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Monday, October 23, 2017

Woz with Soldering Iron; Wooden Enclosures for Electronics (Video)



The Woz scared me for a second -- I tought he was going to leave a hot iron on the desk amidst paper and other flamable items.  But no -- he put the soldering iron in its holder. 

Later we hear Woz talking about the need to update schematic diagrams.  And I was esepcially taken by the use of wooden enclosures for electronic projects.  My BITX rigs have followed the Apple example. 

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Cliff Stoll -- K7TA -- Has THE KNACK. And a GREAT NOVA Video



Hack-A-Day had a piece on Cliff Stoll of  "The Cuckoo's Egg" and "Silicon Snake Oil" fame.  I read these books years ago.  I included a quote from Cliff on page 45 of the SolderSmoke book (the quote seemed to foreshadow my aversion to SDR). 

I didn't know that NOVA produced an hour-long program on Stoll's Cuckoo's Egg adventures.  It is really good.  Many of those involved play themselves in the video.  Very cool. See above. 

I checked Cliff's QRZ.com page.   We wrote several years ago that Cliff has THE KNACK.  Note below his preference for thermatrons and the affection for Heathkits.  Diagnosis confirmed. 

From QRZ.com: 

   Hi gang!   This is Cliff Stoll, K7TA
   Way back in the Jurassic, I was licensed as WN2PSX, in Buffalo NY.  Got my general ticket around 1967 as WB2PSX, and helped build ham radio stations at Hutch-Tech high school, University/Buffalo, and University of Arizona.   When I went to Tucson for grad school, I passed my extra ticket and snagged the call K7TA (back when this meant 20wpm cw).  I held a first-class commercial ticket, which let me engineer at WBFO radio, but I don't know if commercial licenses even exist anymore.
   I now live in Oakland California, and occasionally get on the cw lowbands with old heathkit gear ... just rebuilt my novice NC-270 receiver with filaments that glow in the dark.  Gotta restring my 40 meter dipole that came down in a windstorm.  
   You can guess that I'm pretty much retired.  Along the way, I've worked in FM radio, planetary physics, computing, writing, speaking, teaching, and math.  Best way to reach me is through my website www.kleinbottle.com
   Warm wishes to all -- 73's,
-Cliff

Info on Cliff's latest gig: 

Saturday, October 21, 2017

The First "Transistor Radio"


I'm a few days behind on this.  On October 18 Bob Crane pointed out that Garrison Keillor marked the anniversary of the broadcast band "transistor radio."   I had mine (a 1970s version), and it did indeed allow me to listen to that seditious rock music without parental interference. Looking around the shack, I still have items in use that have "Transistorized" as part of their product name (like my Lafayette Radio Electronics Transistorized DC Power Supply." 

Garrison (on October 18, 2017): 

It was on this day in 1954 that the first transistor radio appeared on the market.
Transistors were a big breakthrough in electronics — a new way to amplify signals. They replaced vacuum tubes, which were fragile, slow to warm up, and unreliable. During World War II, there was a big funding push to try to update vacuum tubes, since they were used in radio-controlled bombs but didn't work very well. A team of scientists at Bell Laboratories invented the first transistor technology in 1947. But the announcement didn't make much of an impact because transistors had limited use for everyday consumers — they were used mainly in military technology, telephone switching equipment, and hearing aids.
Several companies bought licenses from Bell, including Texas Instruments, who was bent on being the first to market with a transistor radio. Radios were mostly big, bulky devices that stayed in one place — usually in the living room — while the whole family gathered around to listen to programming. There were some portable radios made with vacuum tubes, but they were about the size of lunch boxes, they used heavy nonrechargeable batteries, they took a long time to start working while the tubes warmed up, and they were fragile. Texas Instruments was determined to create a radio that was small and portable, and to get it out for the Christmas shopping season. They produced the transistors, and they partnered with the Regency Division of Industrial Development Engineering Associates, who manufactured the actual radios. Their new radio, the Regency TR-1, turned on immediately, weighed half a pound, and could fit in your pocket. It cost $49.95, and more than 100,000 were sold.
Texas Instruments went on to pursue other projects, but a Japanese company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo decided to make transistor radios their main enterprise. They were concerned that their name was too difficult for an American audience to pronounce, so they decided to rebrand themselves with something simpler. They looked up the Latin word for sound, which was sonus. And they liked the term sonny boys — English slang that was used in Japan for exceptionally bright, promising boys. And so the company Sony was born. Soon transistor radios were cheap and prevalent.
With transistor radios, teenagers were able to listen to music out of their parents' earshot. This made possible the explosion of a new genre of American music: rock and roll.

Friday, October 20, 2017

The Quantum Indians



Beautiful video.  Strongly  recommended.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=350&v=bI7sasQsQWI

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Ham Radio, Dilbert, Dating, and the Baofeng Breakup


Was the young lady turned off by his obvious "appliance op" status? Was it the Baofeng?  Would he have fared better with a homebrew rig? 

Dilbert addressed the relationship between ham radio and success in the dating game: 


I blame Peter VK2EMU for this digression. 


Saturday, October 14, 2017

SolderSmoke Podcast #200! 17, Knack Nobel, QCX, 630, UHF, Fessenden, TROUBLESHOOTING

DL3AO 1950
SolderSmoke Podcast #200 -- TWO HUNDRED!!!!-- Is available

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke200.mp3

-- Old friends on 17 meters.  

-- Another Knack Nobel in Physics.  

-- Hans Summers' QCX transceiver:  $50 IS THE NEW 10 GRAND! 

-- New Bands!  630 and 2200 Meters.  BIG ANTENNAS! 

-- Nuke Powered QRP.  No joke! 

-- The Challenge of UHF.  Not for the faint of heart. 

-- Reginald Fessenden, Father of Phone. 

PETE'S BENCH REPORT:   The New Simple-ceiver.  Soon to be a Transceiver. 

BILL's BENCH REPORT:  Discrete, Direct Conversion, Ceramic Receiver in iPhone Box.  

THE EDUCATIONAL PORTION OF TODAY's PROGRAM:  
HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT A HOMEBREW RECEIVER. 

MAILBAG. 


DL3AO 1950

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

SPRAT -- The 007 Connection


The eagle eye of Brent KD0GLS spotted this frame in the 007 movie "Casino Royale."  
Wow -- I just knew those GQRP guys had to be much cooler than they seemed.  I guess there were some indications: They do seem to talk quite a bit about "Q".  There is that weird fondness for Parasets. I understand that several of the senior GQRPers drive Aston Martins.  And that Dobbs guy -- a kindly retired Anglican minister you say?  Really?  I can just hear him saying it:  "Dobbs, George Dobbs."  

Monday, October 9, 2017

DL1YC's Flat Moxon with Armstrong Rotation

DL1YC Moxon
I had a very nice contact on 17 meters yesterday with Jan DL1YC.  It was a rare Moxon-to-Moxon contact, with homebrew 17 meter Moxons on either end.  Jan's is a bit cooler than mine:   His is flat, without the "blownout umbrella" support that we see in mine (below) and in the Hex Beams.  Jans told me that he achieved this flatness by starting out with very long telescoping fishing poles -- he discarded the the thin portions of the pole and used only the more rigid pieces.  (I used 16 foot, 5 piece Shakespeare Wonderpoles from Amazon.) I think he also used thin wire for the elements.  The crossbar that you see in the picture above is there to support a balun at the feed point -- without the cross bar the balun and the feedline would cause the balun to droop. 

I couldn't resist a little front to back testing.   Jan's antenna does not have a rotator -- he used the "Armstrong" method of antenna pointing.  I didn't want to make him go outside to spin the thing around by hand, so I just turned mine and asked him to take note of the difference front to back.  He saw 3 S units.  18 db.  Not bad.   

Jan said his antenna weighs about 8 pounds -- mine is very similar at 9 pounds.  Jan expressed some concern about UV deterioration of the fishing pole fiberglass.  Mine has been up there three years without any problems.  

Like me, Jan had considered "nesting" an element for another ban (perhaps 20 or 12) but -- like me-- had concluded that this would be too difficult. 

N2CQR Moxon

Sunday, October 8, 2017

A Direct Conversion iPhone!


Well, really a DC receiver in an iPhone box.

I think the Apple iPhone boxes have great potential as project enclosures.  They are cardboard, but they are very rigid and solid.   I decided to use them for a Direct Conversion receiver project I've had in mind.  


This is a 40 meter DC receiver.  No chips.  Ceramic resonator VXO tuned by a varactor diode. 9V battery as the power source.  Ear buds as the transducer.  Passive, two diode, singly balanced detector.  It sounds great -- so great that I may have to add a gain control. 

The nice fit is no coincidence -- I cut the board so it would fit in the iPhone box.  


Take a look at that top cover.  It is all, well, empty.   I could put another board in there, right?  Maybe a balanced modulator,  a mic amp and an RF amplifier.  Then this thing would be a Double Sideband transceiver.  We could even make use of the little microphone that comes with most of the ear buds.  


I'm thinking that this might be the kind of project that people would like to take on this winter.  Build the VXO first.  Then the AF amp.  Then the product detector and front end. At that point you've built a receiver.  For extra credit you could go on to the transmitter.  No need to use Apple boxes (but they are cool...)  I will try to get the schematic done soon.  My nephew John Henry will test the prototype. 



Saturday, October 7, 2017

IZ7VHF's Video on on Hans Summers' QCX Rig, and a Video from Hans



Thanks to W8SX for alerting me to this. 

There is a lot of good stuff on Roberto's site.  He obviously has THE KNACK. 

http://radio-signals.com/

Hans himself has a less detailed video on the rig:

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