Homebrew SR-71 Blackbird (with real jet engines)

DXing with Crystal Sets

Mike Tuggle has an excellent article on this subject in the Antique Wireless Association's on-line archives of the "Old Timer's Bulletin. " Here's the link:
http://www.antiquewireless.org/otb/dxxtal.htm
The link for the Antique Wireless archive (another treasure trove for us) is:
http://www.antiquewireless.org/otb/archive.htm

Our New R/C Electric Airplane

We are thinking that olive groves are not quite as forgiving as the corn fields that the kid in the picture is using. And the bit about "no experience needed" probably should have a "as long as you don't mind crashing." Oh well, I guess crashing is part of the learning experience. But a quick review of the pertinent R/C airplane forums reveals there may be problems with this wing design: Apparently when it stalls, one wing stalls before the other (i.e. it "tip stalls"), with catastrophic results. The plane has a very comforting ACT ("Anti-Crash Technology") feature, but the forums advise that this feature may cause more crashes than it prevents.

We have the plane back on the Rome workbench this weekend. Crazy glue and tape are being applied. We will be back out at Chinghale International Airport (i.e. a clearing in the olive grove) next weekend to see if we can get a few good flights out of this thing.

Radio notes: The radio control system is on 27.145 MHz FM.

Stradivari, Violins, Sunspots, and the Maunder Minimum

I mentioned Antonio Stradivari in SolderSmoke 120, but I felt a bit guilty about it, because there wasn't much of a connection to radio. But Nick, KB1SNG, has come to the rescue. Nick sent me this interesting article that discusses POSSIBLE connections between the quality of Stradivari's violins and the sunspot count. Check it out:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0107_040107_violin.html

A recent article in The Economist alerted me to the fact that OM Stradivari was busy in the shack, churning out mechanical audio oscillators well into his 90's. I thought that Stradivari's late start, and his success in his senior years makes him an inspiration for many of us. A quick look at the Strad-Wiki page confirms this: Stradivari didn't really hit his stride until age 54, and did his best work between age 54 and 81.

New antenna for the HW 8 station

Now that my HW 8 station has been moved indoors (good thing -- there was snow on the hilltops this week!) I had to put up a new antenna. I decided to go with the same design that I had earlier: a dipole fed with TV twin-lead. I knew I needed a bit more wire than I had used in the original -- I had trouble getting that antenna to tune up on 80. So I went to the local hardware store and asked for 20 meters of AC line cord. That cost me 8 Euros. Not bad.
We had a nice sunny afternoon on Sunday -- Billy and I took the line cord out into the olive grove and pulled apart the two wires. (Hint: Start from the center, and pull slowly, or else the cord will get all twisted and a two minute job will turn into a twenty minute exercise in untangling.) I got to use some of those Radio Shack "solder strips" -- I just wrapped a few around the connection points and applied heat from a cigarette lighter.
I put some parachute cord (550 cord) over a conveniently placed tree branch using the venerable rock and rope method. One throw was all that it took. The radio gods were smiling on this project.
Success! With the Trastevere flea market Pi network, the thing tunes up nicely on 80, 40, 20, and 15. I notice that the cheap CB SWR meter that also I picked up at the flea market doesn't seem to sample much RF at 80 meters. I'm guessing that the designers were very focused on 27 MHz.
I quickly worked stations all over Europe, and even worked one station in Israel. I worked G4OEC in Somerset -- I immediately thought of Tim Walford, and asked OM OEC if he knew the wizard of the Somerset farm. Mac said his village was far from Tim's QTH.
It is nice to once again get familiar with the daily routine of the bands. 80 is hopping when I turn the rig on at 6 am local time. 40 seems to be active too. 20 opens a bit later, and I can hear stateside stations starting around noon local time. I really like hearing KZ1H up there in the high end of the 20 meter band -- I can hear him almost every day.
Check out the ad for the HW 8 in a 1978 catalog. This must be a non-U.S. catalog because the ad brags of the HW-8's ability to "work the States."
Not much astronomy this weekend -- Sabina and most of the rest of Italy fell under clouds on Sunday night. But I did catch a glimpse of Capella and the Kids.

SolderSmoke Podcast #120

http://www.soldersmoke.com

January 2, 2010
Olive harvest in Sabina, Christmas and New Years in Rome.
"What, no Klingon?"
How's my whistling SSSS problem?
DX on 20, HW8 QSO with KZ1H
Auroral flutter on US stations
W4OP: Homebrew Hero
Softrock progress
Linux woes
72 Part Challenge: "Stuck between best wishes and hugs and kisses!"
Chinese Hamsat in orbit, with CW telemetry
AA1TJ in CQ, and using diodes as audio amplifiers.
Stradavari and Julia Child:  inspirational late starters!
Billy's RC plane
QRSS:  telemetry next?
WSPR:  150K reports per day
New issue of Hot Iron
MAILBAG

Happy New Year! SolderCake!

This is just so good, I felt the urge to share it immediately with the SolderSmoke community. Thanks Tom, and Happy New Year to all!

Bill:

Happy New Year!
I am yet another listener who discovered your podcast by accident and am now hooked. I also thoroughly enjoyed your book. Both take me back to the days of scrounged parts and burned fingers, building balanced modulators and an FM stereo transmitter that earned me an invitation to leave a great southern university.

To celebrate the new year, rising sunspot numbers, and your 120th podcast, I offer the attached photo of a Solder Cake. It features 120 rolls of 60/40 rosin core solder -- several brands and gauges. The cake actually weighs 123 lbs. because the roll holding the soldering iron at the top is 4 lbs. It has zero calories, but definitely contains lead! It should be baked at less than 370 degrees, or the icing tends to run.

Why would anyone have 120 rolls of solder? I don't remember precisely, but rumor has it that ebay and alcohol were involved.

73, and a wonderful new year to you and your family.

Thomas Keister M.D. N5RTF

Chinese HAMSAT HO-68

PA3GUO put together this nice video. Check out the large footprint of this relatively high-orbit satellite.

Mark, K6HX, has a nice recording of SSB QSOs through the satellite: K6HX HO-68

On the air, out in the woods... Plus, olive news

We were out in the Sabine hills this week. Things are starting to settle down out there: The Cinghale are, well, mostly GONE (see earlier post), and the gunfire is starting to die down. And the olives have all been shaken from the trees. All was going well, but my wife was worried that with temperatures dropping, she might find me frozen out at my front porch operating position, so she secured indoor accomodations for me and the HW-8. Wow, what luxury! My CW is back to normal -- the shivering had been a real impediment. On Monday and Tuesday I was on 80, 40, and 20 with the Heathkit. I managed to work seven stations using a far-from-optimal end fed wire with my flea market tuner. It was fun to work Russian stations -- UA6HNU was running a homebrew rig. It reminded me of the good-old days in which most of the Russian hams were running HB gear. Then, just as we were getting ready to head back to Rome, there was some icing on the cake: Near the top of the 20 meter CW band I heard KZ1H (see earlier post) all the way from Boston.

Next week, a better antenna goes up.

I got some questions about the olive harvest. It seems that the trees around are place are about 200 years old -- mere kids, considering that there are olive trees in the world that are 2000+ years old.

As for the harvesting process, the shaking machine vibrates the tree for about 5 seconds. The workers have a collection tarp on the ground to catch the olives. Then they have machine that reels in the tarp.

Stagnosald! (Italian flux)

For some reason I like the packaging for this Italian soldering flux. Sort of takes you back to the days when soldering was soldering, if you know what I mean. Now (somewhat ironically) we are using this flux for SMT soldering. On the left you can see the PA stage of my slowly-coming-together SMT SDR LINUX Compu-radio. As you can probably tell, I am struggling to keep a positive attitude towards SMT and SDR. Lately, even Linux has been giving me trouble. The problem here is clearly with the operator, not the equipment. The Softrock SDR kit is really excellent. I'm sure I will eventually get it working, but I think there will be a lot of geezer-like complaining about all this new-fangled surface mount, software stuff. Please, bear with me.