Category: Lady Ada

“The Art of Electronics” Post #2 Interview with Lady Ada (Video)

I posted this video back in 2015, but it is so good that it is worth watching again. This is especially true now that I have the second edition of The Art of Electronics in hand, and in light of the fact that we recently had our own experiences trying to teach analog electronics to students.

Paul Horowitz is a real inspiration. He is still W1HFA, and QRZ.com has him living in Cambridge, Mass. So many great tech collaborations came out of that fair city: Car Talk and KLH, just to name two. And of course, Horowitz and Hill.

It was wonderful to hear Paul describe the origins and the evolution of The Art of Electronics. His description of the Electronics 123 course at Harvard was really inspiring. They were wise to limit the participation to 10 students (it seems that they eventually went to 2 sections of 10 students each). I think Dean KK4DAS and I came to the conclusion that it is better to have a small group of truly interested students than to have a large group of marginally interested students. (At the high school, we started with 70. That was far too many.) And it may be better to teach this stuff at the college level (high schoolers may be a bit too young). I want to get the third edition, and the book Learning the Art of Electronics.

Paul showed pictures of the class (near the end of the video). Classroom seating was seminar-like, with no pompous professor at a podium. The labs showed Rigol digital ‘scopes in use.

And wow, the watch that Paul gave to Lady Ada is very cool.
It is all quite inspirational. Three cheers for Horowitz and Hill, and for Lady Ada.

More on “The Art of Electronics” to come.

Electronics Manufacturing in New York City — Limor Fried and Adafruit (video) — “TRUST YOUR TECHNOLUST”

The Radio Gods seem to be directing my attention to my hometown: New York City.

I was recently in the city, observing the placement of various IBEW – WYKSYKDS stickers. And as I work on my old Hammarlund HQ-100 I note that both the HQ-100 and I may have been produced on Manhattan island at about the same time (me definitely, but the HQ-100 may have been built in Mars Hill NC).

This morning Jim W4JED reminded me that Limor Fried, MIT Engineer and founder of Adafruit, is producing a lot of amazing electronics items right in NYC, on Manhattan Island, down in Chelsea. Thanks Jim. FB Limor!

Watch the above video. I really liked the sign Limor has above her workbench:

“TRUST YOUR TECHNOLUST.”

Indeed. Back to the HQ-100. This IS a case of technolust. I’m not quite satisfied with the alignment. And it bugs me. I technolust for perfect alignment. (Steve Silverman — I think we should add technolust to the SS lexicon.)

AK2B’s Beautiful Si5351 Receiver — Just Listen and Watch!

Tom Hall does amazing things with solder and electrons in the heart of New York City. I give him extra credit for doing this on the island of Manhattan because 1) that’s where I’m from and 2) EVERYTHING is more difficult there.

I may have presented this video before. If I didn’t, I should have. And if I did, well, here it is again (I guess my NYC attitude is showing here).

Look at the ease with which Tom switches bands. Fantastic! But even more important, LISTEN to the quality of the reception. Listen as Tom tunes in on strong CW and SSB signals. Do you hear any signs of the dreaded phase noise that is supposed to plague the Si5351 chip? I do not. I think this receiver sounds great.

I don’t know why the Si5351 got such a bad rep for noise. Could it be that some people were testing it with boards other than the Adafruit or NT7S products that we have been using? Could it have been that in the tests the boards weren’t completely installed? (It is important to have the VFO and BFO signal lines properly shielded.) Could it be that in the tests they were using physically adjacent clock outputs from the board? (We use CLK0 and CLK2, skipping CLK1 to avoid the “bleedover” problem that was noted by early users.)

Interview with Paul Horowitz (W1HFA) — A Giant In Radio Electronics (Video)

I’ve been hearing about this book for years, but until I watched this interview, I knew nothing about the author. Thanks Lady Ada. (And thanks to Farhan for the alert.)

As a native New Yorker, I’m pleased to include in the blog yet another reminder that the Big Apple is not all fashion and finance — a lot of solder has been melted in my home town.

Paul Horowitz has a truly awesome bio. He got his ham license at age eight. QST tells us that lots of little kids do this, but unlike some of the youngsters we see in the magazine I suspect young Paul really mastered the theory. Paul Horowitz has “The Knack.” Big time.

PhD from Harvard. Author of “The Art of Electronics.” Pioneer in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Carl Sagan is believed to have modeled the main character in “Contact” partly on Paul. Check out the wiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Horowitz

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