Psst... I know a guy with some caps.... Variable caps... Real beauties.... But only for Mighty Mites.

Feast your eyes my friends.   That is 400 micro-microfarads of variable capacitance.  (400 picofarads for you sophisticated young folks.)   A benefactor interested in expanding the ranks of the Color-Burst Liberation Army has stepped forward to make us an offer that is hard to resist:  He will send ELIGIBLE recipients one each of these fine electronic components for the cost of postage (approximately 6 bucks in the USA). 

He has specified that ELIGIBILITY is limited to those who need this part to build or complete a Michigan Mighty Mite.   And I have been appointed "Grand Poobah and Chief Arbiter of Capacitor Eligibility." 

So here is the deal:  Send me an e-mail telling me about your planned or stalled Michigan Mighty Mite project.  Include some information about your personal "Knack Story"  -- tell us why you share in this strange compulsion to build a largely useless 250 mW 3.579 MHz oscillator.   If I find your plans believable and your Knack Story compelling,  I will recommend you for a capacitor.  Purely aspirational MMM projects and obviously fabricated Knack Stories will not make the cut.

Supplies are limited, so act now! 

Stuart AC9LZ's Mighty Mite

FB Stuart!  Great work.  Pete is sending you info on a Low Pass filter that will clean up that harmonic-rich signal. 

Words of Wisdom for Homebrewers -- From Dave Metz, WA0AUQ

When you are done, be proud of what you have accomplished! Use it on the air and show it off to your friends an amaze them. Then clean the bench and start dreaming about your next project. 

David Metz, WA0AUQ

http://www.fpqrp.org/homebrew.html

Summary:

• Decide if its important to do
• Study the prior work of others
• Make a preliminary simple design, document everything you do!
• Round up your parts
• Build in modules! Make one module at a time work.
• Don't get discourage, ask questions, finish what you start

http://www.fpqrp.org/homebrew.html

There is a lot of tribal knowledge and homebrew wisdom in this link.  I tried to find a picture of OM Dave, but he has kept a low profile on the www.  The best I could come up with is a symbol of the club that he has been associated with.  Thanks Dave!

Here is the full document:
http://www.fpqrp.org/homebrew.html

Brazilian Minimalism: The Curruira Transmitter

Miguel PY2OHH is the Wizard of Sao Paulo. This morning I was looking at his wonderful web site and came across this little rig.  It seems a bit simpler than our beloved Michigan Mighty Mite.  And the folks down in Brazil had several of these on the air and made contacts with them.  FB.  Miguel hints they may turn this rig into a transceiver. 

Here is the Curruira:

http://py2ohh.w2c.com.br/trx/curruira/curruira.htm

 

 

The rig is named for this little bird: 

 

 

Gregory Charvat HAS THE KNACK

Gregory Charvat N8ZRY

Yesterday I was talking to Allen W5SQK on 17.  He mentioned that he been working in his shop. You don't hear that too often these days, so naturally I asked what he was working on.  Turns out that OM Allen is building a coffee can radar!   He is enrolled in the MIT Lincoln Lab's Open Courseware Project (which looks very cool).  We had a great QSO, sharing tales of woe about the release of magic smoke from (dis)integrated circuits.  These are the things that pull us together my friends!

 

On the MIT page the name of a faculty member caught my eye: Dr. Gregory Charvat N8ZRY. Greg's rigs have been discussed on this blog at least twice, but it wasn't until today that I became aware of his many other interesting technical activities.  

 

Videos: 

https://www.youtube.com/user/charvatg

 

Bio:
http://glcharvat.com/Dr._Gregory_L._Charvat_Projects/About.html

 

Greg's KNACK STORY:

http://glcharvat.com/website%20pdfs/Charvat_Interview_AEXmag_Oct2013.pdf

 

 

  

Turkish Knack

Mehmet making contact using a homebrew rig

Lots of great homebrew videos from MehmetTB5X:
https://www.youtube.com/user/pashanline/videos

And he has a really nice web site:
http://www.tb5x.com/
Google Chrome does a pretty good job translating from Turkish.

DL1DN's First Homebrew Contacts with a BITX40

FB!