Radio New Zealand Booming in on 7245 AM

The day is off to a good start here at SolderSmoke HQ, with Radio New Zealand booming in on my homebrew Mate for the Mighty Midget receiver.  I was listening from around 0900 to 1030 UTC on 7245 kHz. Once again we see that The Radio Gods favor homebrew receivers. Gray line propagation also played a role.  

Above we see a technician at work at RNZ in 1945.  More historic photos here:
http://www.pcc.govt.nz/About-Porirua/Porirua-s-heritage/Porirua-s-suburbs/Titahi-Bay/Historic-site--Radio-New-Zealand-Transmission-Station

First Signals from the PA3GSV Mighty Midget Mate

Obviously the Radio Gods (Spirits in the Sky) approve of Jan's work.  How could they not?  I can now see why he took the trouble to cut that hole in the sewer pipe cap that forms the large wheel on his homebrew reduction drive.  But what are we going to see through that center hole Jan?  What will the frequency readout be like?  
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Hi  Bill,

Just finished the last stage of the Mighty Midget MK2.

There are first signals!

The first one I heard was a broadcast station, believe it or not, the song that was on was “Spirit in the Sky” ..

All stages were built, tested and as far as possible, adjusted separately.

It was built from back to front, so the RF amplifier was last.

I added an ECL82 for more audio, the first thought of only using an EL84 didn’t bring enough.

The triode of the ECL82 as a pre-amp, the pentode as final.

Furthermore ECF82’s were used instead of the 6U8, they’re more widely available over here.

The Miller coils are hard to come by, so the 300 uH coils are homebrew.

Also used a grid detector instead of the two germanium diodes.

The triode of V1 originally intended for audio was used for this.

Made the BFO adjustable as well, still remember the screwdriver sticking out of the coil on your side... 

 

Happily there was not much troubleshooting needed.

The 80m coil was only 5 kHz off, the 40m coil 300 kHz (to low in frequency), still have to fix that.

Initially the receiver worked reasonably well without adjusting, but C1 quit at some point.

After some investigation, the problem was a dirty wiper contact on the rotor.

An ultrasonic bath fixed the problem, so no looking out for a replacement there. (hope it stays that way)

 

After adjusting, sensitivity is around -114dBm (0,4 uV) / 10 dB S/N!  (with the FT241 crystals in place, and careful tuning of the controls)

Really not bad for this small receiver, Lew McCoy was right, it really is a Mighty Midget.

I wanted to make some video’s, but over here there’s a terrible S9 rattle from 160 to 15 meters.

Every now and then it appears out of nowhere, and disappears the same way.

As soon as it is gone, I’ll make some video’s.

I made one video though, just after completing the receiver.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMQDYpZRkPw

 

Reception on CW and SSB sounds really well, but unfortunately didn’t record that.

The receiver is not finished yet.

Next to the 40m coil,  S-meter has to be tried, and there’s still some work on the cabinet and front panel.

 

More to follow.

   

73  Jan

PA3GSV

Hope for 17 Meters? Plasma Bombs! Ionosphere Modification!

But don't get your hopes up.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23130871-000-us-air-force-wants-to-plasma-bomb-the-sky-using-tiny-satellites/

N7UN Talks About Summits on the Air (FDIM Interview by Bob Crane)

Bob Crane, our intrepid correspondent at the Dayton Hamvention talked to Guy N7UN (pictured above) about taking ham radio up to the mountaintops.  It was nice to hear Guy mention Wayne Burdick and Wes Hayward and WG0AT.    Thanks Bob!  Thanks Guy!

Listen here:

http://soldersmoke.com/N7UN.mp3

More on N7UN here:

http://www.n7un.com/

Reggae Knack?

Could it be that Bob Marley's son Ky-Mani has The Knack? Probably not (no mention of it in Wikipedia) but he certainly has some nice old receivers on his 2007 album cover.