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Showing posts sorted by date for query Anderson. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Anderson. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Sunday, August 21, 2022

On our 17th Anniversary: SolderSmoke Podcast #179 -- TENTH ANNIVERSARY SHOW -- A Walk Down Memory Lane

On August 21, 2005 Podcast #1 was uploaded to our old GeoCities host. Just prior to that Mike KL7R set up a Yahoo Mail account.  I still use it. Yahoo sent me an e-birthday card! 



I put our 10th Anniversary Podcast on the YouTube Channel today.  Click above. Show notes below 

---------------------------------

22 August 2015

YESTERDAY MARKED 10 YEARS OF THE SOLDERSMOKE PODCAST
-- A clip: The first minutes of SolderSmoke #1
-- A trip down SolderSmoke memory lane.
-- The SolderSmoke lexicon -- words and phrases we use (a lot).

BENCH REPORT

-- Pete's antenna project.
-- Pete's new Blog: http://n6qw.blogspot.com
-- Bill's big amplifier problem fixed thanks to Allison KB1GMX.
-- Six digit freq readout with an Altoids case.

THE Si5351 PHASE NOISE CONTROVERSY

-- ALL oscillators make noise.
-- Keeping things in perspective: It is 100 db down!
-- Observations and tests from LA3PNA, NT7S, and K0WFS:
http://k0wfs.com/2015/08/21/si5351-phase-noise-and-thd-tests-using-an-agilent-e4402b-spectrum-analyzer/

http://nt7s.com/2014/11/si5351a-investigations-part-7/

-- Try it, you'll like it! The benefits trying things on real rigs.

NEWS
Interviews on "QSO TODAY" with Eric 4Z1UG.
Horrible band conditions.
Looking at Saturn with telescope.

MAILBAG

Another recruit for the CBLA: Paul KA5WPL.
Ron G4GXO on Bell-Thorn and Eden9 SSB rigs.
Rupert G6HVY on Kon Tiki radio and Mr. Spock.
Mikele's Croation BITX rigs.
Dean AC9JQ's TIA.
Bryan KV4ZS will build an LBS receiver.
Dave Anderson give Pete good antenna advice.
Steve Smith moves in from the garage.
Pete has built 12 SSB transceivers. Intervention time?
------------------

Saturday, May 7, 2022

SolderSmoke Podcast #237 is available: TV Show! No! W9YEI's 1939 TV. 1712 Rig. HQ-100. New SDR Rig and Book. JF3HZB's VFO Digital Dial. FIELD DAY! PSSST. MAILBAG


SolderSmoke podcast #237 is available:  http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke237.mp3


Travelogue -- New York City!  Stickers!
And about that trip to Los Angeles for the SolderSmoke Cable TV show... 

Well, it fit in well with SolderSmoke's UNFORGETTABLE appearance on the Oprah book club.
And TechieTatts? Daughter worried about listeners rushing to get tattoos -- A risk we were willing to take.

https://in.pinterest.com/padmakumar10/techie-tatts/

This episode is sponsored by PartsCandy.  GREAT test leads: https://www.ebay.com/usr/partscandy

Bill's Bench

Tracking down Johnny Anderson's 1939 or 1940 homebrew TV receiver.

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=Anderson
Working with Joh DL6ID.
Jean Shepherd's January 1973 description.
FlickLives web site and Steve Glazer W2SG have lots of info on Shep and his friends.
Internet allows us to look at TV articles that were being published.
We've concluded: Probably 1939 or 1940, using an RCA 913 1 inch CRT tube. 

Lots of ideas from IRE Journal, QST, and Gernsback magazines.
Quite an achievement! Amazing how much pre-war TV progress there was.  

17-12 rig
All boxed up and working DX!
Figured out how to display both 17 and 12 on the same LED. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAmmFZyFu8w
Drain protector for speaker cover. Copper tape to cover horrible cabinet making.
I think I need a Hex Beam.

Hammarlund HQ-100
Needed some maintenance.
I started to look more closely at it.
Got the Q-Multiplier to work -- it really adds a lot on CW.
Makes me feel guilty about all the QF-1s...
Using the 100kc calibrator with a 455 kc crystal as a BFO,
keeping Q multiplier below oscillation point.
Moved the BFO switch to the front panel. Helps a lot.
Need to fix the S-meter AVC circuitry.
Much more sturdy than the S-38E.
S-38E 1957-61 $54.95 5 tubes.  AC/DC.
HQ-100 1956-60 $169  10 or 11 tubes.  Power supply,  regulator.
You get what you pay for.  

Pete's Bench

Jack Purdum and Al Peter's new SDR rig and book (featured on the SS blog Amazon ad).
JF3HZB's beautiful digi VFO.
Backpack antenna for Field Day?  
Pipsqueak Disaster -- Too simple?
Peashooter Eye Candy.
Build Something Different.

MAILBAG

James W0JKG CBLA -- Others are building MMM too!
SM4WWG // Jörgen  Wonderful message.  Joined GQRP.  No longer "wrong."
Dennis WC8C Libraries for Max2870 board.
Jack NG2E  Progress on the Right to Repair movement. 
Jim K9JM  Someone cutting into our business with Solder candles!  
Chuck  WB9KZY Correctly identified the location of the IBEW sticker.  As did Dan Random.
Dave Bamford (who lives nearby) suitably impressed. 
Farhan wrote to us about a video on Don Lancaster.  Homebrew keyboards!  Yea!
Dean KK4DAS  QRP to the Field.  HB2HB 40 SSB   QRP  I feel virtuous.  
Todd K7TFC likes my ingenious use of the drain screen as the speaker protector on the 17-12 rig. 
Todd  had good thoughts on granular approach to homebrewing as seen in the Don Lancaster video.
Lex PH2LB HORRIFIED by my reverse polarity protection circuit.  This is a touchy subject! (as is WD-40!)
Rogier PA1ZZ sending great info on SWL and numbers stations.
Jesse N5JHH -- The guy who made the IBEW stickers -- Liked the NYC stickers. 
Steve N8NM has a new antenna article on his blog: https://n8nmsteve.blogspot.com/
Randy AB9GO Agrees -- Can't GIVE old 'scopes away. 
Dino SV1IRG Liked the 17-12 rig videos. 
Steve Hartley G0FUW Murphy's Law of Enclosures. 
Ralph AB1OP FB on the 17-12 Rig. 
Roberto XE1GXG --Our correspondent in Guadalajara. Petulant, irritable people on the computer scene.

Have some gear looking for a good home:   Tek 465 'scope from Jim AL7R W8NSA.   SBE Transceivers.  Windsor Signal Generator.  Let me know if you are interested and can either pick up or arrange shipping.  



John Anderson W9YEI Homebrew Hero

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Conclusions About W9YEI's Early (1940?) Homebrew Television Receiver

It may have looked something like this.  Recent build of the Scozarri receiver by Jack Neitz

Joh DL6ID and I have been exchanging e-mails in which we compare notes on the early homebrew television receiver of Johnny Anderson W9YEI.   In 1973 on WOR New York, Jean Shepherd described a very memorable demonstration of TV  conducted some three decades earlier by Anderson for teenage friends in Hammond, Indiana.  Shep provided a lot of detail, but some of his recollections seemed a bit off;  Shep was known for exaggerating or changing details to make a story better.   

We have arrived at some conclusions about this project (but if anyone has more info, please let us know): 

DID ANDERSON ACTUALLY BUILD A TV RECEIVER?  

Yes, he did.  This was a homebrew project, not a kit build and not the use of a receiver built and loaned for test purposes by the transmitting station.  Anderson was an accomplished homebrewer whose basement, according to Shep, was filled with devices he had built.  A QSL card sent by him in 1938 shows him using a "9 tube superhet" as a receiver.  Shep describes Johnny -- over a period of perhaps six months -- gathering components  in Chicago's electronics parts market, and building something in his basement.  That sure sounds like a real homebrew project.  A TV receiver kit was available, but it was very expensive, and Shep would have immediately denounced it as a non-homebrew project.  Anderson homebrewed the receiver. 

WHY DID HE DO THIS? 

Why would a ham build a TV receiver at a time in which there were only a few experimental transmitters on the air, and no possibility of using the receiver to "work" other amateur stations?  We tend to think of TV as a post-war commercial phenomenon.  But in fact there was a lot of "buzz" about TV in the 1930s.  Magazines were filled with TV articles, and with ads for courses that promised to prepare people for what seemed to many to be "the next big thing."  The World's Fair in Chicago in 1933 and 1934 featured a demonstration of television -- Anderson, who lived in a close-in Chicago suburb,  may have seen this demonstration.  Television must have seemed like a do-able but difficult technical challenge, and would  have attracted the interest of an advanced homebrewer like Anderson.    

WHEN DID ANDERSON BUILD THE RECEIVER? 

Shepherd describes a demonstration of TV in which Anderson tuned into experimental transmissions of WBKB in Chicago.  WBKB's experimental transmitter W9XBK did not go on the air until August 1940.  And Anderson told Shep that he had been calling in reception reports for a month or six weeks.  That would push the date of the demonstration to September 1940 at the earliest.  In September 1940 Anderson was 22 years old, and Shep was 19. (Here is one area in which Shep's recall is questionable -- he claims that the event took place when he -- Shep -- was 16 or 17.  In fact he was older, but having the protagonists a bit younger made the story more intriguing.)   If we assume that it took Anderson six months or so to build the receiver,  that would push the start date of Anderson's build to around March 1940.  

There was another experimental station on the air in Chicago: Zenith Corporation had W9XZV doing experimental transmissions starting on February 2, 1939.  If Anderson had built the receiver a bit earlier, he could have been tuning into W9XVZ before W9XBK went on the air.  But I think it was more likely that he started building in early 1940.  I get the feeling that the Scozzari articles of October/November 1939 influenced his build.  

WHAT PUBLICATIONS GUIDED ANDERSON? 

Shep, in extolling Anderson's advanced, self-taught knowledge of electronics tells us that Anderson was at his young age already reading the IRE Journal, the monthly publication of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Joh DL6ID notes that Shep said that this publication was being sent to Anderson, indicating that he had some form of subscription.  He may have also had access to back-issues in a Chicago library.  Anderson was a serious consumer of technical material. 

The IRE Journal had many articles about television, but they were highly theoretical.  Typical of this was the December 1933 issue.  Anderson probably also benefitted from more practical, build-related articles that appeared in publications like QST, Shortwave and Television,  and Radio and Television. 

In December 1937 QST began a series of articles on television my Marshall Wilder.  

In March 1938 CW Palmer launched a series of build articles on TV receivers in the Gernsback magazine "Shortwave and Television." See photo below. 

In October 1938 QST started a series of practical build articles on TV by J.B. Sherman.  This series provided circuit details on how to use three different sizes of RCA oscilloscope CRTs, including the small 1 inch 913 tube. 

In December 1938 QST continued with the television theme,  presenting the first in a series of build articles by C.C. Schumard. 

In October 1939 Peter Scozzari launched a good series of build articles in Radio and Television magazine.  See photo below. 

WHAT CATHODE RAY TUBE DID HE USE?  

Many of the publications of the era carried projects using 2 or 3 inch CRTs.  But it appears that Anderson had a smaller, 1 inch oscilloscope CRT in his project.  In his 1973 broadcast, Shep repeatedly called the CRT "tiny" and refers to it as a 1 inch tube.  Shep said the image produced was green, indicating a tube built for oscilloscopes.  He may have used a 1 inch RCA 913 CRT Tube. See the Sherman article in the October 1938 QST

THE DEATH OF ROSS HULL

In the middle of all this, on September 13, 1938 radio pioneer Ross Hull was electrocuted while working on his homebrew television receiver. 

The Palmer Receiver

The Scozzari receiver -- Power supply on separate chassis

Previous SolderSmoke Daily News posts about this project: 

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Young Jean Shepherd Gets Hung-Up On Ham Radio

Oh man, we've all been there:  OBSESSION with ham radio.  Shep went over the top and didn't sleep all weekend when his homebrew transmitter was finally neutralized and started to put out a decent signal on 40 meter CW.  

One of my favorite lines in this episode is about how, before the neutralization, the transmitter had had so many parasitics that it would continue to transmit for two hours AFTER Shep turned it off, "and all on the wrong frequencies."  

I found this while searching for other Shep references to Johnny Anderson, the guy who built the TV receiver.  Please let me know if you know of any other Shep references to Johnny. 

Here is the program.  Skip ahead to 20:50 

https://www.radioechoes.com/?page=play_download&mode=play&dl_mp3folder=T&dl_file=the_jean_shepherd_show_1963-03-07_hung_up-ham_radio.mp3&dl_series=The%20Jean%20Shepherd%20Show&dl_title=Hung%20Up-Ham%20Radio&dl_date=1963.03.07&dl_size=8.87%20MB

EXCELSIOR!  


Friday, April 15, 2022

TV Homebrew 84 years ago -- Tracking Down W9YEI's 1939 Television Receiver -- The CRT He Probably Used -- Please Help Find More Info

A recent Hack-A-Day article about early television receivers got me thinking about the receiver built by young Johnny Anderson in 1939 and described by Jean Shepherd on WOR in 1973.  In the 1973 program (skip to the 18 minute mark),  Shep gives a good description of the device.  It sounded a lot like the receiver from Peter Scozzari's October 1939 "Radio and Television" article:  Shep described a big chassis with angled pieces of aluminum one of which had a tube socket brazed onto it.  Anderson may have bult the power supply on the same chassis as the receiver.  Shep said that a 1 inch CRT was in this socket.  Tellingly, he described the picture as being green in color.  

Peter Scozzari wrote that oscilloscope tubes produced a "greenish hue."  One month after his first article, in November 1939 Peter Scozzari published another article in which he changed the CRT to to a tube that would produce a black and white (not green) pictures.  See below for the part of the article that describes the shift to the larger black and white tube.  This supports the idea that Anderson was using a tube built for oscilloscopes.  The picture above shows what images from the three sizes of RCA oscilloscope tubes would have looked like (absent the green hue -- this was a black and white magazine).  I find them kind of eerie, considering that the person in the picture was probably born more than 100 years ago.  And in that bottom picture we see an image (absent the green hue) very similar to what Shep saw in 1939, and described so vividly in 1973. 



Scozzari's receiver started out with a 2 inch tube, then a month later, he went with a 3 inch tube.  But Johnny Anderson may have only had the 1 inch tube described by Shep.  The Sherman QST article provided circuit details for all three sizes of RCA tubes. This information would have been very useful to Johnny Anderson. So my guess is that when Shep saw TV for the first time in 1939 in Johnny Anderson's basement workshop, he was looking into an RCA 1 inch 913 CRT. 

Here's a great EDN article on the 1 inch CRTs available in the 1930s: 

Here's a fellow who recently built a TV receiver using an RCA 902: 
Here's the YouTube video of his 902-based receiver in action: 

Previous SolderSmoke blog posts on this topic: 


This is all pretty amazing:  We are gathering details on a television receiver built some 84 years ago by a teenager in a basement in Hammond, Indiana.  

Does anyone out there have more information on what Anderson built?  Can anyone dig up more information on this? Any more info on Peter Scozzari?  Anyone have info on Jack Neitz of California (he recently built the Scozzari TV receiver)? 

Thursday, April 14, 2022

W9YEI's Homebrew 1939 TV?

 

I've been thinking about Jean Shepherd's 1973 description of the homebrew TV receiver built by his friend Johnny Anderson W9YEI in (probably) 1939.   Shep said Johnny got the info on this receiver from the IRE Journal.  But I was thinking that there had to have been "how to build" articles in circulation around that time, and -- if located -- these articles might provide some insight on what Johnny Anderson built. 

Asked for info on early TV's Google will send you to lots of sites about early commercial sets.  But you have to dig a bit and refine your search to find articles about the kind of receiver that Shep described as having been built by Johnny Anderson.  

The picture above shows one such possibility.  It comes from an article in the October 1939 issue of Radio and Television magazine.  The author was Peter Scozzari.  


The picture tube seems to be about the size that Shep described;  Shep said it was a 1 inch tube, and this schematic shows a 2 inch tube, but the image must have been smaller, so this seems consistent with Shep's recollection.  The article presents this as a "Low Cost" project -- that would have been what Shep's teenage friends were looking for.  And we KNOW that Anderson was capable of building something like this:  we have a QSL card from him from the same time period in which he notes that he was using a "9 tube superhet."  Someone who could build a 9 tube superhet in 1938 could certainly build this TV receiver.   

Can anyone find more of these kind of articles from the late 1930's? 

Three cheers for Johnny Anderson and for Peter Scozzari. 

More Googling revealed that a Californian named Jack Neitz more recently built the receiver described in Scozzari's 1939 article.  Here is Neitz's build: 


This is really amazing.  We need more info on Jack Neitz!   The only info I have is from: 

"Patrolling the Ether" WWII Video on Radio Direction Finding Efforts

I heard about this video while trying to track down information on John Stanley Anderson's 1939 television receiver.  "Patrolling the Ether" is kind of hard to find.  It is not really on YouTube.  But there is a good BARC Vimeo video about WWII RDF efforts that includes at the end the full "Patrolling the Ether" video.  

Here it is:  

https://vimeo.com/415926991

Thanks to BARC and to Brian Harrison for putting this together. 

In the video, they discuss the invention of the Panadaptor by Dr. Marcel Wallace F3HM  during World War II.   I set up a very crude Panadaptor using Wallace's principals:

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2019/05/diy-waterfall-quick-and-easy-panadaptor.html


Tuesday, April 12, 2022

John Stanley Anderson W9YEI -- Shep's Friend Who Homebrewed a TV Receiver in 1938

 

John Stanley "Johnny" Anderson -- son of John E. and Beda Klarin Anderson, natives of Sweden -- was born on July 19, 1918, in East Chicago, Indiana. He grew up at 6813 (formerly 1439) Arizona Avenue in Hammond, and graduated from Hammond High School a couple of years ahead of American humorist and writer Jean Shepherd. In his WOR radio broadcast of January 24, 1973, Shepherd told of how Johnny was an expert ham who was way ahead of the other kids in town, and how he first saw television demonstrated by Johnny in his basement. Johnny in fact held amateur radio license W9YEI at the time.

After graduation from Hammond High, Johnny went to work as a chemist at the local steel mill. On April 11, 1941, Johnny enlisted at Fort Benjamin Harrison in the U.S. Army, serving through WWII until November 27, 1945. On June 4, 1955, he married Jane H. Vanstone.

Johnny later moved to Munster, Indiana, and continued working at Inland Steel, where he held a variety of technical positions. He passed away on January 29, 1984, at the emergency room of Hammond's St. Margaret Hospital after suffering from neurogenic shock. At the time of his death, Johnny was an electrical technician at Inland Steel's quality control center. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Hammond.  From: 
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/173124396/john-stanley-anderson

The Flick Lives web site has an interesting letter that Johnny wrote to his friend Paul Schwartz (W9KPY) in mid 1941.  Schwartz is frequently referred to by Jean Shepherd.  Schwartz was killed in World War II.  

In the letter, Johnny also references another mutual friend who Shep often mentions:  Boles (W9QWK). 


Dorothy Anderson was Johnny's sister and was for a time Shep's girlfriend. 

Rcvr: "9 tube Superhet"  FB OM

Monday, April 11, 2022

Early Television, Jean Shepherd, Homebrewing, and Hack-A-Day

It may have been something like this 1947 receiver.  But with a smaller CRT.

Hack-A-Day has an article about early (1930s) television.  I was immediately reminded of a January 1973 Jean Shepherd show on WOR New York in which Shep talks about a kid in his neighborhood who built a very early television receiver.  You can skip to about the 18 minute mark for the homebrew radio and television stuff. 

In the 1973 show, Shep identifies the builder as John Anderson.   The Flicklives web site lists the hams who lived around Shep in Hammond Indiana.   Among them is John Stanley Anderson W9YEI.  That's him. 

Shep was born in 1921 and in the show he says this all took place when he was 16 or 17.  So that would place these events around 1938.  We see that on February 2, 1939  W9XZV -- the experimental station of Zenith Chicago -- went on the air with television.  In August 1940 W9XBK, the experimental TV station of WBKB Chicago went on the air.  That station was the one Johnny Anderson used to demonstrate TV to Shep and other friends.   

Once again, Shep really captures the spirit of homebrew radio and the way it really captivates teenagers. He also explains -- very well I think -- the difference between true homebrew radio and kit building.  

I really wish we had more details or pictures of W9YEI's TV receiver.  I tried looking in the IRE Journal, but I couldn't find anything.  Anyone have more info on this receiver or ham homebrew TV projects from the late 1930s?

EXCELSIOR!   73   Bill  

https://hackaday.com/2022/04/10/retrotechtacular-a-diy-television-for-very-early-adopters/

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2008/07/best-jean-shepherd-ham-radio-episode.html

http://www.flicklives.com/index.php?pg=318

https://www.earlytelevision.org/w9xbk.html



Thursday, August 4, 2016

Dallas Mighty Mites from a MakerSpace



Sunday, November 29, 2015

More on Light Beam Telephony


Hi Bill,

Reading about the Photophone and modulating the Sun experiments by G3ZPF reminded me of my own schooldays when as a final year physics project I think in 1970, I and another pupil built a light modulated telephone based on a design published in Practical Wireless of June 1970 by J. Thornton Lawrence. For the optical system it used a pair of spherical mirrors from old projection televisions. The detector was the expensive (for a school kid) OCP71 photo transistor, though we did also try ordinary less expensive OC71 transistors with the black paint scraped off with less success.
As David G3ZPF noted the problem with filament bulbs was the thermal inertia, and as I found it was also possible for the filament to mechanically resonate in the wooden box and start to howl. As we had never heard of, nor could have afforded an LED, we tried a Neon bulb run from an HT battery and modulated with a transformer in series with it. I recall coupling up a broadcast radio as the audio source playing "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison and receiving it at the other end of the physics corridor very loud and clear on the audio amplifier on our light telephone receiver, much to the consternation and annoyance of the other teachers in the adjacent classrooms.

I found my black and white photo of the light telephone gear, complete with carbon telephone microphone that we used. It did work a fairly good distance in daylight outside across the school playground, not just the couple of feet shown. Also attached are photos of the original magazine cover and index, but regrettably not the article itself.

This was all before I got my ham ticket, but I already was a SWL and had been exposed to a wonderful ham, Tom GM3OWI (Oh Wild Indians) who visited the school and demonstrated all sorts of neat stuff like lighting a bulb from the output of a transmitter, and also voice modulating a klystron 3cm transmitter that the school had for doing electromagnetic radiation experiments, like polarisation, reflection etc.

Come to think of it, we got to play with a lot of stuff at school in those days which would never be allowed now, mercury, radioactive sources, alpha, beta and gamma, X-Ray and UV.  The museum in Edinburgh also had a science area with similar stuff you could play with, and get great shocks from the Van der Graff generator if you put your hand on the glass cabinet and touched the adjacent metal radiator!

Happy days!

73 David Anderson GM4JJJ

Saturday, August 22, 2015

SolderSmoke Podcast #179 SPECIAL TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION




SolderSmoke Podcast #179 is available:

22 August 2015


YESTERDAY MARKED 10 YEARS OF THE SOLDERSMOKE PODCAST
-- A clip: The first minutes of SolderSmoke #1
-- A trip down SolderSmoke memory lane.
-- The SolderSmoke lexicon -- words and phrases we use (a lot).

BENCH REPORT
-- Pete's antenna project.
-- Pete's new Blog:   http://n6qw.blogspot.com
-- Bill's big amplifier problem fixed thanks to Allison KB1GMX.
-- Six digit freq readout with an Altoids case.

THE Si5351 PHASE NOISE CONTROVERSY
-- ALL oscillators make noise.
-- Keeping things in perspective:  It is 100 db down!
-- Observations and tests from LA3PNA, NT7S, and K0WFS:

-- Try it, you'll like it!  The benefits trying things on real rigs.

NEWS
Interviews on "QSO TODAY" with Eric 4Z1UG.
Horrible band conditions.
Looking at Saturn with telescope.

MAILBAG
Another recruit for the CBLA:  Paul KA5WPL.
Ron G4GXO on Bell-Thorn and Eden9 SSB rigs.
Rupert G6HVY on Kon Tiki radio and Mr. Spock.  
Mikele's Croation BITX rigs.
Dean AC9JQ's TIA.
Bryan KV4ZS will build an LBS receiver.
Dave Anderson give Pete good antenna advice.
Steve Smith moves in from the garage.

Pete has built  12 SSB transceivers.  Intervention time? 

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

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Happy Pi Day! Scottish Moonbounce in 1965, Eddystone Dials



Somehow this seems appropriate for Pi Day (3-14).  I guess it is because the antenna is circular.
Thanks to David GM4JJJ for sending this to us.  There is no audio. Kind of fun to watch the lads struggle with the big antenna while wearing coats and ties! 
 
David writes:
 
Hi Bill,
    Just watched the video of the progressive receiver and immediately noticed the old Eddystone drive and dial. 
    My first general coverage receiver was an Eddystone 840C in about 1969 I guess, so it brought back fond memories. 
    I also had (much later) an Eddystone 770R VHF receiver, which I used to listen to transatlantic 50MHz on during the sunspot peak a couple of cycles ago now. That was before we were allowed to transmit on 6m over here. 
    Incidentally if you saw the recent film "The Imitation Game" about Alan Turing, you might have spotted the 770R in it, which was actually a mistake as the receiver was not produced until after the war. 
Now something to break your heart, and mine actually:


    This old rig which was given to me sometime in the 70's by another ham, was stored the attic of my previous house now used by my brother, and a couple of years ago I had to clear the attic of the "junk" that I had left when I moved out. I didn't have any more room to store quite a lot of things and I made the decision to take a few things that I never thought I, or anyone else, would need. They went to landfill. :-(
    As you can probably see there is an Eddystone drive and dial driving a VFO which originally had insulation material around it for thermal stability. I think it may have been mixed or multiplied up to 144MHz judging by the scale on the dial. Looking back now I should have tried to save it, but I just felt at the time it would just probably lie in my new attic until I departed and then someone else would have to throw it out.
    I don't know exactly who made it, I was given it by Andy GM3IQL(SK), but I vaguely recall him telling me that it was made by Fraser Shepherd GM3EGW(SK) who I did not know as he died tragically young, but was a brilliant constructor. It could equally possibly have been made by Jimmy Priddy GM3CIG, and I could contact him as he is still around in his 80's now. At least I had the sense to take some photos.
  Now a couple of semi related video material that I put up on YouTube.
This is a (silent 8mm) film made in the 1965s about the first moonbounce attempts from Scotland and Jimmy CIG made the film. My Elmer Harry GM3FYB(SK) is in it. 
Another one this time 1965 field day!
    Bill, I really enjoy SolderSmoke podcasts etc, I am returning to ham radio after about a decade, got the bug again....
    The KX3 is in the shack, and I have the parts here now to build a QRP WSPR beacon by Hans Summers also.
    I like QRP, having previously worked with George GM3OXX back in the 70's when we went out portable with wideband FM QRP 10GHz (3cm) gear using Gunn diode oscillators. Just a few mW and we could work several hundred miles with small 2 foot dish antennas in the right conditions over water by super refraction. The receivers were just mixers, no active RF amplifiers in those days.
I think the best I did was 322km with my 10mW from Scotland to Wales on 10GHz. A couple of decades I built up a real SSB transverter with surplus MOSFETs for 10GHz and with greater power (250mW) and SSB bandwidths I could work non line of sight paths on that band from home. 
    I also like QRO for such things as 2m EME (moonbounce) and am in the course of replacing my old 8877 W6PO design 1500W amp for 144MHz with an Italian manufactured LDMOS 1kW amp that is a fraction of the size and weight, who would have imagined a single solid state device would be able to do that at a price amateurs could afford?
   Anyway enough of my ramblings. 
   Hope you don't mind me taking up so much of your time, I will let you get back to whatever you have on your workbench!
73
David Anderson GM4JJJ
 
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
Designer: Douglas Bowman | Dimodifikasi oleh Abdul Munir Original Posting Rounders 3 Column