SolderSmoke Daily News — Ham Radio Blog
Serving the worldwide community of radio-electronic homebrewers. Providing blog support to the SolderSmoke podcast: http://soldersmoke.com
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
Many of us were staring out similar windows, also dreaming of model airplanes, and of transmitter circuits, and telescopes, and rockets… This video runs only 12 minutes. Don’t be deterred if you don’t speak Hindi — the story is easy to follow.
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
Wow. Stop what you are doing and take a look at the four short films about a group of intrepid British knack victims. Very nicely done. Really captures the allure of the shack/workshop.
http://makezine.com/2013/06/28/the-makers-of-things-2/
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
There is a very nice article on the MAKE blog this morning:
http://blog.makezine.com/2013/06/06/an-early-maker-story-from-holland/
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
Finally, some justification for my “build first, design later” method:
“Contraptions, machines, wildly mismatched objects working in harmony — this is the stuff of tinkering. Tinkering is, at its most basic, a process that marries play and inquiry.”
from www.exploratorium.edu/tinkering Quoted in Massimo Banzi’s book “Getting Started with Arduino.”
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
The Maker Blog has a nice article on Cliff Stoll, the author of “Silicon Snake Oil” and “The Cuckoo’s Egg.” I liked Cliff’s books and included quotes from them in “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics.” I was glad to see that Cliff is doing well and still tinkering. Be sure to check out the video on his R/C fork lift. FB OM.
I was, of course, very intrigued by the slide showing the symbol of the “KlugeMeisters of America.” Can we get a pronunciation ruling from Cliff? Can we nominate people for induction into the KMA?
In Spiritu Klugo! Non Vacuo Sine Glyptum! Words to live by, my friends… Patrick Murphy explains all this here: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~pmurphy/kluge_where.html
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
Bill:
I think I’ve finally earned the right to contact you. I have a really severe case of the knack. I did not realize it until I discovered amateur radio. My thinking is that there is no hope for those afflicted with the knack. I believe that amateur radio helps those afflicted to deal with the condition. It alleviates the symptoms.
73
Dave Rajnauth, VE3OOI
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
Bill:
I think I’ve finally earned the right to contact you. I have a really severe case of the knack. I did not realize it until I discovered amateur radio. My thinking is that there is no hope for those afflicted with the knack. I believe that amateur radio helps those afflicted to deal with the condition. It alleviates the symptoms.
73
Dave Rajnauth, VE3OOI
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
Anyhow I had finished programming and tuning a large batch of radios and today I was making my rounds to deliver them to the various offices. My route was from Bozeman (where my shop is) to West Yellowstone (where I used to jump out of) … through the North side of Yellowstone Park to Gardiner), then following the Yellowstone river north up the Paradise Valley (where I grew up as kid) to Livingston (where I live now). I must say it’s an absolutely beautiful drive that took me to 6 of my delivery points. This time of year Yellowstone Park is closed to normal traffic, but official Gov’t use is permitted, so you see very few other vehicles, it’s a pretty neat time of year to be in the Park.
Anyhow 73’s,
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
We did a short article on Yi Yao a while back, noting that he definitely has The Knack. His homebrew frequency counter (above) confirms that he does. In a recent e-mail from him I also detect an inclination toward poetry. April is Poetry Month, so I thought I should share the latest from Yi:
Hi Bill,
I haven’t gotten around to making my first rig yet. But, after
listening to SolderSmoke since the beginning, it seems like the universal rule
of homebrewing has been to avoid regens!
I’ve been focusing on mechanical design for the last while. Having
spent 2 years in a heavily electrical engineering oriented
environment, I decided to try something new. Most of the smoke that
I inhale these days is from cutting oil vaporizing as I turn something
on the lathe. Chips mean bits of metal that are created from cutting
metal. Soldering is done with a torch. The common thread with
electronics is the knackish pursuit of elegant design and beautiful
construction.
I’ve been thinking about getting myself a copy of SSDRA, but even
looking at online used book stores, this is costing in the
neighbourhood of some of my university textbooks. There’s no shortage
of good information and ideas for homebrewing online though. I think
that’s what I will use.
Cheers,
Yi
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
After I replaced the 6U8 first mixer tube on the trusty Drake 2-B I tuned around a bit on 15 meters. IZ4NIC was loud, all the way from Bologna. I gave him a call and we had a nice QSO in Italian. then I talked to F4GBU. I was using my 40 meter dipole, but I thought I might do better with my 17 meter dipole (it is higher up in the trees). I called CQ 15 and got into a very nice QSO with Jim, W0JLG in Wichita. Jim has a very impressive collection of Boatanchors. We were soon joined by Stu, W7FE. Stu was using a Central Electronics 100v from the early 1960s. Wow, the three of us had a nice long contact.
The QSO was a real trip down memory lane for me: My sister Trish is visiting us. We had been talking about how when we were kids she would come into the shack to watch me try to talk to people… with the very same HT-37 and Drake 2B. I was 15 and she was 10. That was 39 years ago! Here we were again, sitting in front of the same old rig. It was a lot of fun.
Stu has some great info on his very impressive radio shack. You guys will really enjoy a visit to his QRZ.com site: http://www.qrz.com/db/W7FE
And check out his switching system for all those rigs: http://www.qsl.net/w7fe/
Wow, his site makes me want o move out to the shed and put up a hex beam!
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
Well known QRP author Rich Arland has launched a new blog called “The Commo Bunker.” I’m pleased that one of his first articles deals with Boatanchor radios in general and the Drake 2B in particular.
Check out his blog: http://commobunker.blogspot.com/
Rich’s article came at a good time for me, because today’s task in the SolderSmoke HQ shack is fixing my suddenly deaf Drake 2B. Without even taking it out of the case, I think I have most of the troubleshooting done: signals make it through, but very weak. And the S-meter is now resting far below zero. The S meter is a bridge circuit that looks at current through the RF amp stage (V1) and the IF amp (V5). So my guess is one of these tubes has gone soft. This should be an easy fix.
I have a nostalgic reason for fixing this rig. My sister is visiting us. When I was 15 and she was 10 she would sometimes sit with me in the shack as I used the HT-37 and the 2B. Those same rigs are still with me and we hope to make a few contacts with them this weekend.
UPDATE: I fixed the 2B. V2, the 6U8 used as first mixer and crystal oscillator had gone soft. This may also explain difficulties I had in getting the rig to work with a crystal in the E band socket.
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
A SolderSmoke listener (who will remain unnamed) recently corrected me on my pronunciation of an important Knack-related word: Kludge. I kludge as in fudge or judge. He said it should be Kluge as in stooge. I think we need a ruling her from our etymologist Steve Silverman. Steve?
I grew up listening to the 75 meter AM Northeast USA gang. They said Kludge as in stooge, so I hope we stick with that.
Wiki has an intereting (and seemingly endless) discussion on this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kludge
Excerpts:
‘An ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a distressing whole’
“There is a certain, indefinable, masochistic finesse that must go into true Kludge building. The professional can spot it instantly. The amateur may readily presume that “that’s the way computers are.”
“The result of this history is a tangle. Many younger U.S. hackers pronounce the word as /klooj/ but spell it, incorrectly for its meaning and pronunciation, as ‘kludge’. … British hackers mostly learned /kluhj/ orally, use it in a restricted negative sense and are at least consistent. European hackers have mostly learned the word from written American sources and tend to pronounce it /kluhj/ but use the wider American meaning! Some observers consider this mess appropriate in view of the word’s meaning.”
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
Bill,
… [I know] a young ham locally who suffers terribly from the
affliction of the “knack”. Ryan, KJ6HBY, is 17, and an Extra class,
who earned his DXCC in a year. He is a great builder, starting out
building his first antenna a couple years ago by breaking apart an old
washing machine motor and unwinding it for the wire. Along the way he
has restored various rigs, i.e. HR10, S-38, IC707, etc and built a
BTX17 (17 meter version of the BTX20). Enclosed is a couple photos of
his latest creations. First, he hand carved a wood morse code key. It
actually feels and works well. Now he has build a single tube xmtr,
and after fussing with it, is pumping out 4 watts. Both of the kid’s
folks are hams as well as his sister. I had an opportunity to visit
his shack the other day. It’s a teenage ham’s dream and a mother’s
nightmare. Racks floor to ceiling with radios! If anybody has the
knack, Ryan does. Makes me think there is a future, we can sleep well
tonight.
73
Mike Herr
WA6ARA
DM-15dp
Home of The QRP Ranch
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
Bill –
It was Christmas of 1958 (5th Grade)that my parents bought me the Hallicrafters S38-E that I still have. I was recovering from multiple surgeries the previous summer to correct for the effects of Polio when I was 3. I came down with Polio in the last year before the vaccine was released to the public.
A bit of bio – because of my physical limitations as a child, I spent a lot of time indoors reading and listening to the radio. Broadcast AM here at that time was still playing dramas like “The Lone Ranger” and “Big John and Little Sparky”. I really enjoyed them. Then, on that fateful day I asked my mother why, since our radio plugged into the wall electric outlet and we could hear people talking, weren’t other people able to hear us talking on their radio if we spoke into the loudspeaker. She said, ‘I don’t know, but the library ( 2 blocks away) will have books about radio that you can read.” The Knack bit early and it bit hard.
By the time I was in 5th grade I had discovered short wave radio. I dearly wanted a short wave radio and I wanted a Hallicrafters. Somewhere I had found a catalog and wow! nothing else would do. What I didn’t realize until I was in my teens was just how hard times were for my folks. Most families then did not have medical and hospitalization insurance. My dad was paying off the hospital and the doctors every month almost until I graduated from high school.
But, anyway, I did get the S38-E for Christmas. At $69.95, it was the least expensive Hallicrafters available. In reality, it is just an All-American – 5 with extended tuning range. Tuning was as broad as a barn door, and above 15 MHz it is as deaf as a post. But it was mine and I loved it. The short wave bands were still hot in those days as we were just peaking through one of the most celebrated Solar Maxima of the last century. Many the hours I listened to HCJB – Quito, and Radio Moscow, and Voice of America…. I also found people talking to each other – Wow! Ham Radio. And just look at me now…. And those strange beeping sounds – that was actually people talking? And what was that strange Donald-Duck sounding talk all about?
Yes – I still have that same S38-E. It went to college with me, and has been with me for over half a Century, now. Yes, it still works. (Needs a replacement IF transformer), Yes, it will shock the bejeebers out of you if you plug it in wrong. {I use two filament transformers back-to-back to prevent that.) Yes, the Knack still has me, but that’s another chapter.
72’s
Bruce KK0S
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
Thanks to Allan, WA9IRS, for sending us this inspiring video. Just the right touch for Thanksgiving. This kid is definitely one of us. Let’s try to think of ways to help him. Parts box? Radio books?
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
Our Dayton corrrespondent Bob Crane, W8SX, sent us this. Thanks Bob!
http://www.edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4396825/The-Joys-of-Tinkering?cid=EDNToday
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
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
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
