Left Coast Political Scene

No is such a powerful answer! Like when your 12-year-old daughter wants a butterfly tattoo on her back -- 10X full size! Vintage 1967 FTdx100 So, it is with our hobby that we should say NO. We ought to narrow that NO a bit as we are not talking about an ARRL membership or whether to outlaw LC VFO's or take up contesting or even buying an ICOM IC-7300.  The NO is for me personally and that involves buying any Boat Anchors or even gear that is older than 25 years.  Hallicrafters SR-150 [For those looking for schematics for a simple project or code for the Seeed Xiao RP2040 we will not be covering that today so you can close out this posting.] Just look at the front panel of the SR-150 as it literally says take me home to your ham shack. It has large knobs for those of us with Fat Finger Syndrome that we can actually twiddle! The panel layout forces you to look at the dial scale and S Meter.  The SR-150 production run was during the early 1960's and just the radio alone was ...

  Seeed Xiao RP2040 Digital LO/BFO 2/26/2024 In my email this morning was that very question concerning my providing to the sender a simple Arduino SSB Sketch. This is a landmine underfoot just waiting for me to step off the plunger. The very way the question is stated suggests the sender is looking for a quick fix and likely lacks a rudimentary knowledge of the Arduino. Fact one there are no simple SSB sketches!  His question is better characterized as a no-frills version to one you would find on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. No Frills = one band, 16X2 LCD, no VFO memory, no S Meter, no Tune Tone or Splash Screen. The Beverly Hills version would have all of those features less the LCD but sports a 3.5 Inch Color TFT Touch screen to boot.  That said about 80 to 90% of both sketches would have common elements. These common statements include identifying libraries, and which display type. Other statements would identify pins that would be used and various statements identif...

Gotta ask? Does your homebrew rig sound this good? The 2.7KHz wide filter brings a bit of extra presence to the sound. Indeed, you would expect no less from two 90 Derees Out of Phase Direct Conversion Receivers. I am having a bit of fun with this rig, as I purposely have set the Si5351, so it is about 20 Hertz low. This is so I can drive the FLEX and Apache SDR Police bonkers as they tell me I am 20 Hz low. I then will say that is to give you something to do besides tout your expensive radios! This is the original prototype based on ZL2CTM's work that has undergone some repairs and a tune up. Interesting how I calibrate the Si5351. I have a Hermes Lite2 SDR which is superb and rivals some of those boxes costing $3 to 4K. [At about 10% 0f the cost.] Step one is to sync the HL2 to WWV and have those two signals'  dead  nuts on. Then I bring a lead from the HL2 antenna port near the divide by four 74AC74's so it is detecting the LO frequency. I adjust the Teensy 3.5 softwar...

Are you protected? This is not about life insurance or about a date with a girl friend. The post for today deals with protecting your circuits and not what you may have been thinking. Circuit protection is likely the last item on your list or perhaps as often happens not at all. We must strive to be precise and correct for the nit pickers out there so let me bound what I mean by circuit protection.   Broadly speaking the circuit protection involves simple things like your wiring when you try to stuff four pounds in a three pound box.  Get a grip, unless you purposefully think about a possible short to the power rail and physically keep wiring away -- IT WILL SHORT!    That was a lesson learned while I was trying to service one of my shirt pocket SSB Transceivers. Similarly think about it when you put the rig in a box -- will there be a short when you screw the top on. Thus, one aspect is the physical hardware.   The other broad category is the hardware functiona...

I get lots of emails including an exciting notification that $282,567.19 has been deposited for me in a Bank located in Nigeria. Often the emails may involve questions about my published projects or perhaps a comment on a You Tube video. Some were referred to me by others. Mail is good and a distraction from my day job at the Board and Care Facility. That said there should be a bit of effort on the part of the sender to frame the question so it can be answered. One email simply said "Send Me the Code". So OK the code to my Junior HS padlock was 38 22 34. It took two more rounds to get to which code he wanted. Just in the last week came two emails requesting technical information with one specifically on how to address a noise problem in a radio. This noise issue was something I ran into personally and found a couple of miracle cures. I was happy to respond to that inquiry for it was a real world problem for me.   This power conditioner circuit came from Bill, N2CQR and solved...

Charming Radios of Old! Or just plain old and no charm! Looks Like an AMECO AC-1 Clone AMECO AC-1 My build of the W7ZOI Dec89/Jan90 QST, 20M SSB Transceiver     Imagine making contacts with the CW transmitter in the 1st photo. The wiring for the Key is 300 Ohm Twin lead. Like we used to say when I was in the Navy, any port in the storm. BTW an AMECO Clone Kit today is several hundred dollars. The 3rd photo is a rig I still have. W7ZOI had a hand made dial readout --- mine has an LCD with the EI9GQ VFO stabilizer. The advantage of technology and a 10–15-year span between the two builds., Same design with some updates.   In thinking about this post, I reasoned that technology advancements have two subsets those being cosmetic and functionality.  Despite the handwritten dial scale, (4th photo) on the W7ZOI original that in no way reflects how the rig performs and how it sounds on the air. Of note W7ZOI's tuning system has a Coarse and Fine tune controls. It li...