Category: France

French Knack: F8ATA, F8KE, F8CKH, and K3DY

Hello Bill, It has been a while! I don’t know if you remember but I emailed you back in September 2010, introducing myself as a fellow amateur listening to your podcasts. I had just moved from France and received back then my FCC vanity callsign K3DY.

It took me a while to get my ham shack back together but finally I was on the bands again! Recently, I started re reading your book, very inspirational. Since my very first license (as F8CKH) at 16, my interests have always been into the design / homebrew as well as QRP & CW. Why on earth would a teenager do that? I think I have the knack. My motto is: “Don’t turn it on, take it apart!!!”.

Anyway, it has been a lot of fun to work on some various projects (the one in progress now is a LC meter using a LCD display and a PIC 16F627). It took longer than expected to get to that point as I had to work on a PIC programmer interface as well as refresh my C language programming skills! I recently discovered that mouser is offering some nice project enclosures. In the past, my finished products were kind of “ugly” (to the average Joe not us of course!) so I am trying to work on that.

Oh also, last time I emailed you, I talked about my grand father EF8ETA, F8ATA then F8KE in the late 20s and how seeing his electronic lab and radios when I was 7 or 8 inevitably changed my life! After all this, I – had – to get my license and get involved! My father, also a ham, emailed me a picture of F8KE’s shack in 1929/1930. My grand father was at the time 19 years old. Also attached to the email are two scans of his QSL cards dated as well 1929 or so. He was using a classic design for the era, based on a Hartley Oscillator. I am trying to imagine how it was to get the knowledge back then on how to build a station (TX, RX, antenna) but also how to get the parts! When people now complain that they can’t finish up a homebrew project because they can’t find a FT50-3 core, well they should think of how it must have been almost 100 years ago.

Have a great weekend! 73, K3DY Antoine

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

F8VOA’s BITX-20 (and FB Workbench)

A beautiful rig on a really nice workbench! http://www.qsl.net/f8voa/
Don’t miss the details of the BITX construction. You have to click the little orange arrows along the right of the page: http://www.qsl.net/f8voa/Bitx%20presentation.html

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

“The Knack” on a Mysterious Island

Paul, W2IOG, sent a nice e-mail about a very early use of the term “The Knack”: 1874 by Jules Verne. (What word did he use in French?). I took a look at the Wikipedia page and discovered that there was indeed quite a bit of “The Knack” on Lincoln Island:

“With the knowledge of the brilliant engineer Smith, the five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerin, iron, a simple electric telegraph, a home on a stony cliffside called “Granite House”, and even a seaworthy ship. They also manage to figure out their geographical location.”

Hello Bill,

I have been a listener to your Soldersmoke pod-casts for a couple of years now. I am also a regular reader of the blog as well as a long time victim of “The Knack”. I was browsing an old book store the other day when I came across a beautifully illustrated copy of Jules Verne’s book “The Mysterious Island” copyright 1920. I couldn’t resist, and when I reached chapter nine of part one of the book I was really glad I had made the purchase. In the story, which takes place in 1853, castaways on an apparently uninhabited island are trying to make fire for the first time. After trying and failing to make sparks by striking stones together, two of the castaways try the following:

“Pencroft, although he had no confidence in the proceeding, then tried rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, as [primitive people] do. Certainly, the movements which he and Neb gave themselves, if they had been transformed into heat, according to the new theory, would have been enough to heat the boiler of a steamer! It came to nothing. The bits of wood became hot, to be sure, but much less so than the operators themselves.

After working an hour, Pencroft, who was in a complete state of perspiration, threw down the pieces of wood in disgust. ‘I can never be made to believe that [primitive people] light their fires in this way, let them say what they will,’ he exclaimed. ‘I could sooner light my arms by rubbing them against each other!’

The sailor was wrong to despise the proceeding. [Primitive people] often kindle wood by means of rapid rubbing. But every sort of wood does not answer for the purpose, and besides, there is ‘the knack,’ following the usual expression, and it is probable that Pencroft had not ‘the knack.’ “

Congratulations on getting that 17 meter rig back on the air!

Paul W2IOG


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

F8CKH: The Knack, 747s, and Homebrew QRP

Here is some further evidence that The Knack is a global phenomenon. I’m sure our readers will find Antoine’s story quite familiar. Looking at his QSL (below) we can see that he has a special reason to be interested in QRP: After a full workday of operating a very high-powered rig (!), a simple little QRP rig must represent an appealing contrast. And even if that 747 is very QRO, I think we will all agree that Antoine has the kind of job that most knack victims dreamed about when they were kids.

Hi Bill,

I have been listening to your podcasts for a while now after I heard about them in one of the Amateur Logic TV shows. I picked up one podcast randomly and I got to say that I really enjoyed the tone and content of your talks. Very informative and interesting. I like also the fact that your amateur radio experience is based on homebrewing and experimenting. Back in 1997, I earned my French amateur radio license at the age of 16 (extra and big CW lover). I have been always amazed by what we could do with very little and go very far. My family is Hamradio friendly: my grandfather was F8KE back in 1930s and he has been around the hobby for most of his life. At 7 or 8 I remember times where we were at his place and I would ask for permission to leave the table early to go upstairs and visit my grandfathers shack. Everything there was homebrew and I was really pleased to see that the magic of Radio was achievable with only few components, homebrew antennas and a bit of luck. He encouraged me to learn the Code and at 12 I was already up to 20 wpm! My dad used to be 6W8FC while he was in the service and he gave me the passion for weak signal and DXing. Technically speaking, I HAD to become a Ham Radio operator.
I am really fascinated by your level of dedication to homebrewing and also that you share that we us, fellow operators addicted to -soldersmoke-. Just like you, I have been all over the place since I am an Airline Pilot qualified on the Airbus and Boeings… UK, New Zealand, US, I got a chance to operate from couple of places and something got the pleasure to be behind the scene and become the reason of a pile up. Operating from down under from Kiwi lands was a wild and exciting experience, indeed!
Finally I am about to move permanently to the US, in Pennsylvania. I applied for a Vanity Callsign (NY3G) and hopefully I will hear from the FCC soon.
I wanted to mention also that I got rid of almost all my regular Yaesu, Kenwood rigs to start from scratch. My project? To design, build, operate an HF station from scratch. No more commercial rigs for me! Well I will try! I am really happy to finally make use of a workbench that I just cleaned at home. I will set up a blogspot account to illustrate my projects… I think that would be great to make QSO with you Bill, sometime!
Thanks again for bringing some much enthusiasm into this fascinating side of Ham Radio, Homebrewing.
Best Regards,
73
Antoine Pierre GAMET F8CKH