June 23, 2018
SolderSmoke Podcast #205 is available:
http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke205.mp3
— Summer solstice. Mars Observations. Graduations. Internships. Fathers Day.
— Antenna Angst: Pete’s tribander and Bill’s Moxon. Insulation and resonance?
— Pete’s work on color displays.
— Bill goes back to fix up older projects:
— Fixing the Frankenstein Phasing RX. Found an open choke!
— Tightening up the HRO Dial.
— Achieving Juliano Criteria stability on a BITX20 VFO.
— Lexicon additions: “Scratch Built” “Hardrock Radio”
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/39551/where-does-the-saying-made-from-scratch-originate
— PastaPete: http://www.pastapete.com/
MAILBAG:
Bob Crane W8SX Corrspondent at FDIM
Ralph AB1OP Building LBS
Bruce KC1FSZ Digital Pot
Jason W5IPA uBITX in Juliano Blue
Rogier KJ6ETL ON THE AIR WITH A uBITX
Special thanks to Tim Walford for 25 years of Hot Iron.
I always enjoy your podcast. I usually listen at home. Today I’m on a road trip, listening via Stitcher, through my Android phone and my car stereo. The audio dynamics are a little over the top for on-the-road listening. With the volume at a reasonable level, some loud bits get objectionably so, and some soft bits are inaudible behind the road noise. Maybe you could work on your mic discipline, or add a compressor/limiter to you recording chain? Thanks, John AC2RL
John — Yea sometimes it can be hard to get the levels right. I went back and boosted my audio in the mp3, so if you listen to it again it should be better. Pete got a nice boom mic that makes consistency easier — I’m going to get one too. 73 Bill
about your moxon antenna. never used one, but you commented that wavelength calculations were effected by presence of an insulator. I think you have forgotten air is an insulator and has a dialectic constant of ~1.0
you can see an antenna as a LC circuit or resonant tank circuit with impedance and capacity. if you change the dielectric material of a capacitor you change the capacitance therefor the resonance of the antenna changes too.
Tim: I think that was the conceptual part I was missing. Thanks.
Nice photo of the old radios and homebrew gear, but where is the SDR with the big display waterfall display?