Peter Marks – Page 76 – SolderSmoke Daily News

Manhattan Mighty Mite: “Rockin’ the Big Apple on 3.579”

Dave W2DAB got his Manhattan Mighty Mite oscillating nicely! Hooray!

Check out Dave’s report on his Mighty Mite adventure:

http://w2dab.bamford.net/

So far we have sent out 20 colorburst crystals. Already we have two circuits oscillating (not counting Pete’s and mine).

CLA is on the march!

E-mail from Dave:

Dear Bill & Pete:

Thanks for all your help, I can joyfully announce the birth of my first Michigan Mighty Mite, Oscillating at the frequency of 3.579! Yes, Pete’s sage advice to flip the coil over was a great help and also my good friend from Vermont (A Michiganian by birth ). OK, so Bill… you remember your most embarrassing moments in home-brew? Well, here’s mostly what happened: I was reading the article I found online and somehow got 40 meters stuck in my head even though your colorburst was for 80 – So I build a 40 meter coil. When I realized my mistake I thought – well why not build two of these so I pulled out the Colorburst and put in a Norcal 7.040 and then built a new board with a new 80 coil oriented properly and the pic below is the one you see. Now I have two Mighty Mite’s that work, how great is that.

My next goal is to continue forward using Pete’s Build Something Video’s, so more fun to come.

I will post a video on my blog of the 80 Meter Colorburst Michigan Mighty Mite uttering it’s joyful tones, but for now I’ve put a lovely photo at the bottom.

Success is sweet when you hear the sounds of the beep!

Cheers and 73 Gentlemen

Dave

W2DAB

(“Manhattan is more fun in Manhattan”)

Our book: “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics” http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

VK5FJ’s Open SDR Rig (Arduino and SI5351)

Morning OM’s,

I’ve amassed the parts for my 12v Regen Rx inspired by a projects from VK3YE and an audio amp, using a pair of 12AU7’s. I’ll publish more about that soon on my blog.

In the mean time, I’d like to thank you guys for inspiration on the si5351 VFO in use with various projects. After we found the first articles by NT7S, we discussed that there are a lot of possibilities.

I’ve just finished my build of an Arduino controlled SDR transceiver prototype using the Si5351A.

See attached images. Lots of collaboration with Mark VK5QI and David VK5DGR. More at; http://openradio.net.au/index.php/OpenRadio_SDR

This week I’m tinkering with the LPF for 20meters. Puts out a whopping 20mW.

Everything is on schedule for the presentation using this SDR at Linux.Conf.Au next year. Got some coding to do to add I&Q for the SDR side over the summer break.

72, Kim VK5FJ

Building a Better Diode Ring Balanced Modulator (with Knack Karma)

So yesterday Pete and I were talking about Dave W2DAB’s Michigan Mighty Mite malady. Dave is tantalizingly close to the joy of oscillation. Wizard that he is, I think Pete diagnosed the problem with his eyes closed from 3000 miles away. I sent Dr. Juliano’s prescription to Dave this morning and expect the concrete canyons of Upper Manhattan to be ringing with pure 800 Hz tones as soon as Dave fires up his soldering iron.

Anyway, I then told Pete that I’d been looking through my bookshelf for something suitable for my 11 year-old nephew Sebastian. I found something for him, but I also came across a book that was too advanced for the young fellow: “The Master Handbook of Ham Radio Circuits.” TAB Books, 1977. By “The Editors of 73 Magazine.” Between turkey sandwiches I started looking through this book. I immmediately found an article of interest: “A Better Balanced Modulator.” The author (unnamed) looks closely at the performance of our beloved and much-used diode ring mixer with dual trifilar transformers. He concludes that the unbalanced input and output coils (in the traditional configuration) detracts from the balance needed for optimum carrier suppression. He suggest the use of baluns at input and output (see above) and claims significant improvement in carrier suppression. Very interesting. (If anyone wants to dig into this, e-mail me.) There is also a very simple solid-state VFO circuit that promises phenomenal stability.

Anyway, I found myself trying to remember where this great book came from. Then I remembered someone sending it to me. A quick check of my e-mail revealed the source: Dave W2DAB sent it to me three years ago. Thanks again Dave!

35% Off on Bill’s Books

35 % off on “SolderSmoke” (the book!), “Contra Cross”, and my new book: “Us and Them”

All available in print and e-book form here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/soldersmoke

Sale through Dec 3.

Graham G4UEK has THE KNACK

Thanks to Stephen for alerting me to the homebrew page of Graham G4UEK:

http://www.sandrock.org.uk/radiostuff/Rigs.htm

I really liked the description of his progress as a homebrewer, and the way he was helped by G-QRP, SPRAT and Ian G3ROO. FB.

Graham has a nice personal ham radio story:

http://www.sandrock.org.uk/radiostuff/Radio.htm

Thanks Stephen! Thanks Graham!

Ben’s Mighty Mite — IT IS ALIVE!

Ben KD9JNQ is the first of the Colorburst Liberation Army (CLA) recruits to get his Michigan Mighty Mite to oscillate. So he has been promoted to Colonel.

Ben writes:

Bill and Pete, thanks again for the encouragement!

EL CLA UNIDO JAMAS SERA VENCIDO

Ben
KD9JNQ

Colorburst Explained

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorburst

Bill’s Dominican Mighty Mite (1993)

If you look closely, just in front of my keyboard you can see the Michigan Mighty Mite that I rebuilt this morning (scroll down to see the previous post). Looks like I was using a polivaricon as the capacitor. Other than the cap, all the parts used in this 2014 version were from the 1993 effort. Here is how it is described in “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wirless Electronics”:

I decided to start off slow, with small projects that seemed likely to succeed. The secretary in our office in the Embassy, Mady Bullen, had an interest in ham radio that had been sparked by service in far-off places where short-wave was the only way to talk to home. She would pass me old issues of CQ magazine. It was in the March 1992 issue that I found the Michigan Mighty Mite.

It was originated by Ed Knoll, W3FQJ and developed by Tom Jurgens, KY8I. It is about as simple as you can get in a radio transmitter: just one stage, a crystal controlled oscillator.

An oscillator is basically an amplifier in which some of the output signal is fed back into the input. If you provide enough feedback in the right way, the amplifier will “take off” and begin generating a signal. The howl you hear when the microphone of public address system gets too close to the speaker is this kind of signal. The speaker (the output) is sending energy back to the input (the microphone) and what was an amplifier turns (annoyingly) into an oscillator. In this case it is an audio frequency oscillator because all the filters and tuned circuits in the PA system are built for the audible frequencies. But the same thing will happen at radio frequencies. That’s what the Michigan Mighty Mite is all about.

I put the thing together using parts obtained from the Santo Domingo Radio Shack store. The resonant circuit used a coil that was just some wire wound around a discarded plastic 35mm film container. Homebrew radio projects rarely work the first time you power them up. I had to fidget with this thing quite a bit—obviously there wasn’t enough feedback. I had my Drake 2-B on and tuned to the crystal’s frequency. As I poked around on the little circuit board, I suddenly heard a little chirp from the 2-B. There it was! The little device that I had put together was producing radio frequency energy on the 40 meter band. Hooray! The joy of oscillation! Now I felt like I was truly in league with Faraday and Marconi, with Shep, Stan and Bollis, and with Serge! Hilmar would have been proud of me (but he still would have been horrified by my sloppy wiring).

I never was able to talk to anyone with that little device—the power output was very low, and my antenna for the 40 meter band was very poor. But it didn’t really matter. I had had my first real success at homebrewing a piece of ham radio gear.

Bill’s Re-Born 1993 ColorBurst Michigan Mighty Mite

So far we’ve sent out 9 of these color burst 3.579 MHz crystals. It occurred to me that I should make sure these particular rocks work with the Michigan Mighty Mite design we’ve been advocating. So today — still in something of a turkey-induced haze — I pulled out the surviving remnants of the MMM that I built back in 1993. That one had been for 40, so I rewound the coil for 80 using the data from this MMM site: http://www.qsl.net/wb5ude/kc6wdk/transmitter.html

I was hoping that this rig might oscillate even without the variable capacitor, but mine did not. Once the cap was placed in the circuit, the oscillations began. It sounds pretty good on my Drake 2B.

I have not yet wound the secondary (antenna) coil but (as I suspected) the oscillator works fine without it.

So, no excuses folks. These cheap junk box crystals work. Time to build one of these things and join the ranks of hams who have homebrewed a transmitter (and, of course, The ColorBurst Liberation Army).

Colin’s BITX is Receiving!

Wow, quite a bit of progress at M1BUU since our last look (see below). I must admit, that Arduino DDS board looks quite nice sitting there in the VFO territory. In his original BITX20 article Farhan recommends a pause before the construction of the final portions of the transmitter — the builder is advised to sit back and enjoy the receiver that has just been created. Colin is at that point! Congratulations Colin. He has noted that his board is a bit(x) smaller than mine. Maybe he should stick with Farhan’s recommendation and build the PA and driver on a separate board. This will also help prevent the dreaded oscillations — no need to tempt fate or anger the radio gods!

Hi Pete,

Another great SolderSmoke episode this weekend, I really like the humour between you and Bill! I listened to SS whilst melting solder on my BITX project.

I had really wanted to get my BITX working as a receiver before the end of the weekend, but Lewis Hamilton and his (successful) bid to become Formula 1 World Champion, put an end to that idea! I also decided that I wanted to buy some better quality capacitors for the band pass filter, so I’ve ordered them today.

I fired up the receiver chain for the first time this evening from where the BPF should be, right through to the AF amp, I’m pleased to report that I seem to have created a working superhet receiver! I heard some BC breakthrough at certain points of the tuning range and the rig receives the second harmonic of my Rishworth Buildathon 40m transmitter beautifully (on right part of dial too!). I hadn’t tested the RX IF amps or AF amp before, but they seem to be doing just fine.

I’m so pleased to have got so far, and I’m very pleased with the build. That big copper clad board doesn’t look so big now, but I think I have room for the TX/RX switch, BPF, RF driver, RF PA and LPF which I still need to add.

Thanks for the encouragement and advice so far, I doubt I’d be feeling so elated at this point without it!

This is going to be a really cool rig!

73, Colin M1BUU

Hi Colin,

Two words come to mind: Absolutely Superb! Wow that is such a work of art. I may never show another one of my projects as you have set the standard and benchmark.

You also have demonstrated building from the back end which we discussed in SS168. Now what you have built is a part of the test system.

Really outstanding. Be sure and video your 1st qso and share on You Tube.

Bravo!

73’s

Pete

Pete Builds a Michigan Mighty Mite

We have been distributing quite a few 3.579 MHz crystals, but until today we hadn’t seen a single new Michigan Mighty Mite. I commented on this in the last podcast. Pete came to the rescue and built one:

Hi Bill,

The MMM was built – took me a long time (about 30 Minutes so it was kind of slapped together). The most time was consumed drawing squares on the sheet metal. I used a pill bottle cut down for the coil.

Used a piece of Home Depot sheet metal for the based. I highly recommend a .01 Ufd from the 27 Ohm to ground –key clicks are awful.

BTW the circuit can be modified so that the tuning cap is soldered to one side of the coil and the other side to ground –essentially the tank tuning cap is in series with the 0.05 bypass cap and is effectively across the coil. Tribal Knowledge

The CLA lives on!

Pete

VIVA EL EJERCITO DE LA LIBERACION DEL COLORBURST! VIVA EL CLA!

Pete’s Michigan Mighty Mite Manhattan MePad Noodle

New recruits have been signing up for the Color Burst Liberation Army. We have been sending out many more 3.579 MHz crystals. Pete Juliano was doing some noodling and came up with this plan for Manhattan pads or Me(Maine)Pads. All you need is some copper clad board, a pair of Home Depot tin shears and some super glue. Cut out the pads, glue them down, add components and get the Mighty Mite percolating.

FINALLY! A Computer Made with Discrete Transistors!

Note the discrete BJT transistor T-shirt. Note the haunted, obsessed look in his eyes. This fellow is building a computer out of discrete transistors. He clearly has The Knack.
http://hackaday.com/2014/11/22/a-4-bit-computer-from-discrete-transistors/

SolderSmoke Podcast #168 Software Inefficiencies! DSB Blues! Schematic Errors! QRO Confessions!

SolderSmoke Podcast #168 is available.
22 November 2014

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke168.mp3
The benefits of software inefficiency.
Don’t throw a wet blanket on computer baby steps.
DDS-ing Pete’s old boatanchors and Bill’s BITX.
Bill’s DSB amplifier woes: a JBOT unfairly scorned.
Getting ready for solar-powered beach DSB.
Michigan Mighty Mite Crystal Offer — FREE ROCKS!
Tribal knowledge: Beware of mistakes in published schematics!
QRO update: Working Japan on 17 meters.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Tube Transmitter in a Cuban Cigar Box

Beautiful use of a cigar box by Ben, KK6FUT. Ben is working in close proximity to Pete N6QW and has obviously fallen under the influence of Pete’s “Build Something With Tubes” field.
Watch out for the high voltage Ben. You aren’t in Arduino-land anymore! One hand behind the back OM!

Impedance Matching Transformers — Pete’s Magic Decoder Ring!

We got some questions on this and Pete was kind enough to write up some notes on the topic. We may talk more about this during the next podcast (Saturday):

Broad Band Impedance Matching Transformers.

Broad Band impedance matching transformers are designed to transfer power over a wide frequency range. More basic you have an amplifier that has an output impedance of 200 Ohms and you want to match that to a 50 Ohm load.

So what is the magic decoder ring so that you get a 4:1 match, ie going from 200 Ohms to 50 Ohms. Getting technical for a moment the maximum power transfer theorem says maximum power is developed when the source is matched to the load. The Broad Band Matching transformer enables that to happen over a wide frequency range.

So how do we get from 200 Ohms (the source) to 50 Ohms (the load)? Just as there are many airlines that fly from LA to NY so it is with the matching approach. We will cover several.

First a short discussion about broadband cores themselves. One of the most common cores for HF work is the type 43 core which is good up to about 50 MHz. For transformers up to 200 MHz then the type 61 are a better choice. Typically at HF the FT -37-43 is one of the more common ones see (3/8 inch in diameter), as is the FT-50-43 which is ½ inch in diameter. The iron powder cores are not the 1^st choice for broad band matching.

#1 Way:

Build a transformer that has a primary of x number of turns (and since it is large, 200 Ohms will have more turns) and the secondary will have y number of turns ( and since it is smaller, 50 Ohms, will have fewer turns.) The transformer action is based on the ratio of the Primary turns Squared to the Secondary Turns squared. Our transformation is 4:1.

Thus if we divide the primary turns squared and divide it by the secondary turns squared the result is 4. Here are some example: if we had a primary of 8 turns ( 64) and a secondary of 4 turns (16) – 64/16 = 4. So that is our transformer a primary of 8 turns and a secondary of 4 turns. When building these transformers use two different colors of wire as that makes it much easier to identify the windings. Observe the phasing, meaning the end you connect to the collector of your output transistor is the start end. That same start end for the secondary winding is the output “hot” side of the secondary.

#2 Way.

The same ratio holds in going from 200 to 50 Ohms. But this time we will use a single winding of 8 turns and at 4 turns we will have a tap for the 50 Ohm point. Since that tap will very likely have Dc on it connect a 100 NF cap at the 4th turn winding and this is the output. What you have just done is create an auto transformer.

#3 Way.

At time one may have an oddball transformation and you can cascade transformers and multiply their individual turns ratios. At one time I needed a 9:1 transformation. I built a 2.5 transformer and then hooked that to a 4:1 and the result was a 9:1 transformer.

The attached table has “worked out” some common matches that are often needed like matching a 50 Ohm amplifier to a 500 Ohm Crystal Filter which is a 10: 1 match. This is easily done with a 6 turn primary (50 ohms 6^2 = 36) and the secondary has 19 turns ( 500 Oms 19^2 = 361). 361/36 = 10.03:1. Close enough for ham radio! The 1^st way is probably more preferable for this application.

Pete N6QW

11/2014

Electro-mechanical Heaven…. with Hell (Hellschreiber)

Bob LeDoux sent us a link to a really amazing site about the Hellschreiber system. The site is filled with great videos, pictures, and animations like the one above. Lots of radio history too. Check it out:

http://www.nonstopsystems.com/radio/hellschreiber-function-operation.htm
This is all the work of F. Dorenberg, N4SPP. Thanks OM!

Bob writes: I’m working on a microcontroller based reader for
this mode. For old fossils, like us, this mode looks perfect. It can
be sent using simple CW equipment and it appears to be a great
replacement for those who are tiring of Morse code.
Its perfect for Knack victims. We can even build mechanical printers. Thanks Bob!

Pete’s Video on Connecting Arduinos and DDS chips (video)

After watching all Pete’s work with the smaller Arduinos, that Uno R3 board seems HUGE. That’s what I should stick with. Great idea using those robust terminal strips. Thanks Pete.

Pete and Ben’s “Let’s Build Something” Direct Conversion Receiver

This direct conversion receiver is part of the “Let’s Build Something” project of Pete N6QW and Ben KK6FUT. Publication will be in QRP Quarterly late in January 2015. Pete reports that the front panel is a piece of galvanized sheet metal from Home Depot –total cost 82 cents.

N2CQR WINS ARRL SWEEPSTAKES! AGAIN! (video)

We did it AGAIN! Winners in the Homebrew Double-Sideband QRP Northern Virginia Category! Sweet! I can’t wait to pick up the trophy!