{"id":2136,"date":"2010-03-17T05:34:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T18:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2010\/03\/17\/g-w-pierce-and-the-aa1tj-gigi\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T12:48:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T02:48:18","slug":"g-w-pierce-and-the-aa1tj-gigi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2010\/03\/17\/g-w-pierce-and-the-aa1tj-gigi\/","title":{"rendered":"G.W. Pierce and the AA1TJ GiGi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> Mike, AA1TJ, continues to provide the global solder-melting fraternity with large doses of QRP\/homebrew inspiration. And, as usual, his latest series of messages to QRP-L contain interesting references to the radio pioneers who laid the ground work for his low power exploits. This time, it was G.W. Pierce.<\/span>
——————————————————-<\/span>
From AA1TJ on March 8, 2010:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
Fellers,<\/span><\/p>\n

It was an exciting QRPp afternoon here on 20m. It started off well<\/span>
with a ten minute contact with G3MJX. Tony was running 5w to a dipole.<\/span>
I’m still using the breadboard, two-tube, 250mW (Gigi) station that I<\/span>
wrote about last week.<\/span><\/p>\n

KB0PCI in <\/span>Minneapolis<\/span> was my next contact. Wayne was using 5w to an<\/span>
indoor loop. I thought that was pretty cool.<\/span><\/p>\n

Things seemed to be going so well that I felt the urge to further<\/span>
reduce my output power. Dropping back to 56mW, I soon snagged Jack,<\/span>
W7CNL. He’s out in Boise with 5w and a five-element Yagi. It was a<\/span>
great contact with 579\/539 reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

After we signed I resumed calling CQ. Sometime later I heard my call<\/span>
coming back at me; always a happy moment when you’re running QRPp. But<\/span>
wait…he’s signing DH1BBO…Holy <\/span>Toledo<\/span>!<\/span><\/p>\n

With a pounding heart I sent off a 559 report. Olaf came back with a<\/span>
529 for me, and get this…he says he’s running 300mW to a windom! The<\/span>
first round was an easy copy for both of us, but thing got a little<\/span>
rougher after that. Still, we were able to hold it together through<\/span>
the finals for a complete QSO.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, my transmitter circuitry is right out of 1928; a<\/span>
crystal-controlled, push-pull oscillator using a single, 3A5 (a<\/span>
twin-triode introduced by RCA in 1942). The receiver uses a second<\/span>
3A5. The first triode forms a crystal-controlled autodyne converter.<\/span>
The second stage is a standard regenerative detector driving the<\/span>
headphones directly. My antenna is an end-fed wire at 35′.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, it was one of those QSO’s that I dream about; QRPp on both<\/span>
ends from start to finish, wire antennas at both stations and an<\/span>
ultra-simple rig from the days of yore. It was Olaf’s first QRPp DX<\/span>
contact ever, and 57mW now stands as my lowest USA-to-Europe contact<\/span>
power (230mW was my previous best).<\/span><\/p>\n

As for working a 300mW German station with a receiver made from a<\/span>
twin-triode; I think it’s a testament to what these little<\/span>
regenerative detectors are capable of. I was awestruck at the age of<\/span>
12 or 13; having built my first genny. I love ’em no less some forty<\/span>
years later as they truly are a beautiful technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

73\/72,<\/span>
Mike, AA1TJ<\/span><\/p>\n

From AA1TJ on March 3, 2010:<\/span>
Bill,<\/span><\/p>\n

Gigi worked AA7VW (running 5w to a Moxon) in <\/span>Oregon<\/span> today with 250mW.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve been reading a bit of history here in preparation for my<\/span>
presentation at MassCon next week. For example, I’ve traced the<\/span>
crystal-controlled, push-pull transmitter (used in Gigi) as far back<\/span>
as 1928. Cady and Pierce did their ground-breaking work on quartz<\/span>
crystal-controlled oscillators in 1923, so it didn’t take long for<\/span>
hams to jump on this one. BTW, <\/span>Professor George Washington<\/span> Pierce<\/span>
(“G.W.” to his friends) was a real character!<\/span><\/p>\n

I send my best wishes to you and the family, Bill. The sap has just<\/span>
started flowing here this week. It’s Maple sugaring time in <\/span>Vermont<\/span>
again. Spring can’t be far away now.<\/span><\/p>\n

73\/72,<\/span>
Mike, AA1TJ<\/span><\/p>\n

———————————————————-<\/p>\n

Here is a bio on Pierce: <\/span>http:\/\/profiles.incredible-people.com\/george-washington-pierce\/
<\/a>
This all makes me want to reconsider my opposition to regens… Maybe they are NOT possessed. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike, AA1TJ, continues to provide the global solder-melting fraternity with large doses of QRP\/homebrew inspiration. And, as usual, his latest series of messages to QRP-L contain interesting references to the radio pioneers who laid the ground work for his low power exploits. This time, it was G.W. Pierce.——————————————————-From AA1TJ on March 8, 2010: Fellers, It … Continue reading “G.W. Pierce and the AA1TJ GiGi”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,100,31,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aa1tj","category-old-radio","category-radio-history","category-regens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136","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=2136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2138,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2136\/revisions\/2138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}