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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Fessenden's Music from the Outer Banks

George, KB3ODH, found this about 1/2 mile from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

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Monday, August 15, 2011

Bike Radio II

Thanks for all the suggestions on the bike radio. I googled around a bit and found a schematic that seems very similar to the little receiver I'm working with. I almost certainly would be better off starting anew (perhaps keeping the AF circuitry). But it is interesting to see how a simple AM receiver works. That first transistor is an autodyne circuit -- both a mixer and a oscillator.

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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Bike Radio

As I mentioned on the podcast, I've been riding my bike to work lately. I really enjoy it. We have great bike trails in this area. They use paths of defunct railroad lines -- I ride Washington and Old Dominion Trail.

My bike is a bit of a boatanchor. It was made in Japan. I bought it 22 years ago when I was in Spain. I've used it in Spain, The Dominican Republic, the UK, Portugal, Italy, and in the U.S.

Of course, my thoughts have turned to putting some sort of HF radio on the bike, probably just a receiver. I still have a little handle-bar AM radio that I added shortly after I bought it. The handle bar mount is still good. See above. I'm pleased to see that it looks very simple, with discrete components. The AF amps are obviously off to the left of the speaker. To the right of the speaker we obviously have the RF and IF circuits. There are some nice tuned transformers there (from the "Chop Shing" company), and three transistors and a diode. What would the standard lineup be for a simple AM radio of this type? Maybe just an RF amp in the front end, a local oscillator, one stage of IF amplification and the diode as the detector?

What do you guys think? Make use of some of the existing circuitry? Start over?

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Alarm from Space

So I was sitting in the shack yesterday morning, drinking coffee and listening to IGY by Donald Fagen on Pandora, when I heard what I thought was an alarm. I thought it might have been a smoke detector going off (always a real possibility in the N2CQR shack!). It took me a moment to realize that what I was hearing was the device pictured above. I'd left my 2 meter HT tuned to 145.950 MHz, and Arissat-1 was breaking squelch with SSTV tones. Very cool.

Later, I was thinking about this as I pedaled along on my bike. I remembered our recent discussion of Copthorne MacDonald, inventor of SSTV. Way to go Cop!

It is easy to join in the fun. Just tune you two meter gear to 145.950 and leave it there. You'll soon be alarmed just as I was.

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

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Shack Background Music from Pandora Radio

Billy alerted me to Pandora. Very cool. You just give it an indication of the kind of music you'd like to listen to. They do the rest. I started out with Creedance Clearwater Revival, and Pandora proceeded to send me a stream of sort-of similar rock. Streaming audio through the web. And it is apparently all legal (you listen to a commercial every once in a while). This is great for background music in the shack. After all, you can only listen to so much SolderSmoke, and 75 meter SSB chatter is not good for you. I'm not sure if it is available outside the USA. I hope it is.
www,pandora.com


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Big Book Sale

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

Monday, August 8, 2011

The Picture You Heard in SS 136 -- FROM SPAAAACE!

In the last podcast I played a recording of some 2 meter signals picked up by my handheld transceiver from the new amateur radio satellite ArisSat-1. Included in the transmission were some tones that were obviously SSTV. Mike, K2MTS, ran the audio through some SSTV software and got this! Pretty good! From space to my HT, across the room to the SolderSmoke mic, out over the internet in podcast form, back to me in an e-mail, and now, on the blog. Thanks Mike!
Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics"http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Sunday, August 7, 2011

SolderSmoke Podcast #136

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke136.mp3
August 7, 2011
Travelogue: New York City
A Stroke of Luck: Lightning strikes Rome HB DC DSB WSPR rig
It's an IGY thing: Recreating the Sputnik Transmitter
ArisSAT-1 deployed. Audio Clip (Can anyone decode the SSTV in this clip?)
Summertime SPRAT -- ZL2BMI rig and the mysteries of the '602
A writer for "The New Yorker" builds a radio
June Smithsonian Magazine has a lot of Knack
Electric Radio on AM selectivity, Japanese, and the sibilant S problem
Gathering Drake 2-B Serial numbers for use with German Tank Equation
Amazon breaks into oscillation on "Atoms to Ampere" prices
MAILBAG

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

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Big Nick's Awesome Homebrew Tube Radios

Eddie, KC4LVV, alerted me to the web pages of Nick, KC9KEP. What beautiful craftsmanship! Inspirational stuff! Check out the homebrew capacitors. And the coils! And the coil winder. It's almost too much!
http://www.bignick.net/TubeRadio.htm

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

Thursday, August 4, 2011

ARISSat Deployed



I just got back from a vacation trip to New York City (amazing place!) and found out that yesterday Russian cosmonauts launched the ARISSat amateur radio satellite. This one looks like lot of fun. It has a two meter downlink. I'll be doing some listening, and my try to get some of the SSTV signals.

Uh oh.... Just read a post from Mark over on Brainwagon reporting on some problems with the deployment:
http://brainwagon.org/2011/08/03/arissat-1-is-off-to-a-bumpy-start/

Details on how to use the satellite can be found here:
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/ARISSat/ARISSatHowTo.php

............................................

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