Webbed Feet.

With three days of continuous rain and more to come this week I feel the possibility of having webbed feet is likely a good thing.

It rained so much on Saturday that my back lawn had standing water, and it took almost 24 hours to be absorbed.

On my Friday visit to the cemetery, the XYL's head stone (at ground level) was under water. This reminds me of living in the Pacific Northwest where it rained almost every day.

Rain, aside from being good for the plants and the lawns, forces you indoors which causes you to think about ham radio projects.

One and Only TIA Radio built by N6QW*

About two weeks ago my $75 refurbished Windows 10 computer from Amazon, after 4 years, died and I bought a $137, Windows 11 replacement from Bozos. Part of the increased cost was that the refurbished unit was shipped from Canada and enjoyed the TTT (Those Terrible Tariffs).

Getting everything to work again has not gone smoothly! The Windows 10 machine was my Arduino machine and fortunately all of the sketches were backed up. So, we are good there.

What took a hit were the SDR programs. I had five SDR software suites on the old machine and two of the five, so far, will not work on the Windows 11 machine.

Also, not working is WSJTX as there is some software issue with HamLib rig control. I found references on the internet to this being an issue, but the suggested fix does not work.

It is amazing how a whole rainy afternoon can pass so quickly when you can't get software to work.

Them that know can make things go (most of the time).

73's

Pete N6QW

* Why only one? There are many roads to Rome, and they all get you there. TIA is but one road as broad band, termination insensitivity and 50 Ohms in/out is easily done with MMIC devices costing a lot less with a lot fewer components.

March 31, 2024. Happy Easter to those who celebrate this day.

What a great day to Binge on Chocolate and experience the pain of that filling that has been leaking. I would be in that category with the leaking filling(s) had I not just spent an amount equivalent to one of the fancy new uptown appliance box transceivers on two filling repairs. Well at least I can binge on the Chocolate bunnies without fear of pain. Regrettably everything appears to have jumped in price including the price of parts. Well not so much the parts as the shipping costs. That notably is seen in the eBay treasures. I spotted a nice heathkit DX-20 for about $50 and the shipping was $65. Likely it is a twofer with part being a way to in effect charge a higher price by inflating the shipping and in part by increased shipping costs. Shipping with insurance across the US was about $150 for this jewel and that was three years ago. 6AM on the Left Coast ~ 20M Easter Sunday! My only hope is the cost of Chocolate Bunnies remains steady although a pound of See's Candies f...

January 26, 2024. A simple CW Transceiver/Transmitter

Cruise through the lower part of the ham bands bands and what do you hear? Well, FT-8 and CW. Often you will not hear any SSB stations yet go to the lower part of the bands, and it is a cacophony (I love that word) of bad sounding signals and some high-speed keying. Fast is not so much of the issue as is bad, run together and jerky keying. But none the less our hobby started there. So, you could crank down your ICOM 7300 and watch the waterfall on CW or you could homebrew a radio. Actually, to do CW right you need more thought up front than you do with a SSB transceiver. Often, I will state that a CW Transceiver is much more difficult to build than a simple SSB rig. I published two articles in QRP Quarterly on CW transceivers and all I got was a yawn so maybe history will repeat itself. Yawn! 30M CW Transceiver with RIT! Of interest is that the LO is a Varactor tuned LC oscillator using a NE602. Look closely at the RIT circuit which is only activated on ...

August 30, 2024. A PNP 20M SSB Transceiver

Shown below is the Block Diagram for the 20M PNP SSB Transceiver steered in the Transmit Mode . The components shown in the dotted block are relay steered so that the block module is single pass and amplifies in a single direction. The Block diagram show steered in Transmit. Essentially the steering process works so that the IF Module input follows the Balanced Modulator on Transmit and then the input side follows the Receive Mixer on Receive. All done with some relays and a bit of RG174U coax. For those who count things in detail, this block diagram is not unlike what was used for the PSSST Transceiver which can be found on my website . Yes, a warmed over P3ST only using PNP devices. TYGNYBNT. 73's Pete N6QW

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