Podcasting since 2005! Listen to Latest SolderSmoke
Monday, September 20, 2021
Opening up an Apollo Command Module Microwave Radio System
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Much SSB Tribal Knowledge in Bill Orr's 1959 Handbook
Here is the link to the Orr book:
Thanks to Tony K3DY for sending us the link that led us to this book. There are many other great books there: http://www.rsp-italy.it/Electronics/Books/indexhtm
Saturday, September 18, 2021
SolderSmoke Goes FT-8 (Briefly, I Think)
Thursday, September 16, 2021
The HBR-13C Receiver and the Poetic License of Homebrewers
I've been hanging out on 17 meters with my homebrew VXO-controlled BITX transceiver. The antenna is my 75 meter doublet fed with window line through a homebrew tuner made from dead ( I swear) DX-40s and DX-60s. I can tune it up just fine on 17 meters, but I realize I probably have lots of nulls and lobes in the radiation pattern. Apparently one of the lobes is over my old stomping grounds in Panama. Almost everyday I talk to either HP9SAM or HP3SS.
Robby, HP3SS, is using SDR gear now, but he was a real homebrewer back in the day. Years ago he built an HBR-13C receiver. That's quite an achievement.
Robby -- formerly VY2SS -- told me that he sold his HBR-13C to none other than Joe Walsh, the rockstar from The Eagles. FB.
As I was talking to Robby yesterday, I came across this wonderful web page about the receiver:
https://sparcradio.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Restoring-a-HBR-13-Amateur-Receiver.pdf
Robby told me that his receiver looked almost exactly like the one on the SPARC site, but he didn't recognize the small box with what looked like a speaker on the chassis. I told him that my guess was that this was a crystal calibrator in an oven.
I also told Robby that I feel an affinity with the HBR project, not just because I like homebrew superhets, but also because my call in the UK was M0HBR.
There are some great quotes in the SPARC pdf:
The SPARC page led me to the amazing website of Kees K5BCQ:
https://www.qsl.net/k5bcq/HBR/hbr.html
Here is Kees's QRZ page:
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Monday, September 13, 2021
So Where DID the LSB/USB Convention Come From?
-- Bottom line: I still don't know why ham radio adopted as a convention LSB below 10 MHz and USB above 10 MHz. There are several theories. but so far there is no convincing explanation in favor of any one of them. And almost all of the people involved are probably Silent Keys by now; this makes it more difficult to gather first-hand information.
-- I'm not even sure when the convention began to be observed in ham radio. Many of the early SSB books and articles make no mention of it. We don't see it in early ARRL Handbooks. The first mention of it that I found was in the 1965 issue of the ARRL's "Single Sideband for the Radio Amateur" page 8. This article claims that adding a provision for selectable sidebands would "add appreciably to the cost of the equipment. " It went on to say that, "For this and other reasons there has been a species of standardization on the particular sideband used in the various amateur bands. Nearly all operations in the 3.5 and 7 Mc. phone sub-allocation is on lower sideband, while the upper sideband is used on 14, 21, and 28 Mc."
-- We know that the informal convention was being followed as early as 1958. Jim N2EY reports that in 1958, the manual for the Central Electronics 20A shows that LSB was the "sideband most commonly used" on 75, with USB preferred on 20:
-- There is a widely held belief that this practice originated in the design of a rig that had a 5.2 MHz VFO and a 9 MHz filter. According to this theory such a rig -- due to sideband inversion -- would produce LSB on 75 meters and USB on 20. But, as we have demonstrated, this doesn't work, so this theory has to be discounted.
-- Early SSB activity seems to have been concentrated on 75 meters, and there was a competition for space with AM stations. SSB operators appear to have used the very upper band edge as their gathering spot. Using LSB allowed them to operate very close to the upper band edge -- a lot closer than AM stations could go. This may explain why LSB became the preferred SSB mode on 75. But how do we explain USB on 20 and above? That remains a mystery.
-- It is important to remember that in the early days of SSB, for most hams there were only two important phone bands: 75 meters and 20 meters. 40 meters was CW only until 1952, and even after that was crowded with shortwave broadcast stations. So a design that allowed for both 75 and 20 was twice as good as a monoband design.
-- Early on there were designs and parts for phasing rigs. You could take that ARC-5 VFO at 5 MHz, build a phasing generator around it, and then mix it with a 9 MHz to get on either band. But with just a simple switch, this kind of rig could operate on USB or LSB on either band. So the early popularity of this kid of rig does not explain the convention.
-- There were a lot of surplus 5 MHz ARC-5 VFOs available. There were also FT-243 and FT-241 surplus crystals at both 5 MHz and 9 MHz that could be made into filters. Later in the 1950s, 9 MHz commercial crystal filters became available. If you used a 9 MHz filter with a 5 MHz VFO, there would be no sideband inversion in your rig. If the SSB generator was putting out LSB on 9 MHz, you'd be on LSB on both bands. So if there was a desire to have LSB on 75, why not just also have LSB on 20?
-- But if you built a 5.2 MHz filter and a 9 MHz VFO, you could have LSB on 75 and USB on 20 without having to shift the carrier oscillator frequency. This would save you the trouble and expense of moving the carrier oscillator/BFO to the other side of the passband. This desire to economize and simplify may explain why we ended up with LSB on 75 and USB on 20. But this still begs the question: Why the desire for USB on 20?
-- Both the manufacturers and the hams wanted there to be sideband standardization. With monoband rigs, the manufacturers would be able to cut costs by building for only one sideband. Hams also wanted to cut costs, and they did not want to have to figure out which sideband a station was on when trying to tune him in.
-- By 1962-1963 Swan and Heathkit were selling mono-band SSB transceivers that used the "conventional" sidebands: The rigs for 75 and 40 meters were on LSB while the 20 meter rigs were on USB. There were no provisions for switching to the other sideband. This seems to have reinforced the practice of observing the convention. (Heath later added sideband switching to the HW monobanders -- in view of the growing observation of the convention, they may have been better off sticking with their original design. Does anyone know why they did this?) But again, why USB on 20 and above?
-- In 1963, Swan, by then in Oceanside California, came out with the Swan 240. Swan used a filter centered at 5174.5 kc. The VFO ran from 8953 kc to 9193 kc on 75 and 20. The VFO ran from 12222 to 12493 on 40. This gave the buyer 75 and 40 on LSB, and 20 USB with only one carrier oscillator frequency. (Swan offered a mod that allowed hams to install an additional, switchable carrier oscillator frequency. I luckily acquired one such modified rig.) But again, there is an explanation for LSB on 75, but why USB on 20 and above?
This is an important part of ham radio history. There should be a clear answer. We need to find it. If anyone has any good info on this, please let me know.
Sunday, September 12, 2021
Simple SSB Success in Northern Virginia -- "The Radio Does Not Build Itself...."
Dean KK4DAS and the Vienna Wireless Society (VWS) Builders Group have had some remarkable success with Pete Juliano's Simple SSB design. Sixteen of the rigs have reached the point where the receivers are fully functional. Eight more have gone the final (!) stretch and have the full transceivers working. This week Dean and two other VWS builders met up on 40 meters for the world's first multi-SSSB QSO (see Dean's video in the link below).
https://kk4das.blogspot.com/2021/09/simplessb-three-way-qso.html
Here's Dean's presentation to the club describing the project and Pete's rig:
As Pete says, "The radio does not build itself..." Indeed it doesn't! The VWS builders made these rigs. FB!
Saturday, September 11, 2021
Visiting the Site of Marconi's Wireless Station at Wellfleet, Massachusetts
We were in Boston and the Cape Cod area this week. We stopped off at the Marconi Wireless site at Wellfleet, Mass.
This is from the National Park Service web site:
Spanning the Ocean
Impacting Lives
January 18, 1903 the first public two-way wireless communication between Europe and America occurred. With elation, communiques from President Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII were translated into international Morse code at the South Wellfleet and English stations, respectively, and were broadcast.Ocean-going vessels quickly adopted Marconi apparatus to receive news broadcasts, and soon ship-to-shore transmittals were a major operation. Business and social messages could be sent for fifty cents a word. The South Wellfleet station became the lead North American facility for this function. The station’s effectiveness was limited however, so broadcasts were made between 10 pm and 2 am when atmospheric conditions were best.
This brought little enthusiasm from local residents, who endured the sounds of the crashing spark from the great three-foot rotor supplied with 30,000 watts. The sound of the spark could be heard four miles downwind from the station. Eventually, the novelty of wireless telegraphy waned. However, the need for communication at sea remained high. Effective communication resulted in numerous sea rescues, culminating in the Carpathia’s wireless-aided rescue of over 700 people from the Titanic in 1912.
For fifteen years the South Wellfleet sparkgap transmitter continued in commercial use. Skilled telegraphers sent out messages at the rate of 17 words a minute, and station CC (Cape Cod) served in effect as the first “Voice of America.”
https://www.nps.gov/caco/learn/historyculture/marconi.htm
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
SST -- QRP On The Beach
Saturday, September 4, 2021
Cosmic Rays, Bit Flips, and Computer Vulnerability
Friday, September 3, 2021
1BCG -- 1921 Transatlantic Test and the Upcoming 100th Anniversary
On December 11, 2021 the American Radio Relay League, The Radio Club of America and the Antique Wireless Association will recreate these historic transmissions on 160 meters near the same location that was used in 1921, using a replica transmitter constructed by volunteers at the Antique Wireless Association. This special event is your opportunity to relive a historic moment in amateur radio history.
The operating schedule and frequency for the 1BCG Transatlantic Tests Special Event has not been established.
Additional details will be posted here when they are available.
Thursday, September 2, 2021
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
SSB History -- The Tucker Tin 2 (and 3) with a 1961 Recording. Hallicrafters FPM-200 Video by W9RAN
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Kintsugi -- A Japanese Philosophy for the Owners of Imperfect Rigs
On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 4:05 PM Bob Scott wrote:
Hi Bill:After listening to the latest Soldersmoke I thought you might find the Japanese concept of "kintsugi" (literally "golden joinery") interesting.From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi#Philosophy As a philosophy, kintsugi is similar to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect.[11][12] Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear from the use of an object. This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage, and can be seen as a variant of the adage "Waste not, want not".[13]
Kintsugi can relate to the Japanese philosophy of mushin (無心, "no mind"), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change, and fate as aspects of human life.[14]
Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated... a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin....Mushin is often literally translated as "no mind," but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. ...The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or perhaps identification with, [things] outside oneself.
— Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics73,Bob KD4EBM
--------------------------------------------
I shared Bob's Kintsugi message with David, WA1LBP. David was one of the few radio amateurs in the ranks of the Foreign Service. He was in Okinawa during the early 1990s, when I was in Santo Domingo. For a time we both wrote columns in the "73 International" section of Wayne Green's magazine -- this made us "Hambassadors." David is a real scholar of difficult Asian languages. During my last years in government service I would sometimes cross paths with David at lunch time on the National Mall in Washington -- he'd be out there with a colleague, studying ancient Chinese poetry.
Here are David's thoughts on this:
Thanks, Hambassador Bill.Chan embraced this account of nonduality and Buddha-nature, but distinctively used it to qualify the meaning of Buddhist practice and the personal ideal of the bodhisattva. In the Platform Sutra attributed to Huineng, he insists that
meditation is the embodiment (ti) of wisdom, and wisdom is the functioning (yong) of meditation.
The point of Chan is to see one’s own “original nature” (benxing, 本性) and realize “authentic heartmind” (zhenxin, 眞心), and in doing so the dualities of thought and reality, of passion and enlightenment, and of the impure and pure all dissolve. Then,
true suchness (zhenru, 真如) is the embodied structure (ti) of thinking, while thinking is the functioning (yong) of true suchness. (Platform Sutra, 13–17)
To see our own original nature is to see that true suchness and thinking are as intimately related as the bodily structure of a horse and its customary activities. Just as the bodily structure of the horse establishes the conditions of possibility for grazing and galloping, it is only the proven evolutionary advantage of grazing and galloping in horse-like ways that have made this bodily structure possible. True suchness or ultimate reality is not a preexistent something “out there” that can be grasped intellectually or accessed through some mystical vision; it can only be enacted.
Huangbo Yixun (d. 850) describes this as demonstrating no-“mind” (wuxin, 無心) or freedom from conceptual impositions that would define or limit reality. But this is not a lapse into mental blankness or indiscriminate presence. Realizing no-“mind” restores our originally whole mind (yixin, 一心) that Huangbo qualifies as the “silent bond” (moqi, 默契) of “conducting oneself as all Buddhas have” (in Taishō shinshō daizūkyu, Vol.48, 2012.380b to 383c). Significantly, the term “qi” originally referred to notches or tally marks on a strip of bamboo that record the terms of a trade agreement and the bonding that Huangbo invokes is thus one of mutually entrusted obligation and responsibility. True suchness consists in the personification of the bodhisattva ideal of realizing liberating forms of relationality. Ultimate reality consists in enacting the morally-inflected nonduality of wisdom and compassion.
David
-----------------------------------------------------
I remember that it was George Dobbs, G3RJV who introduced us to the concept of Wabi sabi:
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2010/04/homebrew-hero-george-dobbs-g3rjv.html
Monday, August 30, 2021
No More Automatic E-mails from the SolderSmoke Blog
Blogspot and Feedburner tell me that as of the end of August 2021, they will no longer be sending automatic e-mails to those who have subscribed to e-mail alerts for blog postings.
I believe you can still subscribe to the blog. But no more e-mailed alerts.
Please let me know if this loss of automatic e-mails will cause major disruptions for you.
soldersmoke@yahoo.com
Adding Automatic Gain Control to the Termination Insensitive Amplifier
Friday, August 27, 2021
SolderSmoke Podcast #232 -- Mythbuster, Pete's Tube CW Rig, Pete's DC RX and Simple SSB Rig, NanoVNA and TinySA, Very FB Mailbag
Frank Jones and the FMLA -- Possible Victory?
IBEW Stickers: NASA, Johns Hopkins APL....
Cycle 25 Lookin Better Today: SFI 93 SN 47
Toobular! A Tube Transmitter
SR-160
Simple SSB rigs around the world!
KI7NSS's Pacific 40
The Mythbuster and the Struggle Against the Urban Legend
W2EWL's Cheap and Easy SSB
W4IMP's IMP. Articles in ER by Jim Musgrove K5BZH and Jim Hanlon W8KGI
The Spirit of Homebrew SSB. From Electric Radio K5BZH December 1991
Reduced Front End Gain on the DIGITIA
Back on 17! HP3SS sells HBR receiver to Joe Walsh
Maybe another Moxon?
NanoVNA -- Alan W2AEW helped solve mystery of why NanoVNA not providing accurate readout of circuit impedance. Over driving. Need attenuator.
TinySA -- Limited Resolution Bandwidth. But you can listen with it! See video on blog.
-- Google Feedburner to end e-mails from the blog :-(
-- Paul VK3HN -- TIA AGC? Farhan and Paul looking into options
-- Ciprian's Romanian Mighty Mite
-- Dino KL0S SolderSmoke GIF and graphical presentation on sideband inversion
-- Allison KB1GMX helped me on 24 volts to IRF 510 issue.
-- Dave K8WPE Wabi Sabi and Martha Stewart. And thanks for parts! 40673s!
-- Steve N8NM building a 17 meter rig with 22.1184 crystals in a SuperVXO and a 4 MHz filter.
-- Dean KK4DAS restoring an old Zenith. One hand behind your back OM.
-- Pete Eaton debating SSB or DSB for 17. Go DSB Pete!
-- Richard KN7FSZ a FB HBer. Asked about my solid-stating of Galaxy V VFO.
-- Walter KA4KXX on benefits of no-tune BP filters like Farhan's FB.
-- Jack 5B4APL on Time Crystals and Homebrewing in the 4th dimension. FB OM!
-- Moses K8TIY listens to the podcast with his young son Robert. Crank it in Robert!
-- Farhan and the SBitx on Hack-A-Day
-- Also Tom's receiver from junked satellite rig on Hack-A-Day
-- Todd K7TFC sent in beautiful message about the spirit of homebrewing. On the blog.
-- Grayson KJ7UM was on Ham Radio Workbench with George Zaf
-- AAron K5ATG running a uBitx with a homebrew tuner and antenna. Hope I can work him
-- Heard Mike WA3O last night on 40 DIGITIA. Water cooled amplifier