thrift store for the right pan. I wanted a pan that captured the spirit of a true Novice built rig.

As a side note, the key that I'm using is a JH Bunnell that I bought at one of the MIT flea markets last summer in Cambridge.  It's mounted on a piece of plywood and written on the plywood is the Novice callsign WN1UMD.  Cool or what?

More of Jon's rigs here: https://www.qrz.com/db/WS1K

Above is Greg Latta AA8V's amazing 6X2 superhet receiver: 

More details here:

https://www.frostburg.edu/personal/latta/ee/6x2rcvr/6x2rcvr.html