Just go to http://soldersmoke.com. On that archive page, just click on the blue hyperlinks and your audio player should play that episode.
http://soldersmoke.com
“Our customers are interested in technology – some people buy paintings for their wall; our customers buy a technical piece of art. I think they appreciate the fact that someone is keeping old technology alive and they want to support us."
Thanks to Grayson Evans for sending us this very encouraging video. It is from Tektronix; I wonder if Alan W2AEW provided some ideas and inspiration? More stories like this: https://www.tek.com/stories
Here is Marc Verdiell, the "Curious Marc" who repaired the Soyuz Clock (shown in yesterday's blog post). Really cool. Many SolderSmoke fans will completely understand Marc and his passion for electronics.
Thanks to Bob KD4EBM for sending this. There is so much good info in this video: They crack open a logic chip and look at the internal construction (it is entirely understandable by mortal minds). They use cool test gear to troubleshoot the clock from a Soyuz spacecraft. They explain very clearly the series and parallel resonances of quartz crystals, then display these resonances on a very nice spectrum analyzer. The creator of the video is CuriousMarc. He has many other interesting projects: https://www.youtube.com/c/CuriousMarc/featured https://www.curiousmarc.com/
One paragraph from his bio really resonated with me:
Working on this old stuff forces me to deal with the very fundamentals of electronics (and electro-mechanics). The principles are exactly the same as today, but nothing is hidden in mysterious circuits - you can understand and fix everything. Years of Moore's law has sure given us gobs of transistors, oceans of memory and a glut of gigacycles, but many times, particularly in consumer hardware, these are simply used to cover up poor and inefficient designs - and resource devouring software. What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away, as they say. It often irritates me that my PC takes several seconds to react to a simple command, in which time it must have executed billions of unnecessary instructions and consumed a few gigabytes of memory, no one knowing exactly what for anymore. Nothing like this in old high-end hardware: designs are pure and efficient, and the lack of resources is compensated by engineering mastery and immense cleverness, which is a joy to reverse engineer. Not only does it teach us timeless electrical fundamentals and engineering tricks, but it also gives us a much better appreciation of today's tech. How did all the technology we take for granted came to be? It will make you a far better engineer and inventor if you take the time to be a thorough student of the inventions of your illustrious predecessors.
There is a new open source, home brew, multi band, multi mode QRP transceiver that grew out of the QRP Labs QCX. Through some serious magic it retains an efficient class E RF amplifier for sideband and digital modes. It crams impressive SDR capabilities into an Arduino. More info at https://groups.io/g/ucx/topics
The basic work appears to have been accomplished by Guido Ten Dolle PE1NNZ. It uses pulse width modulation of the PA supply voltage to transmit modes other than CW while retaining class E efficiency and uses a direct conversion SDR receiver.
This has an interesting development process with contributions by many, including the usual gang of suspects: Hans Summers, Ashhar Farhan, Manuel DL2MAN, Kees K2BCQ, Allison KB1GMX and Miguel Angelo Bartie PY2OHH. I apologize to the many others whose names I didn't list.
The band switch multiband version by DL2MAN is even smaller, but with SMD components which I wasn't ready to tackle yet.
BTW - your podcast encouraged me to go in this direction. I built a BITX 40, a uBITX (sent you a pix of it in an old Heathkit Twoer case), U3S, QCX and now my first step from kits to built from plans.
Thanks to Paul Taylor VK3HN for alerting me to the YouTube channel of Andreas Spiess. There are lots of great projects there, including several videos on building an Oscar 100 ground station. In the video above, Andreas talks about his lab/workshop. He is more focused on digital projects than I am, but I found many of his tips applicable to the analog world. And of course the more digitally oriented readers will find Andreas's observations especially useful. I was sold on this video when Andreas reached to his book shelf and showed us Tracey Kidder's "Soul of the New Machine." That is the book that brought the word "soul" into the SolderSmoke lexicon. There are many great videos on Andreas's channel. I found his Playlists page to be a good way to see the many different catergories of his projects: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasSpiess/playlists Thanks Andreas.
From a post on on "ZL Amateur Radio & Friends," in response to a complaint about the lack of activity (with apologies to Paul Simon):
'50 Ways': "Get on the band, Stan, Trigger the mic, Ike, Tap your key, Lee, Listen for me. Paddle the bug, Doug, Watch the waterfall, Paul, Just QSO, Joe, when conditions agree."
Thanks to Tony G4WIF for alerting me to this amazing (and free!) e-book by QRP Master Builder Chuck Adams K7QO: https://www.k7qo.com/lab.pdf There is a lot of wisdom and tribal knowledge in that .pdf. Thanks Chuck.
"SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" is now available as an e-book for Amazon's Kindle.
Here's the site:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V9FIVW
Re: 20 meter AM in 2024
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The AM designated 20 meter "calling frequency" for years has been 14.286
MHz. Because of lots of activity and nets around that frequency, many
AM'ers moved...
May 18, 2024. Any one have one of these?
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With a price point of about $250 you would think this is like hitting the
lottery. Any blog readers have one of these?
This is the Xiegu G106C currently ...
Velocity factor measurement
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A frequently asked question is how to measure transmission line velocity
factor. The wide adoption of the NanoVNA has spurred these questions. So,
it is go...
ICOM hint at new 60th anniversary X60 product
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At the Dayton Hamvention this weekend, ICOM put on display are number of
printed circuit boards from what is supposed to be the 60th Anniversary
Concept ...
Moorabbin Radiofest
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The Moorabbin RadioFest was a terrific show this year. The turnout looked
good to me although I'm told it was down on past years.It was great to see
a vend...
Broadcast Band AM Radio
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See the YouTube series for more information:
http://www.youtube.com/c/CharlieMorrisZL2CTM
Buffer Amplifier
Low Pass Filter
IF Ampli...
An Inline RF Step Attenuator for QRPp Work
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I don’t need to explain the attraction of low power operation; if you’re
reading this, the chances are that you are already a convert. I’ve been
operating ...
A 51S-1 Restoration Story
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I came across my Collins 51S-1 in a big junkyard in Ankara, Turkey around
2012. It was in a pile with a lot of other electronic scrap, probably from
one o...
New QRP Cluster Online From OM0ET and OM6APN
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By DX EXPLORER
DX EXPLORER
Paul OM0ET and Peter OM6APN recently launched a new cluster dedicated to
QRP operations. Have a look and I hope you will enjoy...
3D Printing The Hadley 114mm Newtonian Telescope
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Yes, we’re building a 3D Printed Newtonian Telescope called Hadley. It’s
being printed in PETG and in the video below, I give a quick tour. My build
isn’...
3D printed project boxes
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I have been busy with some other things that have kept me away from
electronics projects for quite a while. Now I can get back to them, but
realize I n...
Daylight Again – An all Analog Radio
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What’s all this? In 10 seconds, A high performance, 7MHz, 5 watt SSB rig
Draws just 24 mA of current 90 dB dynamic range, 80 dB close-in dynamic
range 3D ...
Adding Enclosure to your sBitx Boards Order
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The early buyers of the sBitx board set who bought it for $270 USD might
want to also add the enclosure (box) for in the kit. What you will now get
is a f...
Digi-chirp! Digital synthesis of ‘nostalgic’ CW
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The bottom ends of 80, 40 and 20m are not what they used to be. For
starters, the busiest part is the digital segment where computers talk to
computers – l...
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A Simple Speech Processor
(For QRP/SSB Homebrew Transceivers )
Over the last few weeks I had been thinking to build a small AF speech
processor to add to...
A New Look for your uBitx!
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Adding a "Cool Blue" Display to your uBitx!
The standard "green background" with black lettering frequently reminds me
that I suffer from Chronic seasickn...