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Showing posts with label CW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CW. Show all posts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Listen to me talking to Jean Shepherd in 1976. I was 18 years-old.


Wow, here is a blast from the past.  I recently read a good article about Shepherd by A. David Wunsch in the Spring 2022 issue of the AWA Journal. David correctly focused on Shep's obsession with the Heising modulator, and the very negative impact ("Your mother should take you to a doctor!") that this had on his dating life. 

I was telling my wife about this article, and I commented that I had once spoken to Shep during an early morning call-in show on WMCA New York.  I told her that someone had sent me a recording of this brief conversation. 

The call took place in 1976.  Shep was appaearing as a guest on the late-night radio show of Long John Nebel and Candy Jones.   I was 18 years old. My callsign was WB2QHL.  The recording was sent to me by Matt KC8COM in 2006. Thanks Matt!  In 2008 I played the recording during SolderSmoke Podcast #90.  But I think this call merits a post on the SoldedSmoke blog, so here it is.  You can jump forward to about 3 minutes, 49 seconds.   

http://soldersmoke.com/JeanShepherd1976WMCA.mp3

One side note.  I told my wife that some time after the broadcast, I was once again up early in the morning, kind of absent-mindedly getting ready for work when I heard Shepherd talking on WMCA to some guy about ham radio.  It took me a moment to realize that this was a re-run, and that that guy was me!  

When I first listened to this I didn't realize that later in the recording (around 9:30) another fellow calls in an asks Shep about why he uses CW.  Shep is kind of short with him and ends up advising him to "go back to CB." I should note that in my conversation with Shep earlier in the program,  I told him that I was usually on "40 sideband."  He was nice to me, but said that he was mostly on 20 CW. 



Here is a good Wikipedia article on Long John Nebel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_John_Nebel

And here's one on his wife and WMCA co-host Candy Jones: 

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

We Get Mail! Red Poster? Really a Tapestry from Ecuador


Listener Tobias was laid up yesterday, following the extraction of wisdom teeth. (This seems like an appropriate follow-up to our talk in SolderSmoke Podcast #250 of sBITX "wisdom files" to correct FFT "hallucinations.") Tobias does not appear to have been hallucinating, but he was having trouble seeing what he thought to be a "red poster" in my shack.  

In fact, what he was seeing was a red tapestry from Ecuador that was sent to me by Galo Constante HC1GC way back in 1993.  I was in the Dominican Republic, running my first ever real homebrew transmitter.  Here is an article about this project: https://www.gadgeteer.us/TXHB.HTM  I think Galo was also QRP homebrew.  My log shows that I worked  him eight times from the DR. 

Mitad del Mundo =  Middle of the World (a reference to the equator). 

Here is the QSL I got from Galo: 


Here's a 2022 blog post about a resurrection of this old rig: 

Thanks Tobias for spotting the HC1GC tapestry and reminding me of some great QRP contacts. I hope you feel better OM.  73  Bill 

Monday, January 1, 2024

Happy New Year! Straight Key Night at N2CQR (video)


As you know, here at SolderSmoke East HQ we are all about TRADITION.  So last night (New Year's eve) I fired up my venerable HT-37 / Drake 2-B combo and made a few Straight Key Night (SKN) contacts on 40 meter CW.  I was indeed using my straight key.  Video above. 

Also, be sure to check out CuriousMarc's very cool New Year's clock video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZmEz-Y1FFM

Happy New Year to all.  May you make good progress on your homebrew projects, and may the radio gods act favorably on your behalf.  

73 es HNY de N2CQR 

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

A Low-Power (QRP) Contact from Australia to Spain (with video from both sides!)

A recent comment on the blog put me back in contact with an old friend of SolderSmoke:  Paul VK3HN.  Paul is an amazing homebrewer -- it was great to hear from him.   He sent along this video of a portable Summit on the Air activation from the Melbourne Australia area.   Paul managed to contact Ignacio EA2BD in Spain.  Ignacio was also running low power with a portable set up.  The remarkable thing is that we have video from both sides of the contact.  FB!  Thanks to Paul and Ignacio. 

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Nine Homebrew Transceivers by Walter KA4KXX (and some QRP and QRO RC planes)

 

Our friend Walter KA4KXX in Orlando recently sent us this really cool "family photo" of his homebrew rigs.  Be sure to see the key that explains the photo (below) FB Walter.  Thanks too for the model airplane pictures. (Click on the images for better viewing.) 

Walter wrote: 

I recently realized that I am now operating nine homebrew transceivers, which would fit nicely in an “aerial” photograph, so I grabbed my stepladder and everything did fit well in the frame.  Six of them come from the BITX side of the family, with #1 and #7 direct conversion and #9 a single conversion superhet but using the NE602.  More basic information is included in the sketch.

I tried a Si5351 VFO once in the dual-band rig #4, but by the time I built the QRP Labs kit with so much closely-spaced soldering, and then added sufficient filtering and amplification to properly drive a 50 ohm load, I was exhausted!

These nine were created during the past eight years, and were preceded by eight more transceivers that I can document, but those have all been disassembled, with many of the parts being used in these later rigs.  I build my transceivers to be operated often, and since 20 Meters has been hot lately, for example, my POTA Hunter log shows over 300 CW and SSB contacts in 2023 alone, so rig numbers 7 - 9 have been earning their keep lately.

In summary I have created a lifetime total of seventeen transceivers so far, and although I am nowhere near the fifty-plus tally of Pete N6QW, I did spend a lot of years instead homebrewing many radio-controlled model airplanes of my own design.  Two photos show one example that I flew in the 2011 Blue Max Scale R/C Contest at the Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, Florida against some stiff QRO competition.

—Walter KA4KXX


Thursday, June 1, 2023

George Heron N2APB talks about Coherent CW at FDIM: Interview #7 by Bob Crane W8SX

It was great to hear George's voice again.  I was a big fan of his "Chat with the Designers" podcast. And it was great to see that Pete Eaton WB9FLW (an old friend of SolderSmoke) was also involved in this presentation.  

At FDIM George was talking about Coherent CW.  Now, my views on CW have been made quite clear, but I am going to deliberately avoid snide comments about how Coherent CW might be a contradiction in terms.  Thank you.   I think this is something that Pete N6QW and I can agree on. 

Nevertheless, this is all technically interesting.  This reminds me of what happens with WSPR.  But I wasn't quite sure what George was getting at with his discussion of the phase of the incoming signal -- I can see the need to get the receivers' narrow filter exactly on the transmitting station's frequency, but why the phase?  

Here is Bob Crane's interview with George: 

http://soldersmoke.com/N2APB23.mp3

And here are a couple of things with background info on CCW. 

https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Coherent_CW

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/7509026.pdf

Thanks George, thanks Pete, and thanks Bob. 


Friday, May 26, 2023

Coffee with Farhan VU2ESE (video)


Early morning in the N2CQR shack, May 16, 2023

-- Propagation
-- Web sites (RBN, PSK Reporter, others)
-- CW
-- Homebrew rigs
-- VFOs

Saturday, March 18, 2023

The Islander -- A Homebrew DSB Rig from Cuba

 

This article, the pictures, and the comments are all so cool. They really capture the spirit of homebrew. Obviously we still need more information on  the Islander and the Jaguey.  If you have it, please send it to me and I will disseminate it via this blog. 


I've been in touch by e-mail with Jose Campos CO6EC (the guy in the picture above).   He sent me this partial schematic of the Islander (we still need the VFO circuit and the RF amplifier) .  Thanks Jose! 

Views: 2274
Comments: 6

Remembering

By José de Jesús Enríquez Campos (CO6EC)

Next 2019 will be the 30th anniversary of the first convention of radio amateurs in the province of Villa Clara, in Campismo de Ganuza, municipality of Corralillo, on the North coast, about 100 kilometers from Santa Clara, the provincial capital.

This convention was held on a national basis and colleagues from all the country's provinces participated at that time. We did not reach a thousand members throughout the national territory and most of the radio amateurs worked in the 40-meter Band in Amplitude Modulation Then the Lateral Side Band (SSB) was the privilege of a few and the 2 meters was something rare, which did not yet exist in our environment.

At that meeting, a project for a Tube Transceiver was presented, quite simple, with just six vacuum tubes and a BF310 transistor. It was possible to work in HF in Double Sideband, achieving a greater efficiency than the transmission in Modulated Amplitude (AM). This project became known as the Islander.

In only two printed plates, one for the VFO and another for the TX and RX part, which by the way were printed for distribution, in a company in Villa Clara, due to their easy construction and acquisition of the components (almost all of them came out of a Krin-218 TV), a large number of such equipment were manufactured by radio amateurs from all over the country. Like everything made at home, it always comes up with a little problem that later is necessary with tinkering, correcting it.

I remember listening to an old radio amateur from Havana (whose callsign I don't remember) in a pleasant QSO with another colleague, who jokingly said, "... some "Bugs" have now appeared in the band, called Islander, which is worse than the invasion of the Vikings…”, which gives an idea of ​​how many were built at that time, when if you wanted to make radio, you had to manufacture it, something unusual in these times.

As soon as we saw the project we decided to build it, because at that time we had an AM “transmitter” with modulation by “Carrier control” with four tubes, a 12AX7 preamplifier; an ECL82, as a modulator, with cathode output to the final tube Screen grid, a 6DQ6 and a 6BH6 as VFO; and to receive, an old Russian receiver from World War II.
 
 We got involved in the construction and improvements of the project and we managed, with some changes, to improve its performance and quality, because among the modifications to the original, we added: 

 -A switch, with which you could change the transmission mode to DSB -CW-AM.
-A "Pi" Filter at the input of the RX, which considerably improved its quality.
-An automatic volume control, because since it did not have AGC (Automatic Gain Control), when someone nearby came on, it would break your speaker.
-A filter for the microphone input, which improved the quality of the modulation.
-A final power stage, with a 6146B, with 750 V on the board, for about 70 W of  output, taking advantage of the 6P15P as Driver.
-The chassis was built from scratch using aluminum trays that were sold at the hardware store for “four pesos” each and that were special for making cabinets for these purposes.

After the construction was completed in one afternoon, with Reinaldo Martínez Domínguez (CO6UK), from Manicaragua, the balanced modulator was adjusted, since the good transmission of this type of equipment depends on the relationship between the amount of RF and audio that are mixed At that stage, it took us a long time to adjust, until Reinaldo with his expert ear told me, “leave it there, don't touch it, it's 99% complete”.

There were many international contacts that I was able to make with this very simple equipment, with very good reports, many of them with Europe, the American continent, that was very normal, since the propagation conditions in those years had nothing to do with the today, you could do half the world in AM, with about 100 W.
 
Many colleagues at that time asked me what equipment I was using.  When I told them it was an Islander, they asked me to send them the plans of the improvements made, they were many modified plans, mimeographed.
 
Perhaps the youngest do not know what that was and the photos taken by colleague Joel (CO6JC) that helped to illustrate the distribution of the components in the chassis, were sent to radio amateurs from the different provinces, in the interest of contributing modestly to migrate from AM to the Double Side Band, today it is a rarity to listen to someone on AM, there are already few who appear in Double Side Band, which shows that we have developed in these almost 30 years, despite the difficulties, which We went from just under a thousand to about 8,000 throughout the country today.

From time to time, a colleague in the 40 meter Band, from another province, has told me that he still keeps the plans and photos that were sent to him at that time, or as "Kike" (CO6GO) that he still has a Islander as a relic.

Ours passed away a long time ago and part of its components went to other projects, thanks to Joel (CO6JC) there is a graphic record of it, and that at that time I had hair, which I have lost in these bustles.
 
With this brief comment, we only want the new generations to know what radio amateurs were like in those days and the older ones to remember it.

Nothing, to remember is to live again.

Here he left you some images.






  • (co6ec) Jose de Jesus Enriquez Campos

    The first Image was the prototype presented at the Ganuza meeting, the rest of the photos were the ones we built with the improvements, and the photos and plans were sent to many colleagues, the colleagues who went to that meeting will remember, well, they still have to there are many left, because that was almost 30 years ago,
    greetings CO6EC

  • (co8zz) Raul Verdecie

    Magnificent photographs!!!... They seem to have been taken today with some digital "super camera"!!!
    Really, from what I can see now, the CO6EC Islander was the perfect example... mine (my first radio and built by me) was also made like this, with the plates that the FRC sold and it was good, but very ugly ...HI... The AGC worked wonderfully as it came, I don't know if Jose's improvements were later! With it I made my first hundred or so entities only in 40 meters / CW (between 7,100 and 7,150) when it was CL8ZZ. I gave it away so that someone would have their license and now I regret not having kept it... I would have liked to show it now to those who regret not having a radio!!!

  • (co8zz) Raul Verdecie

    Ah, I can never forget those headphones!!!... my external hearing aids (read ears) are much smaller today thanks to them, they exerted tons of force on the operators' skulls!!!

  • (cm6vml) Vidal

    Very good article, I hope that one day, with a good teacher, I can build my own team, congratulations Jose, regards Vidal.

  • (co7wt) Pavel Milanes (CO7WT)

    Sure...

    My first radio and with which I got my CL7WT license back in the 90's an ISLANDER, like that in capital letters.

    I remember that the CL only had a small 40m segment (like now) and that it was full of broadcasts as soon as the afternoon fell, it was an odyssey to speak on the radio... you had to find a "little hole" between the Broadcastings where it wouldn't bother you " a lot" to be able to talk.

    I remember that the old CO7OC (he is no longer a radio amateur) and CL7HU (now AC7HU) helped me build it with a board I bought at the radio club. I took almost all the valves from the deceased KRIM 218, then I found a store in Camagüey that sold idle things from the workshops...

    Turns out they had such a large inventory of "idle" tubes that they couldn't put it on the counter...they let me through to the warehouse...huge...stack of tubes, if I remember correctly I ended up with Chinese or Japanese tubes that they were more sensitive in the receiver... the driver went from a 6P14P to a more robust 6P9, by the end that was a humble 6P44 it became two 6P7s that were a Russian version of the RCA 607 if I remember correctly... in the end it had like 80W.

    It goes without saying that when I said on the radio that there were valves in that place "they flew"....

    The VFO was the one from the Jagüey, not the original from the Islander, I never knew about the AGC modifications.

    I would like if someone has the plans with the modifications to send them to me, just for nostalgia...

    My email pavelmc@gmail.com

  • (co2jc) Carlos Alberto Santamaría González

    Brother, your article is very good, because of the nostalgia and also because it talks about what we radio amateurs like: tinkering. I didn't have an Islander because what I started with in 2000 was a Polosa to which two colleagues helped me adapt it with VFO for 40 and 80 m. But I talked a lot with colleagues who did it with an Islander or a Jagüey and participated in the Rueda del Behique that I started in the 80 m. Others in the Hurricane Wheel that started a little later and were heard well. As you well say, the propagation at that time had nothing to do with what it is now, but it was very good to listen to the colleagues who came out with the equipment they had built. Thank you once again for your article. CO2JC

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Is this the Origin of the Term "Ham" Radio?

Click on the image for a better view

The timing (1895) and the context (railroad telegraphy) seem about right.  But other etymologies are out there.  Lexicographer Steve Silverman KB3SII is on the case.  What do you guys think?  Are the roots of "ham" radio in railroad telegraphy? 


Tuesday, January 17, 2023

SolderSmoke Re-Play: Goggle EMBRACES Morse Code: Gmail Tap


Wow!  CW finally gets some respect from the Silicon Valley guys!  There is actually a Vibroplex bug in this video.  And they note how USEFUL this will be for those afflicted with Fat Finger Syndrome (Pete's Disease). FB Google!  TNX! 

I was feeling kind of bad about the fact that there was one year in which we didn't do something special on the first day of the fourth month.  That year was 2012.  But looking back, we kind of did! The very next day, we posted this really awesome video from the folks at Google:

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Working Walter KA4KXX from Hispaniola

 Walter KA4KXX in Orlando has been a prolific builder of rigs for many years, and has been a great friend of SolderSmoke:  Here are some of the SolderSmoke podcasts and blog posts in which Walter's solder melting was mentioned: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search?q=KA4KXX

As we approach the end of our current stay in the Dominican Republic, I could not miss out on the chance to work Walter with his homebrew rigs.  Even though the space weather was stormy, and my dipole was droopy, we arranged to meet up on the high end of the 20 meter CW band this morning.   See the results in the video above.  A solid QSO with Walter.  He says it is HB2HB, but truth be told I was on a uBITX that was built more by Farhan than by me.  But this was a great contact.  Walter started with a 50W rig, then switched to his 3 watt rig with a DC receiver.  FB

Here is the e-mail I received from Walter after the QSO: 

Dear Bill:

Many thanks for the great video, and when
you return to Virginia look for your mailman
to bring a postcard from me!
Just after your phone call this morning I scanned
the band from 14.025 to 14.300 and heard only one
SSB QSO at 14.347, and even now I only hear
a half dozen SSB signals, so that makes what
we did even more amazing. 
The first photo below is my 3.5 watt NE602 direct conversion 
rig which is about 2 years old.  The transmit signal is created
by putting a 3 MHz VFO signal into an NE602 mixer with an 
11 MHz crystal, so the rig can receive CW and SSB from 
14.025 to 14.300 and can transmit CW anywhere in that range
with good frequency stability. 
The bottom photo is my new full break-in CW 50W rig which 
I just put on the air about a week ago and is still in the finalization stage.  
I am not yet happy with it, but then again I am more particular
now than I used to be.  It is really a trans-receiver with a single 
conversion superhet receiver at the bottom of the board using 
an NE602 pair with a 3-crystal 4 MHz 900 Hz bandwidth filter, 
and a single 10.080 crystal VFO which is tuned with a polyvaricon
for operating between 14.061 and 14.068 MHz.  
At the top is the VXO transmit section using a pair of 14.070 
crystals pulled down into the operating range.  This signal
is buffered and amplified to about 500 mW which is all that 
the MRF101 RF Power Amplifier needs.  Visible behind the
board is an AC-powered 24 VDC switching power supply which 
is connected in series with the 12 VDC battery to 
power the final stage with about 36 VDC.  The main 12 VDC is 
provided by a bench power supply which is not in the photo.
In both rigs the morse code key is the microswitch 
at the lower right corner.  (Way more handy and elegant 
than your key, I might say?)
This morning each of these rigs was connected to its own
end fed half wave antenna, one in my backyard 
and the other on the side of my house.  My antenna analyzer
shows them to be essentially equal, but my 50W rig does
not like one of them at all.
Making our international homebrew-to-homebrew contact 
today was a terrific ham radio experience, so thanks for all 
you do!
73,
Walter 
KA4KXX
Orlando, FL

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Thursday, January 12, 2023

On Ten Meters with a uBITX from the Eastern Tip of Hispaniola


On ten from HI7.  Cluster spots, DX, CW, and the Reverse Beacon Network. 

 

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Happy New Year and Straight Key Night from HI7/N2CQR


HNY from HI7!  In keeping with SolderSmoke tradition, I recorded the above greeting.  If you look over my right shoulder, or in the picture below, you can see the apartment building we will be moving into (at least for the winter months) later this year.  There will be a small shack on the top level.  And yes, a telescope.  


This morning I fired up the uBITX on 20 CW and made two Straight Key Night contacts.  My key is the straightest of the straight --  a homewbrew thing made from an old hack-saw blade,  copper tape, brass screws, scrap wood, and duct tape.  Picture below.  


73 to all!  HNY and good luck in 2023!  

Thursday, August 25, 2022

SolderSmoke Podcast #73 Jan 2, 2008 -- AA1TJ Circuits and Poetry, Mixers, CW, Straight Key Night at WA6ARA, Boatanchors in South Africa with ZS6ADY (Part 1)

This is the first in a series of four podcast that include Echolink conversations with Andy ZS6ADY about old tube radios (boatanchors) in South Africa.  Click on the YouTube link above to listen. 

January 2, 2008 SPECIAL NEW YEAR'S EDITION AA1TJ's circuitry and poetry. Homemade tubes. Book Review "Early Radio" by Peter Jensen. The Vatican's antennas. Google Earth flight simulator. Mixer madness continues (now in LTSpice). Mars-asteroid collision? Bollywood: The BITX-20 connection. BANDSWEEP: Straight Key Night at WA6ARA. ECHO-GUEST: Andy, ZS6ADY, South African Boatanchor fan. MAILBAG: Jake N4UY(NOVA QRP), Steve G0FUE (Bath Build-a-thon), Nigel M0NDE

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

SolderSmoke Podcast #156 -- November 4, 2013 -- Interview with Peter Parker VK3YE of Melbourne, Australia


November 4, 2013
Special hour-long interview with Peter Parker, VK3YE
-- Early experiences with radio
-- CW
-- DSB Gear
-- Simple gear, and gear that is TOO simple
-- VXOs, Super VXOs and Ceramic Resonators
-- Building receivers
-- Chips vs. Discrete
-- Making the leap to SSB
-- The Knob-less wonder and the BITX
-- No need for a sophisticated workshop
-- Advice for new phone QRPers


Peter's Blog: https://vk3ye.com/

Peter's YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/user/vk3ye/featured


Wednesday, June 8, 2022

SolderSmoke FDIM Interview: Jack Purdum W8TEE on the Challenges of Decoding CW by Software

 

In his interview with SolderSmoke correspondent Bob Crane, Jack Purdum made some very interesting comments about the challenges of decoding CW with software. He notes that W1AW's code practice CW is perfect, but that below 18 wpm, they deliberately insert a "Farnsworth Delay" that increases the spacing between words -- this complicates automatic CW decoding.  

Jack also talked about the distinctiveness of different CW operators.  Jack  noted that W1AW has no real "fist" in this sense:  "It has the personality of a stick!" 

Jack mentioned that Pete Juliano had been reading book on SDR radios that Jack and Al Peter recently published:  https://www.amazon.com/Software-Defined-Radio-Transceiver-Construction/dp/B09WYP1ST8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2KPYAMPOW5P6J&keywords=DR.+Jack+Purdum&qid=1654598559&sprefix=dr.+jack+purdum%2Caps%2C40&sr=8-1  

Here is our correspondent Bob Crane's interview at FDIM 2022 with Jack Purdum: http://soldersmoke.com/2022 W8TEE.mp3


Thanks Bob.  Thanks Jack.

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

HF Bandsweep with the Hammarlund HQ-100 (video)


It has been a while since we last did a bandsweep.  Too long.  Here is one using my recently fixed up Hammarlund HQ-100.  Repair details are in recent videos. 

For this bandsweep we cover most of the HF band and even briefly dip down into the AM broadcast band: 

Demonstration of the Hammarlund HQ-100: Radio Marti, 40 meter AM, 40 Meter SSB, 40 meter FT-8, 40 meter CW with and without the Q multiplier, classical music on WRMI, WFAX 1220 kHz AM, WWV 20 MHz, CB!, 17 meter SSB, the 20 meter BS position, the effect of AVC and the Noise Limiter, SSB with the internal BFO and with the Q multiplier as BFO. CW with the internal BFO AND the Q multiplier. 

Be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel.  

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Young Jean Shepherd Gets Hung-Up On Ham Radio

Oh man, we've all been there:  OBSESSION with ham radio.  Shep went over the top and didn't sleep all weekend when his homebrew transmitter was finally neutralized and started to put out a decent signal on 40 meter CW.  

One of my favorite lines in this episode is about how, before the neutralization, the transmitter had had so many parasitics that it would continue to transmit for two hours AFTER Shep turned it off, "and all on the wrong frequencies."  

I found this while searching for other Shep references to Johnny Anderson, the guy who built the TV receiver.  Please let me know if you know of any other Shep references to Johnny. 

Here is the program.  Skip ahead to 20:50 

https://www.radioechoes.com/?page=play_download&mode=play&dl_mp3folder=T&dl_file=the_jean_shepherd_show_1963-03-07_hung_up-ham_radio.mp3&dl_series=The%20Jean%20Shepherd%20Show&dl_title=Hung%20Up-Ham%20Radio&dl_date=1963.03.07&dl_size=8.87%20MB

EXCELSIOR!  


Thursday, April 14, 2022

"Patrolling the Ether" WWII Video on Radio Direction Finding Efforts

I heard about this video while trying to track down information on John Stanley Anderson's 1939 television receiver.  "Patrolling the Ether" is kind of hard to find.  It is not really on YouTube.  But there is a good BARC Vimeo video about WWII RDF efforts that includes at the end the full "Patrolling the Ether" video.  

Here it is:  

https://vimeo.com/415926991

Thanks to BARC and to Brian Harrison for putting this together. 

In the video, they discuss the invention of the Panadaptor by Dr. Marcel Wallace F3HM  during World War II.   I set up a very crude Panadaptor using Wallace's principals:

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2019/05/diy-waterfall-quick-and-easy-panadaptor.html


Monday, February 28, 2022

LA6NCA Designs and Builds a Very Hybrid 80 Meter Transmitter (Si5351 and a 12A6 Tube) (Video)


Helge LA6NCA put out a really nice video explaining how he designed and built an 80 meter transmitter. 

I like how he put the Si5351 and the Arduino chip in what looks like a slightly expanded FT-241 crystal box.  Nice.  

I like the box and the chassis.  

I like his testing/tuning technique.  

The homebrew capacitor was a very nice touch.  

Where can I get some of those coil forms?  

And of course, the R-390 receiver adds a lot of mojo to the shack. 

Helge's web sites document an enormous number of great projects:  

Helge's page on the 12A6/Si5351 transmitter: https://www.la6nca.net/homebrew/tx_12a6/index.htm


Thank you Helge! And thanks to Hack-A-Day for alerting us to this. 
Designer: Douglas Bowman | Dimodifikasi oleh Abdul Munir Original Posting Rounders 3 Column