My JBOT passes the Smoke Test

Over the weekend I built my first version of Farhan's JBOT. I really enjoyed building it. I soldered in the last connections this morning and I am happy to report that it passed the smoke test. More info (and a picture) tomorrow. Thanks Farhan!

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Bringing some Knack into Astro-Photography

I've been meaning to do this for a long time. It is a neat little project that allows for a quick and satisfying mixture of electronics and astronomy. It has been described on the web many times: Take an old web cam (preferably one of the old eyeball-looking devices) and remove the lens (I found it very cool to expose the charge coupled device).
Take a plastic 35 mm film container (hurry, while supplies last!) and chop off the bottom. Tape the container to the sans-lens webcam. Here's the fun part: Insert 35 mm container and webcam into the focuser of your telescope. Bring laptop out to the telescope and take digital pictures with your telescope.
I used Billy's old Asus eeepc and a very simple program called Cheese. (There has got to be something better for this kind of work.) But my results were very good. Last night I got images of Jupter and two of its moons. This morning I got some great shots of our moon.
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

SolderSmoke: Engineering Site of the Day on EE Web!

Dilbert would be so proud! In spite of my Bachelor of Arts Degree, yesterday the SolderSmoke blog was named Engineering Site of the Day by EE Web. I'm especially pleased that the Sputnik rig of the G3XBM team was the featured photo. Check it out:

http://www.eeweb.com/websites/solder-smoke-daily-news

http://www.eeweb.com/

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

Can we put a Sputnik signal back in space for $300?

This article from Hack-a-Day caught my eye:
http://hackaday.com/2011/10/11/send-a-satellite-into-space-for-300/
We just make the antenna a bit longer and put it on 20 MHz. Or for a shorter antenna, 40 MHz.
Bert and the fellows out at UVA are going to take care of the whole SETI thing (Jerry, NR5A, was in the lead on this -- he started the SolderSmoke SETI-AT-HOME group). But we'll need some additional volunteers to cover the Low Earth Orbit portion of the SolderSmoke Space Program. And of course we have to come up with the 300 bucks.

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

An HW-7 that Glows in the Dark

Hi Bill,

You are right, there is a lot of disdain for the HW7 out there.

While looking for a reasonable selection of do-able modifications to the HW7, I observed a sentiment that when all boiled down would sound like this: “Yea, rip out the innards and build a new transceiver in the carcass that is left.”

On the flip side, I have experienced relatively good results from my virgin HW7. Oh yea, I did add dial and meter lighting along with A nice set of Radio Shack Knobs but that is about the extent of the changes.

So Bill, I was wondering if any listeners to Solder Smoke know of a good source of reasonable modifications to the HW7 without inducing an implant? Second, is there a way of adding an S-meter to a direct conversion receiver? Are there any mods that can be lifted from the HW8 or HW9 and applied to the Old Senior HW7?

Thanks & 73’s

Harv WA3EIB Albuquerque, NM

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

Comet Hits Sun, SFI up, Report from San Vito

The SOHO spacecraft caught some great images of a comet crashing into the sun. The YouTube clip above is from July. Here is NASA video of one that took place just last week:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/comet-cme.html

Coincidentally I'm sure, the solar flux has increased significantly and the upper HF bands are working again. My 17 meter rigs still need final amps -- I am ordering parts for Farhan's JBOT circuit. (I plan to build three or four.) But because I had the 2B on 15 meters for the Sputnik event (still no Sputniks heard here) I noticed that DX was coming on that band. Using my HT-37 and a 40 meter dipole I easily worked several Europeans on 15 meter SSB. Especially nice was a long rag chew (using my rusty Italian) with Gianfranco, IZ4NPE, in beautiful Ferrara, Italy (a bicycle city).

Somehow tying this all together, I got an e-mail from Walter in San Vito, Puglia (the heel on Italy's boot). Walter has one of those "dream jobs" for a radio amateur: He tracks sunspots!

Hi Bill,

Walter here from San Vito, Italy. Just wanted to drop a note to say hi and let you know that I'm enjoying your book. Thanks for making it available as a Kindle version. While reading, it brought back similar experiences with me as a youngster. I too was fascinated by airplanes and would ride my bike to the local airport and watch for hours as the planes would take off and land. My mom gave me my first airplane ride as a birthday present when I was 11. I have to admit that I was scared when we made our first airborne turn. I didn't realize that a plane banks in the turns. I was also fascinated with shortwave radios and my best Christmas gift was a Radio Shack Globe Patrol (regenerative... hi hi) receiver kit. The gift from by grandparents was a Weller soldering gun (140 watts) to put it together with. Again, great job on the book.

The Sun has been keeping us busy at the Solar Observatory. I'm monitoring anywhere from 4 to 12 flares a day, 2 regions popped out of nowhere yesterday. The radio bands have been favorable with all the activity. I've got several projects in the works, a Genesis G3020 SDR rig is about 1/3 completed on the workbench now. It's probably me when you see Puglia show up on the website spinning globe. Take care and keep the podcast's coming. Ciao for now.

- Walter

I7/AC4IM

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Amateur Rocketeers Reach 121,000 feet (36,880 meters)! AMAZING VIDEO!

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