Left Coast Political Scene

  Finally Access to the VFO Board! In looking at the schematic and measuring voltage at the emitter we had power to the circuit but no oscillation. The 1st thought was that the Germanium transistor was bad... I pulled it only to find it tested good. Plugging it into a socket on a working homebrew rig (Plessey Circuit) it was good! Now that I had access to the components I could make other voltage measurements. I noted there was voltage on the collector BUT none at the junction of RFC and 5.6K and the .01 Cap. An ohmmeter measurement across the RFC (shocking) it was open. Ah hah, found it!  Not so fast McGee! True it was open, further checks once removed from the circuit affirmed that. But there was no visible sign of an open, it was not crisped nor any leads broken off. It was just plain open.  Seeing the choke was inaccessible, there was no probing of or any accidental damage to the choke before it died. It just stopped working. The transistor is good so no huge current ...

First a caution and a funny story. I hate the type of Manhattan construction where you use Super glue to glue the cut off copper squares to a PC Board.  Frankly Super glue and Pete are a volatile combination. Somehow every time I use the product, I get my fingers stuck together.  Yesterday I had the need to use Super glue to repair something and managed to get Super glue on my index finger. The good news is that I only got it on my finger but avoided the gluing the fingers together.  When I got the T Mobile Home Internet, they required you use the Biometric function on your Smart phone. That was pretty slick as now you can open your phone with a fingerprint. Don't you just love technology. After the Super glue event, I cannot use Biometrics to open the phone and had to enter the code. Then it hit me... the Super glue prevents the phone from reading the index finger. So, I will have to wait until the glue wears off. I was laughing that I was done in by Technology! Stupid p...

 Raspberry Sundae Our ice cream sundae is a perfect metaphor for today's blog. If you love to homebrew, then you likely have a penchant for ice cream. Afterall, who in their right mind would turn down a taste of a Raspberry Sundae. But to take a bite, does involve a calculated decision. Afterall with the average age of our ham being way above 30 then it is not a simple decision as concerns for health such as lactose intolerance, adding to an already bulging waistline, cholesterol impacts and then there is that leaking filing that rapidly responds to sugar shock on the nerve endings. When you are 16, none of these issues matter for at that age it is YL's and not ice cream that are in the PFC (Pre-Frontal Cortex) and causes sensations in other parts of the anatomy. But those factors are in the process when it comes to a radical decision such as completely removing the analog VFO from the Project X radio and replacing it with some modern digital electronics. Let us ponder some of ...

With a bit of certainty, I am led to believe that the VFO in the Project X rig is inoperative. The Malocchio is in effect! Back at You! Getting the VFO assembly removed from the rig for repair is daunting, but getting the unit back into the rig is an even bigger, almost insurmountable task. The old axiom, when in doubt look to technology for a solution. Enter the Arduino with the Si5351 as the saving heroes. For some this has Italian roots found in the word "scandalous". While it would be cool to keep it original, it is an Analog VFO that has failed! I have upgraded many commercial radios and long ago faced that decision. The change over while not in the original plan does upgrade Project X to a rig with finer gradations on the frequency readout while also providing extreme frequency stability over the original which only held a 100 Hz drift for only 10 minutes.  Since Project X was intended primarily as a SSB rig, the original covered only the phone portions of the bands. We...

With origins in what is today modern-day Iraq, the "evil eye" is a paranormal concept where the simple act of looking at something or someone causes a catastrophic event to happen. The look may be driven by greed, envy or simply being a nasty person. There is a long history surrounding the evil eye and it was so feared that merely telling a person that you were calling up the evil eye caused death in that person As a kid I remember my maternal grandmother (from Calabria) often talked about the "malocchio". Warding off the evil eye had remedies such as throwing salt over your shoulder or spitting in the wind without getting spit on you. There was even a hand gesture using the 1st and 4th finger to ward off the spell. (Is that a predecessor to the Middle Finger?)  Project X VFO Transistor Well, the malocchio hit the Project X transceiver project yesterday as it stopped receiving or transmitting. The problem was traced to the Local Oscillator (VFO) as right in the midd...

Wow! Five miles from my QTH, ICE was busy this past Thursday rounding up some 200 illegal immigrants. The Centroid of this DHS action was Laguna Road in Camarillo, CA. ICE, note the tear gas masks. On Fridays I travel over Laguna Road on the way to visit the XYL at the cemetery in Oxnard.  This past Friday, yesterday, at about 8 AM, there appeared to be some ICE agents still hiding in the bushes or at least somebody in the bushes on Laguna Road (perhaps a CA reincarnation of Mary Jo vintage 2025).  This is close to home and scary. Where are we headed... seized and detained because of how you look or that you speak Spanish. What happened to probable cause and due process. But I do wonder who is feeding DHS, the pinpoint locations of where to use "Roundup". Shades of Russia where it is mandatory that you be a snitch.  There is a fascinating situation at the intersection of two roads quite near CSU Channel Islands, the purported reference in the Eagles song "Hotel Californi...