SolderSmoke Daily News — Ham Radio Blog
Serving the worldwide community of radio-electronic homebrewers. Providing blog support to the SolderSmoke podcast: http://soldersmoke.com
Wow, I feel myself being pulled into the digital vortex. What a cool combination of digital and analog construction! I love that small spectrum ‘scope.
Lee’s rigs and his workshop have been discussed on this blog before:
http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-amazing-rigs-of-lee-snook-w1dn.html
http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-amazing-rigs-of-lee-snook-w1dn.html
Brace yourselves. This is almost too much. Prepare for sensory overload and possible palpitations.
Wow. This is really amazing. Note the very casual way Paul manages to mix Eico 430 oscilloscopes with the latest Tek touch-screen ‘scope. Heck, the doesn’t even mention the SP-600s! He does briefly note “a very large transmitter.” Indeed. And he has a microscope on the bench.
This video is part of an excellent YouTube channel called “Mr. Carlson’s Lab.” Great stuff in there. Paul works on everything from old tube type receivers to modern Yaesus and Icoms.
It took me a little digging to find his ham radio call sign. There are many Paul Carlsons on QRZ.com, but Paul’s pronunciation of “solder” gave him away. It seems our Canadian friends also (like the Brits) pronounce the “L.” VE7ZWZ.
Check out his channel. Lots to learn there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqmegXoB7lA
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
Dale Cook of Star City Antique Radios and Test Gear has a really nice site with great pictures of his workbenches and test gear. Inspirational stuff. Take a look:
http://plymouthcolony.net/starcity/radios/pages/compact.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
Back in March 2013 we ran a blog post linking to a video of a beautiful superhet receiver built by Lee Snook, W1DN (that’s his shop). Then the video disappeared. Today Peter Parker, VK3YE, alerted us to the reappearance of the video. Some Googling led me to Lee’s YouTube channel and many other videos of some truly amazing homebrew projects.
Here is his YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/swradios/featured
And here are all his videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/swradios/videos
Check this out digi fans (from his QRZ page):
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
Thank you Giovanni Manzoni, whoever you are!
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
Sometimes it is good to take a break from the electronics and look at how people are making other things. I’ve been working on the heat sink for a 140 watt solid state amplifier, so this fellow’s comments about working with metal kind of resonated with me.
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, there is a lot of workshop wisdom in this video. This is also a reminder that there are a lot of very cool people in the FDNY. Ed is an EMT/Firefighter.
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
In the book “The Ugly American” the hero (the ugly guy!) come up with a way to use old engine blocks to build water pumps to help farmers in South East Asia. Now, Mr. Delany is putting them to similar good use. Homebrew junkbox machine tools! Yea!
http://makezine.com/magazine/make-37/patdelany/
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
With the 20 Meter Oscillation Exorcism behind me, I have decided to take a break from electronics and do bit of woodwork. I took the walnut (I think) box that I bought via Amazon and cut out a big piece of the wood on the front. That’s where the rectangular piece of copper clad board will go — it will be the front panel, supporting the AF gain control, the bandswitch, the main tuning control, and the mic jack. A similar copper clad board will be on the back, this one supporting the antenna jack, speaker jack and 12V input jack (with space for a linear amplifier T/R control jack). (George Dobbs, G3RJV, calls this the “socketry.”)
That beautiful copper sheeting will line the inside of the box.
I found the soft wood on this box to be very easy to work with. The little saw pictured above made the woodwork easy.
I have boiled linseed oil and clear polyurethane for the finish.
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
Carl (M0ICR ex 2E0TEC) saved the day with my Tek 465 — he sent the replacement HV multiplier that put the ‘scope back in action. (Ace Tek repairman Tad WA1FQO made the repair. Tad sells Tek scopes on E-bay — check out his products: Search for fqo63 on ebay.)
Carl notes a number of similarities between our workbenches and recent projects. All he needs now is a Drake 2-B!
Alan Wolke said he’d be interested in my reactions to having both a digi scope and an analog scope on the bench. I can already see areas where one might be a bit better than the other. The Tek is better at watching a fast moving audio or SSB waveform. But the Rigol doea all kinds of math tricks. Check out the FFT function shown on Carl’s page: http://iqrp.net/
I am very pleased that you finally got it working with the help of brothers from the fraternity. Having listened to your latest Podcast I think that must be your alter ego! I have A Tek 465, Rigol 100MHz DS1102E and have built 2 Bitx, one for 20m and the other for right bands- using a DDS VFO (3 if you include the 80m version by Steve Drury G6ALU – look up MKARS80) …I also have 2 copies of SSD!
My website is here: www.iqrp.net where you can see both scopes in my shack and images of my Bitx and my Hans Summers WSPR beacon!
I have just returned from my local radio club social meeting (the Radio Society of Harrow) and took great pleasure in listening to Soldersmoke 158 whilst driving there … half on the way there and the other half on the way back.
Very best wishes from London (where it is cold, wet and miserable !)
72/73 de Carl M0ICR (ex 2E0TEC from Nov 13)
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
Santa Claus obviously heard my distress call when the TEK 465 gave up the ghost. This morning it was replaced by a RIGOL digital scope. I’m going through the tutorials. Wow, lots of features. A Black&Decker jig saw also arrived — this will help in my cabinetry efforts.
Last night just before dinner I talked to Kiyo, JH1MDJ, in Tokyo on 17 meter SSB with the 5 watt BITX. I kind of broke through a small pile-up and we then had one of those “please repeat your power level… I can’t believe that is 5 watts to a dipole” conversations.
Happy Holidays to all!
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
And now for something (almost) completely different. Rarely have wire cutters been described in such, well, almost erotic terms. This definitely seems like the stocking-stuffer of the year for the SolderSmoke in-crowd. And to think that I was pleased with a pair of $3.99 hemostats that I got from Amazon.
Hi Bill,
It’s always nice to find something high-quality and inexpensive and today it happened to me so I thought I’d share my good fortune.
Having been in the professional radio repair business for 40 years (retired 2012), I very much appreciate quality hand tools. On my bench at home I have an expensive pair of Lindstrom wire cutters but in the field I generally resorted to cheaper, not so high-quality tools (in case of inadvertent loss). The problem at home is it seems like every time I need to grab my Lindstroms, they’re not where I’m at so I’ve been on the lookout for a spare pair or two of quality cutters. Well, today in the Fry’s Electronic newspaper flyer I saw an ad. for Hakko brand wire cutters on sale for $2.99, regularly $4.99, a 40% saving. Me being, shall we say, “thrifty”, this immediately got my attention. I know Hakko markets some very good soldering related equipment, however until today I had no experience with their line of hand tools.
So, between some appointments this morning I stopped at our local Fry’s store and checked out the cutters. I was expecting to find something typically cheap and made in China so imagine my surprise at discovering they are made in Italy! The part # of this particular tool is CHP-170 and is mfg. by the CHP Tools division of Hakko. The hand grips are palm-fitting and very comfortable with thumb and forefinger rests at the top of each for tool manipulation. The design is what I would call “Ferrari-esque”; bright red with black accents. Very pleasing to the eye. Turns out that The metal parts are high grade tool steel and Parkerized for low reflectivity and high wear and corrosion resistance. What impressed me the most is the cutting surfaces; they mate perfectly. So many inexpensive cutters have lousy mating surfaces, these don’t. With the cutting edges ‘closed’, shining a high-intensity light on one side results in -no- light ‘leaking’ by the mated edges. That’s first-class machining!
IMO, even at the typical price of $5 or so, these cutters are a bargain, especially considering the quality (how does one say, “it is very good!” in Italian?). So, if you or anyone you know is in the market for some great wire cutters, tell them that the Hakko CHP-170 has the “Snort Rosin” seal of approval, HA!
73…….Steve Smith WB6TNL
http://www.amazon.com/Hakko-CHP-170-Maximum-Cutting-Capacity/dp/B00FZPDG1K
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
Experiments in Speed from SpindleProductions on Vimeo.
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
In this video, YC0AFF in Indonesia seems to be having as much fun with his new BITX as I’ve been having with mine. I think there is something special about those early contacts, when the newly finished (or not quite finished!) rig is still on the workbench. Designed in India and built by radio amateurs all around the world, the BITX has become a global ham radio phenomenon, reminding us that we form an International Brotherhood of Electronic Wizards.
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
More about Chuck Stottlemyer here:
http://makezine.com/2013/07/02/movers-and-makers-charles-chuck-stottlemyer/
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
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
