5/31/2019 ~ Love those eBay Bargains.
The WRL Duo-Bander was a find on eBay and I couldn't resist trying to make it work again. In looking back at what it took to get this radio to "breathe again", was not looking at individual circuit elements like resistors and capacitors; but circuit modules much like I do with my solid sate designs.
It was most revealing that the WRL circuit designers used some very clever module approaches in their design and it was totally homegrown right in 'middle America".
Following that thought it was soon realized that majority of ham gear in the period of 1940 to 1970 was designed and built in factories located in Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Tennessee. We know these states now as the "rust belt" states and by and large were locations where during WWII were also making a lot of things that were electronic in nature. This area of the US was typically thought as the farm belt; but it also is where things were made like ham gear. [A private email I received since this was originally posted suggested that the reason many hams in those states voted for "the emperor" (small e) in 2016 was in the hope that radio manufacturing would return to this area of the US. Guess they were mislead.]
The US no longer is the world center for ham gear production although some manufacturers dominate certain aspects like Elecraft (CA) and FLEX in Texas and Ten Tec (not sure where now located or still making radios). There are some boutique manufacturers of boards but no large production facilities making 1000 radios a month. The real powerhouse of ham gear manufacturing is in the Far East. In time we will talk of the latest SDR offering coming from Vietnam.
There is little chance that the US will once again dominate the ham market for a variety of reasons. It is clear that radio designers of the past were very smart and clever guys and gals. Our youth are no longer focused on science; but whether they can make a lot of money being a you tube influencer. Take a look at the total enrollment in the engineering curriculum and it is one of the reasons why. You only need to look at the outsourcing of engineering designs to India to see the handwriting on the wall. We must be prepared to accept that fact.
But there was also another lesson learned from my working on the Duo-Bander. It is best described as doing "brain surgery with a rusty spoon". When I looked at the design it was a marvel for its time; but crude by today's standards.
That four pole filter got you on SSB; but you sure can hear the buckshot off to the side. There is a lot of heat and high voltage just to generate 100 watts --very inefficient. The lack of certain refinements like RIT or Noise Blanking is evident. My next door neighbor (maybe 15 feet away) builds stuff in his garage as a side business. His efforts frequently involve the use of an arc welder. Need I say more.
So it was fun to dabble with the old boat anchors -- but friend that is living in a past that will be no more. My thoughts about moving to the "dark side' are only reinforced by this latest visit to 1966. BTW if you are younger than 54, the Duo-Bander is older than you!
73's
Pete N6QW
5/30/2019 ~ For those who are forever cemented in the old school analog radios never to venture down the path of enlightenment, this is for you!
http://www.n6qw.com
Follow the link to the WRL Duo-Bander
5/29/2019 ~ Another month passes...
[Enlightenment -- Just found out "why" in the days of the past that Dalmatian Dogs rode on fire trucks. Many suggestions have been rendered as to the why -- But a current response based on the time in history: To find the newly installed fire hydrants. That will work for me...]
Soon we will all be saying it is June and that usually means 'Field Day" is soon upon us here in the US. For those who don't know, this event (which I think by now has very much changed) originally was intended to demonstrate the ability of amateur radio to provide disaster communication systems in the field. This is where ham gear was taken from shacks and set up in remote locations and for a 48 hour period (or so) stations were contacted. Logs were kept to demonstrate the effectiveness of this back-up communication system.
Now I think it tends to be a place where old geezers (like me) congregate, eat hot dogs and spicy chili (standard field day food) and try out the latest ham gear being hawked by ARRL.
Field Day holds a special meaning for me as it was in 1959 on field day weekend that my ham ticket arrived in the mail. I was so anxious to get on the air. But alas no one wnated to talk with me --it was nothing but CQ FD CQ FD. Then I decoded what was happening and the next day I had a contact.
My blogging on SDR RADIG has prompted some email and one in particular was an email from a ham in France. It was such a wonderful email as he shared that as a lad he wanted to become a ham but it wasn't until much later in life when he actually got licensed and is now on the air. He shared that he is trying to catch up by dipping his toe in the analog world but has his sights on SDR.
It was in a subsequent exchange of emails with that ham he said something that suddenly lit up a 500 watt light bulb. This now puts into place where our hobby is headed.
There is a tendency to think of analog hardware radios as bits and pieces that can be easily seen and each element can be identified and understood as to form fit and function. No fuzz on that. However many in the analog world see the SDR world as associated purely with appliance operators.
This is where the light bulb was lit. Actually the SDR RADIG developers are hacking and building upon other commercial technology to provide us some really neat RADIG's. The Radioberry SDR transceiver takes a high speed switching telecom modem and converts it into a DDC SDR Transceiver. That is not appliance operating; but some really smart guys.
So there are hams out there who do know what the form fit and function of these commercial circuit elements and can reform these devices into ham equipment only at a higher level. They are able, just like many of us can do and that is take eight components and build the Michigan Mighty Mite transmitter only it is with FPGA's and High Frequency DAC's.
The Radioberry SDR transceiver is quite impressive and is sold as a kit of parts --so you have to have surface mount soldering skills to build one; but many are under construction right now. The Hermes Lite 2.0 Is another DDC RADIG --only comes fully built from China but there is a waiting list.
The bottom line --there is ham involvement at the soldering iron level with SDR RADIG's and the real gains are not soldering in two IRF-510's in parallel for more power; but in the latest software updates and further reforming of commercial components.
Keep your eyes peeled on what Hans and Farhan are doing and that will be telling about the next generation of RADIG's.
Start dieting now so you can partake in the wonderful Field Day menu being served by your local ham club. Bring some Pepto -- many of us simply cannot handle the hot chili spices like we used to be able to do.
73's
Pete, N6QW
[Late Afternoon on 5/28 -- Read the Manual or for the ex-military RTFM. Today I discovered that if you click the RUN button on the task launcher and simply type in quisk --BOOM Doubity Boom Boom --it launches quisk. You can't believe what a boon this is to a fat fingered two fingered typist like me. It only gets better as I learn more about Linux and Quisk.]
Is your life full of "I Should Have Done This or Should have Done That?"
Well for those of you hanging on to the old hardware defined radios (HDR), in a short time you will be making those same statements. I was reminded by my good friend N2CQR that he coined the term HDR. It is with apologies that I failed to note his being the originator and hopefully rectified that situation. Thanks Bill for coining the term and the reminder.
Don't get me wrong I have a shack full of HDR equipment much of which was designed by me and all of it built by me. But it is with the SDR methodology that one can really appreciate the leverage that an SDR RADIG provides.
Don't get me wrong I have a shack full of HDR equipment much of which was designed by me and all of it built by me. But it is with the SDR methodology that one can really appreciate the leverage that an SDR RADIG provides.
Xenia (not the warrior princess) clearly demonstrated the future trends for our station equipment. One only needs to listen to the talk on the air about the FTdx-101 or the K4. Lest we forget, the IC7300 is the $1000 SDR Rig Du Jour that is enjoying world wide use (like maybe 250,000 stations) and that has to speak volumes.
There is also a whole new crop of QRP SDR transceivers coming out of China. They know where the hobby is going and they have jump started the effort by offering the $400 to $500 commercial SDR transceivers. Add an amp kit and you have a 100 watt SDR transceiver. I suspect some of it may be marginal; but a recent review by QST of one of those offerings seemed to place it in a positive light. But then again my take is the primary goal of QST is to help manufacturers sell radios to new hams.
Sure my RADIG does have limitations like just a couple of watts with the stock rig; but with my two amps I can do either 100 watts or 600+ watts. I only have four bands but others offer complete all HF band, all mode coverage for something only 2X the cost of a uBitx ($300 versus $150). Round that out with a $64 computer and a $6 SDHC card and you are making plenty of fire in the wire. There even are now DDC SDR boards out on the market --so you now have RADIG's that are in the league with the Big Dogs like FLEX and ANON.
Yesterday I visited Fry's Electronics in Oxnard, CA where I picked up a 2nd ASUS Tinker Board ($64) and a Patriot 32 GB SDHC card ($5.99). The total elapsed time from loading the latest Tinker Board image OS (V2.0.8) adding in the 12 or so Quisk Files and setting the configuration was 30 minutes.
Boom after 1/2 hour of software work I was making contacts using Quisk where I had many more optional features of addressing the received signals.
Try getting an analog VFO to stay put in 30 minutes including the time to build it would be a Herculean task. Someone will email that they have done it -- but that would be an extremely rare event. Here is my email n6qwham@gmail.com
BTW my reason from getting a second Tinker Board was that the 1st one will be embedded in an enclosure with the Omnia so it is a permanent piece of station equipment. The second one will become a test bed for further SDR evaluations.
It is one thing to say that you can hear signals very well; but it is another to know how your signal sounds. I purposefully have been listening to the Big Gun west coast 40 Meter DXer's who routinely work Australia and South Africa --at the same time. I awaited the right moment and called several of them asking for a signal report with my new rig. If you sound like crap -- they will tell you. They had nothing but high marks for the signals coming out of N6QW.
Antennas! Guys put time and money in your antennas! This past weekend while my #2 son was visiting (I enticed him with a home cooked meal from Pasta Pete) --this was the time to get my droopy dipole up higher. Formerly it was at about 18 feet at the center and now is 33 feet. Man what a difference. I simply could not get it higher than 18 feet by myself. But with a two man crew -- I nearly doubled the height. Vast improvement --especially like on 60 Meters running 50 watts.
Start by doing some research and also tune in the webSDR radios to get a feel of how the signals sound -- you might have your station receiver tuned to the same signal --no fudging which sounds better to you?
Onward and upward.
73's
Pete, N6QW