{"id":4543,"date":"2022-10-09T12:42:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-09T01:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2022\/10\/09\/paul-clarks-dollar-store-ptos-made-with-glue-sticks-or-chap-sticks\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:02:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T08:02:55","slug":"paul-clarks-dollar-store-ptos-made-with-glue-sticks-or-chap-sticks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2022\/10\/09\/paul-clarks-dollar-store-ptos-made-with-glue-sticks-or-chap-sticks\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Clark&#8217;s Dollar Store PTOs made with Glue Sticks or Chap Sticks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"247\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QTdQqCmw_0U?rel=0\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"440\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;\">A few weeks ago Pete Juliano and I got some e-mails from Paul Clark about his use of Chap Sticks and Glue Sticks (acquired at a Dollar Store!) in Permeability Tuned Oscillators.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;\">Dean KK4DAS, Mike KA4CDN and I had been experimenting with PTOs following Farhan&#8217;s use of one in his new Daylight Again transceiver. We are also looking at simple circuits for use in Direct Conversion Receiver builds for high school students. <br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;\">Yesterday, I noticed a Glue Stick on the floor under my bench. TRGHS. I built one of Paul Clark&#8217;s PTOs and used it with the circuit from Farhan&#8217;s Daylight Again rig. For the ferrous material, I just glued (!) a .5 inch toroid (I think it is #7 material) onto the moving internal part of the glue stick. For the coil I used a total of 9 turns of #20 wire, with a tap at 2 turns. <\/span><span style=\"background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;\">You can see the results in this video. <\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #030303; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;\">I think it is really useful, a very nice way to get good frequency control using an item available in most super-markets (I bought two glue sticks at Harris Teeter yesterday!). This continues a long ham radio tradition of using household items for ham projects &#8212; we started with breadboards. <\/span><\/p>\n<p> Some of Paul&#8217;s coils: <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/a\/AVvXsEimVqu7K-jCd7rjC0GsVdrEzF2BFMdgpyK5D62TjCV6nWxkdW96ACgn7Kts-LNAh5fzd4BvKdXiy0gnDilItIp6yqV2kSTG4-pK_pGSXb44DJt7ItccXvFgYmSwLLJJ-doOEmqqih7BUz136sVChjq-Dg4CVafqdcSbzYUL2qMfDY5XynCVY1FoPTI4\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-original-height=\"196\" data-original-width=\"261\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image_1753082527.png\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: left;\">Some of Paul&#8217;s data:<\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: left;\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs\" style=\"background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-family: \"Segoe UI Historic\", \"Segoe UI\", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Here&#8217;s the data I got in testing these on the NanoVNA:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s\" style=\"background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-family: \"Segoe UI Historic\", \"Segoe UI\", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Burt&#8217;s lip balm<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><a style=\"color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;\" tabindex=\"-1\"><\/a>16t #24 insulated<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">brass tubing ferrule<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">80pf<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">9.93mhz-10.80mhz<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">3.21uh-2.714uh<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s\" style=\"background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-family: \"Segoe UI Historic\", \"Segoe UI\", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Dollar Store PTO Forms in 3 sizes<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Small Jot Glue Stick (8 for $1.25!)<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">1 3\/8&#8243; of #30 enameled close wound<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">waiting brass tubing to fit cup<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">80pf<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">2.980mhz with no core, I&#8217;m waiting brass tubing to fit this one (we have no hobby stores around here anymore that stock the K&#038;S music wire and brass tubing assortments)<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">35.65uh<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s\" style=\"background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-family: \"Segoe UI Historic\", \"Segoe UI\", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Medium Playschool Glue Stick<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">36t #30 enameled<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">1\/2&#8243; copper water tubing<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">80pf<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">2.96m-3.380m<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">36.13uh-27.72uh<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s\" style=\"background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-family: \"Segoe UI Historic\", \"Segoe UI\", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Large JOT Glue Stick<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">1\/2&#8243; copper water tubing<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">80pf<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">28t #24 insulated<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\">4.995m-5.625m<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: left;\"><span style=\"background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;\">12.69uh-10.00uh<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: left;\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago Pete Juliano and I got some e-mails from Paul Clark about his use of Chap Sticks and Glue Sticks (acquired at a Dollar Store!) in Permeability Tuned Oscillators. Dean KK4DAS, Mike KA4CDN and I had been experimenting with PTOs following Farhan&#8217;s use of one in his new Daylight Again transceiver. We &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2022\/10\/09\/paul-clarks-dollar-store-ptos-made-with-glue-sticks-or-chap-sticks\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Paul Clark&#8217;s Dollar Store PTOs made with Glue Sticks or Chap Sticks&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,365,90,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-farhan","category-pto","category-souleles-dean","category-vfo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4545,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543\/revisions\/4545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}