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Sunday, November 28, 2021
How To Understand the NE-602 and the Gilbert Cell Mixer
Saturday, November 27, 2021
The Galway Radio Experimenters Club
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Gloria -- A Netflix Series about a Shortwave Broadcast Station in Portugal
Rarely if ever will we come across a high quality NETFLIX series built around a shortwave broadcast transmitter. But that is what we have in Gloria. It is really good. We were especially interested in it because we lived in Portugal for three years. In addition to all the intrigue and drama you will catch glimpses of broadcast antennas, big transmitting tubes, and one out-of-focus shot of what appears to be a Hallicrafters receiver (SX-42?)
More info here:
Here's the NETFLIX link:
https://www.netflix.com/title/81073977
Thanks to Thomas K4SWL of SWLing Post for the heads up.
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Jagadish Chandra Bose
Jagadish Chandra Bose
Sunday, November 21, 2021
KG7TR's Magnificent 75S-2B Receiver -- Tubes, an Si5351, an Arduino, a Bit of Collins, and a Bit of a Drake 2-B
I was led to this magnificent receiver by the very humble 6U8 tube. Scott WA9WFA and I have been learning (mostly from Grayson KJ7UM) that the much used and sometimes loved 6U8s (three of them in our "Mates for the Mighty Midget") might be a bit long in the tooth, old even by Thermatron standards. I was worried when I remembered that my Drake 2-B has a 6U8 in it -- V2, the first mixer. So I Googled for more info and was led to this amazing receiver, a 2018 creation by KG7TR. How did we NOT see this for almost four years?
Here is more info and pictures:
http://www.kg7tr.com/75s-2b-receiver.html
Here is Mike's write-up of the project:
Mike KG7TR's web site:
As for the 6U8s, well Grayson says the tube has been getting something of a bum rap. And KG7TR has two of them in this receiver, so I will obviously have to give the 6U8 another chance.
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I didn't know that Lew McCoy had his own crystal and crystal filter company:
Saturday, November 20, 2021
The Double Crystal Lattice Filter in the Swan 240 -- Smoothing it out with a NanoVNA
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
SolderSmoke Podcast #234: PSSST, KWM-1, VHF Woes, Mighty Midget, TinySA, 17-12 Dual-Bander Advice Needed. MAILBAG
PSSST Super Simple SSB -- 7 Transistors. Switching IF Module:
DC RX.
KWM-1 Resurrection "Shame Shelf".
How to make things work:
Diode Switching or Relays?
National Receiver.
Bill's Bench
Farhan's Talk to RSGB got me thinking of VHF 2 meter AM.
2 meter Benton Harbor lunchbox madness. SuperRegens Super Strange.
I broke my Maplin AF Sig Gen in the process. Fixed it.
Playing with MMMRX again. Put in 6 kHz ceramic filter. Sounds great SSB and AM.
Swept IF with noise, TinySA, and NanoVNA. Need better noise gen.
Mod to listen with TinySA (on blog).
Thinking of 17 meter /12 meter Dual-Bander IF around 21.4, VFO around 3.41 Mhz. Thoughts?
Sweeping double half lattice filter from Swan 240. UGLY.
MAILBAG:
--- ROOTS OF MAILBAG: Radio Moscow, Havana Cuba, HCJB, others.
-- Thomas K4SWL of the SWL Post: Could have been worse! Stairbag?
-- Drew N7DA worked Wes W7ZOI in Sweepstakes. FB.
-- Peter VK2EMU The movie Frequency and the Magic of Heathkits. Good, but not that good!
-- Thomas KK6AHT! Our old friend. Minima! Now has a young son! FB
-- Chuck WA7ZZE Saw QST profile. Sympathizes with Two-er trouble.
-- Tim M0CZP. Spell corrector. Vatican Diodes. Infallible!
-- Ramakrishnan VU3RDD Working on a NORCAL and a noise cancellation arrangement.
-- Skip NC9O said I was 40 Hz off on 17. But he had a reason to KNOW!
-- Steve K9NVD Glad he's a listener.
-- Bob KY3R Novice Nostalgia. Should he use 75 watt bulb for dummy load? Yes!
-- Todd K7TFC Video about why solder smoke goes into the face.
-- Anthony VU3JVX Homebrew Antuino. I ask for help in moving freq to 450 kHz.
-- Jack NG2E Building Pete's DC RX.
-- Scott WA9WFA HBR-13 and MMMRX.
-- Stephen 2E0FXZ also got a FT-101 VFO.
-- Bob K7ZB on the air with 56 mW and a big antenna.
-- Dean AC9JQ Retired.
-- Allan WA9IRS Right to Repair update.
-- Farhan Invited us to Lamakaan ARC, Dec 11 or 12. Will be on QO100 Satellite Live!
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate this holiday!
Monday, November 15, 2021
SSB History: Selling SSB in 1954
K9YA Telegraph ran (on Facebook) this ad from 1954. It provides an interesting view of where phone operations were in that year. Note that Dale was so intent on selling SSB gear that they were willing to make on-the-air schedules to demonstrate SSB superiority.
Dale claims that with SSB you could have TWO roundtable QSOs on the same frequency, with one group on USB and the other on LSB. I think this assumes really great opposite sideband rejection in the transmitters, and excellent selectivity in the receivers. That might have been a bit of a stretch. But the assumption here was that hams could use USB or LSB -- no rigid adherence to the USB/LSB convention. And the ad seems to focus on the 75 meter band which was seen as the most important phone band at that time.
Dale was selling Collins mechanical filters for 55 dollars. That is the 1954 equivalent of $566 dollars today. No wonder the phasing method was so popular. Note that they were selling Central Electronics phasing rigs right next to the ad for the Collins filters.
I like the graph showing opposite sideband rejection with the Sideband Slicer. Note that the selected sideband was referred to as the "exalted" sideband. All Hail the Single Sideband!
Saturday, November 13, 2021
"First Wireless" 1922 book by Allen Chapman with Foreword by Jack Binns (free download)
Friday, November 12, 2021
Mate for the Mighty Midget with 6 kHz Ceramic Filter
Thursday, November 11, 2021
Scott WA9WFA's Beautiful HBR-13 Receiver (3 videos)
This is Scott WA9WFA's first homebrew construction project. He did an amazing job on a very complex project: a 13 tube superhet receiver. It features plug-in coils for multi-band coverage, dual conversion with IFs at 1600 kHz and 100 kHz, and several regenerative stages. Scott's construction is top notch. He tells us that he had been working on this receiver for several years, so long in fact that some of his friends began to wonder if it really existed. Well wonder no more. Retirement has provided Scott with the time to finish this project.