{"id":10428,"date":"2014-09-29T10:53:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T00:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2014\/09\/29\/dont-miss-thomas-and-his-minima-at-pacificon\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T04:29:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T18:29:02","slug":"dont-miss-thomas-and-his-minima-at-pacificon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2014\/09\/29\/dont-miss-thomas-and-his-minima-at-pacificon\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t miss Thomas and his Minima at Pacificon!"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Thanks for the kind words Thomas. Be sure to have someone do a video of your presentation.<\/i><\/b>

<\/i><\/b> You truly have The Knack — proof of this is your reaction to your wife’s departure for field research in Senegal: “IT’S SOLDER TIME!” That’s the spirit! <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Too bad about the chickens, but hey, they died for a good cause… <\/i><\/b>

<\/b>
<\/b> Dear Bill,<\/b>

<\/b> I have been listening to your podcast for about a year now. I think you were right to say that one episode a month is a reasonable limit to avoid listeners getting addicted. At some point in January I was listening to you every morning and every evening in my car, a very serious case of addiction.<\/b>

<\/b> This is also the time that Farhan chose to announce the Minima and my wife to go to Senegal for 3 months for a field study (she is doing a PhD in Sociology). I think it took me less than a week to run to the shop, get most of the parts and start melting solder!<\/b>

<\/b> In two weeks from today I will present the project and my build at Pacificon. I would really appreciate if you could mention this on your blog because I am sure there are other listeners who will be there and curious for some homebrewing-materials. I hope to delight them!<\/b>

<\/b> For your own pleasure there are some pictures and videos on my blog: http:\/\/www.sarfata.org\/ham\/minima\/<\/a> <\/b>

<\/b> Pacificon Schedule: http:\/\/pacificon.org\/<\/a> (My talk will be at 10:45 in the Portland room)<\/b>

<\/b> My presentation will retrace my journey building the minima. From the first smokes on the crystal filter when I was not even sure how to test it, or what results to look for ; to the amplifier where I am still battling some oscillations (by the way, if you had not talked so much about them, I would never have understood what was going on!).<\/b>

<\/b> This project has taught me that radio is a lot less black magic than I thought. It bridged the gap between the maths that I can understand but not really “see” and the sound coming out of the amplifier. It made me realize that once split into stages, a radio is much better understood and testable. Without a doubt, this has been my most ham-enriching experience and I hope to convince more people to build a minima, preferably Manhattan style! <\/b>

<\/b> (In this public setting, I will probably not discuss killing chickens to exorcize my amplifier but I thank you for the tip …)<\/b>

<\/b> I got pulled back from homebrewing by life and work this summer but I kept the last three episodes of Soldersmoke on my phone. They were my safety parachute and I listened to them last week on the way home to give me the extra boost that gets me to melt solder or fix bugs until 3 in the morning on a tuesday. I don’t think I will ever be able to express my gratitude for all that I have learnt reading the book and listening to you but I would like to start here: Thank you!<\/b>

<\/b> Please keep the podcast going! I have really enjoyed the new format with Pete. <\/b>

<\/b> 73,<\/b>
thomas<\/b>
kk6aht \/ f4hdq<\/b><\/p>\n

Our book: “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics” http:\/\/soldersmoke.com\/book.htm<\/a> Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http:\/\/www.cafepress.com\/SolderSmoke<\/a> Our Book Store: http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/contracross-20<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks for the kind words Thomas. Be sure to have someone do a video of your presentation. You truly have The Knack — proof of this is your reaction to your wife’s departure for field research in Senegal: “IT’S SOLDER TIME!” That’s the spirit! Too bad about the chickens, but hey, they died for a … Continue reading “Don’t miss Thomas and his Minima at Pacificon!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[227,133,343],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-france","category-hamfests-and-flea-markets","category-minima"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10430,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428\/revisions\/10430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}