Category: New York City

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

Termination Insensitivity — Only Three TIAs in the World?

Termination Insensitivity. Is this like when your girlfriend dumps you and you just don’t care?

No. It’s more like this:

http://www.n6qw.com/TIA.html

Wes Hayward and Bob Kopski developed the Termination Insensitive Amplifier circuit back in 2009. With a bidirectional rig it is important that the crystal filter face the same impedance in both directions. Simpler bidirectional amps are impedance “transparent” in that their input impedance depends on what is on the output (and vice versa). The circuit that Wes and Bob developed solved this problem: these amps always look like 50 ohms. That’s very useful. When I was building my earlier BITX rigs, Farhan suggested that I try the termination insensitive amp circuits. On my latest project I followed his suggestion. At the same time, Pete was building a new BITX, also using the TIA amps.

Pete wrote to Wes and Bob and asked if anyone had followed through on their 2009 article by building a rig using this circuit. Wes said that he was unaware of any TIA rigs. It turned out that Tom Hall up in New York City had built one (video below). So I guess Pete’s rig is TIA 2 and mine is TIA 3! (But I was thinking, because of Pete’s Italian ancestry, shouldn’t we call his rig a Zia?)
Please let us know if you know of any other TIAS (or ZIAS!) out there.

Here is Tom Hall’s very FB TIA:

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

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

Making Hardware for Mars in a Lab in New York City

I liked this video about building hardware for a Mars mission at a lab in New York City.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/08/10/2012/building-for-mars-sometimes-painful-always-glorious.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

LadyAda Named Entrepreneur of 2012


Watch this video and you will see that Limor Fried has The Knack!
She and her company have brought homebrew electronics back to lower Manhattan.
Some kind listener sent me a gift certificate for Ada Fruit. We will put it to good use, probably
with Raspberry Pi and Arduino gear.
Three cheers for Lady Ada!

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