Left Coast Political Scene

That is indeed a serious problem being an OT and thinking (what else) that DEI meant Deliberative Engineering Inquiry. WE are not going to talk about the other currently popular meaning of DEI, but today's post is a trouble shooting problem. A good friend and fellow podcast participant Dean, KK4DAS has a mysterious occurrence with one of his homebrew rigs. It is not a simple problem like R27 is the wrong value or it's a defective 2N3904, but one where you can see the problem, but the source and cure is hiding in the bushes. So, how do you attack the problem? The old adage about time is healing applies here too. Step one is to back away from the problem for a short while and resist the immediacy of try this and try that where that only results in raising the frustration level. A tool, I use, is to write things down on a piece of paper using a two-column approach. One column is marked Known and the other Unknown. My friend has some critical pieces of information in hand. The 1st ...

Having been born 11 days after Pearl Harbor, my early childhood memories were of war. It was hard in 1944, when my dad finally got called up as I knew he was gone. Shortly after the war there were many stories shared by my uncles with me about their exploits in Europe and the Pacific. Then there was the flood of war movies that appeared at the local movie houses in 1946 and 1947. ( My one uncle shared his war stories about the women he met as he traveled across the Pacific -- Hawaii and Australia were his favorites. Not sure if it was the locale or the women. Some 18 years later after the end of the war, I was headed to Midway Island. I happened to mention to my Uncle I would be passing thru and spending a couple of days on Oahu. He immediately  suggested I visit some ladies he formerly knew. That was my Uncle Carmine!) Later in life I began to collect some of those war mov ies that I actually had seen as a kid.  Who can forget Sands of Iwo Jima or The Flying Leathernecks. One...

Sure, there are the extraordinary fun moments in our hobby, fleeting as they may be, when you are making contacts with a Glue Stick PTO Direct Conversion Receiver and a one transistor Michigan Mighty Mite. That thrill is enhanced by the fact that you are using a station rig totally homebrewed by you! But such a rig may soon be used less and less given the spare nature of the equipment itself. Issues like frequency limitations of the Glue Stick PTO say operating at 28 MHz or 100 milli-watts is marginal when band conditions just plain suck are a huge damper! But you argue with the statement that the actual hardware has such a small footprint (like two small wooden boards) and is a complete ham station.  Time to look at the Technology Impacts of Software Defined Radios where the hardware becomes small, and the software drives the performance -- it will work at 28MHz. My Hermes Lite 2.0 is small and so is a Raspberry Pi4 -- and together even smaller when the Hermes Lite 2.0 is 100 feet...

Covid19 did some strange things to us as a nation. In my case I actually saved a bit of money! That seems like a weird statement considering toilet paper shot up in price! Let me "splain". The XYL prior to her move to the Board and Care always needed to be out. Like out to lunch and out to the shopping mall. I think I did 100,000 miles on her Transport Chair. That all changed with Covid19. Thus less $$$ spent on gas, meals out and tips. My radio fund grew by a modest amount and was literally burning a hole in my pocket when I spotted this jewel the Multus Proficio .  Just Released the Multus Proficio MKII It took about a year to save up for the MKI which I have, and that was about $400. The MKII is about $475 fully built. The MKII has some improvements which I think plays to the CW aficionados and the usual upgrades. Multus has their own SDR software, but the radio will work with HDSDR and I even had my Proficio MKI mostly working on a RPI4 using QUISK.  The Multus Proficio i...

I get bombarded with those buy me adds including one I got for a McClaren custom automobile at only $400K. But for 0.001% of that cost ($400 bucks) you can have this jewel . A 5-Watt SDR Transceiver The Hermes Lite 2.0 is truly a marvel in its own right, with its small size and rich features. All Band thru HF and all Mode is only the starting place as I have it running on a wired network in my home using a $20 Network Switch.  With some Cat 6 cable and a variety of computers the HL2 can be literally everywhere in my home. Some have managed a wireless latch up so now out by the pool with the laptop having QSO's -- and the HL2 nowhere in sight. That is a tough choice -- pool bunnies in bikinis or a 20M DX opening! The BEST part is that it will run on a host of software packages including QUISK, Openhdsdr, Encore and Thetis. The latter two are the uptown packages used with the high end SDR radios. I have it running on both Linux and Windows Computers all the way from an RPi4 to a Big ...

The last couple of posts dealt with HARDWARE to measure SWR. But why is a high SWR a BAD thing. Often quoted, a high SWR is on par with what happens when the gas gauge is almost empty.  Or as we well know, if you had a Red Ryder BB gun you will shoot your eye out! Or the cute Red Head has only a slight STD. Basically, two impacts are: 1) max RF from your rig is not getting to the ionosphere and 2) you risk serious damage to your rig. For many hams the idea of a puny signal is a far greater impact than a smoked rig. Hey, it's just more added on the plastic. But a high SWR also can cause unwanted feedback and then your signal is not only puny, but it sounds terrible.  Manufacturers will caution their radio can safely operate with a 2:1 SWR or never exceed a 3:1 SWR. Some radios will sense when your SWR is approaching a danger point and even have circuitry that will idle back the power to values that won't harm the radio. (Fold Back Current Limiting). Disclaimer -- I actually nev...

Once again, the Amazon Phantom has struck! In yesterday's mail was a package from Amazon containing a pumice scraping stone to clean the toilet bowl.  To my benefactor I thank you, and I truly appreciate your generosity. Anyone else feeling the urge to send a pumice stone -- I am good. A gallon of 12% Hydrogen Peroxide ... OOOPS Here I am soliciting and that is not my intent. Please do not send any H202. Now a giant plug for the G-QRP Club and the SPRAT publication. I am lucky to own a SPRAT on a STICK, which essentially is a compendium of all of the SPRAT articles going back to #1 and carried forward to the most recent all on a USB Stick. Be aware that the compendium is only as recent to when the stick was burned.  But I did find Issue #61 on my stick which covers the Stockton Bridge in an article entitled A Bi-Directional Inline Wattmeter pp 12-16. (David Stockton, G4ZNQ). No "Digital Stuff" here just two meters. G4ZNQ's description of the circuit and its function i...

[Late Breaking News! Dean, KK4DAS now has resolved the MCU problem -- it was a library issue. Check out this link on his build and the resolution. https://kk4das.blogspot.com/2024/07/homebrew-sbitx-power-and-swr-meter.html ] In one week, we will be looking to change the Calendar to August. Time to start thinking about a winter project. Do we channel the thinking toward something we need like a new rig for the shack or to an item of test equipment.  If the wheel of fortune lands on test gear, then one of the most useful pieces is a SWR Bridge. In the most recent SolderSmoke Podcast (#252) Dean, KK4DAS shared some tales of woe regarding a SWR Power Meter that would be built into his homebrew SDR Bitx (SBitx) transceiver. Essentially, Raspberry Pi 4 software poles a sensor (Stockton Bridge) and the voltage values, Forward and Reverse, are read and then massaged in software to derive an output for display on the screen. He has been wrestling this gorilla for several weeks. The issue is...

I have been vexed with a ring around my toilet bowl. It has given me nightmares and the supposed super toilet bowl cleaners on Amazon are a huge joke. Bezos' stuff is expensive and does nothing to remove the ring! In desperation I turned the problem over to the micro-shaft AI Co-pilot. I spoke the question asking for recommended toilet bowl cleaners. This is no BS, as the co-pilot AI came back with a listing of recommended bowling ball cleaners. The Co-pilot AI must have been trained in China where English is not a 1st Language.     So, then I typed in the question and the #1 response was the 9th Grade Science Project answer. Start by pouring a box of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda into the bowl and let stand an hour and then dump in a bottle of Vinegar -- watch the foam devour the ring. The next steps suggest you will still have to scrub like hell with a pumice stone to lift the ring. In an earlier foray into AI using Chat GPT, the answer was to find toilet bowl cleansers that c...

  The all-important power supply is a lot like an antenna. Use anything and it will work! Well, that belief and statement have a good chance of starting you off on a wrong foot for both antennas and power supplies. These two elements typically are given no consideration, and the result is often poor performance of the radio. A typical advert from a supplier who resells manufacturer overstock starts with 12VDC at 30 Amps open switcher all for $9.95 shipped. The price is certainly less than a Big Mac Meal at Mickey D's but should also give rise to an acid stomach. Too Good To Be True has a prophetic ring to it! Power supplies commonly used with solid state equipment broadly fall into two categories: 1) Linear Supplies and 2) Switchers. The Linear supplies are the old transformer rectifier kind and are often heavy. I have a Astron 35 Amp Linear supply you never want to drop on your toe. A Switcher uses that old back EMF principle to take the decay of a pulsed inductor field to create ...

You have this insatiable urge to homebrew a SSB/CW transceiver and I mean totally homebrew! This rig will have no IC's.  (Gulp) an Analog VFO, a homebrew microphone and even a home constructed case. The 12 pole QER Crystal Filter, of course homebrewed, is suddenly a decision point. No, the decision is not about 12 poles but what frequency? Did I mention this will be your first ever homebrew project. Of all of these pieces indeed the IF Filter Frequency is perhaps the 1st item on the critical path. The McCoy Silver Sentinel or Golden Guardian Filters were some of the 1st commercial 9 MHz Crystal Filters. The 9 MHz filter was popular in the single conversion 80/20 rigs because a 5MHz VFO yields two bands, although you would need two BFO crystals.  Had you used a 5 MHz Filter and 9 MHz VFO then because of sideband inversion only one BFO crystal is needed to give USB on 20M and LSB on 80M. The 9 MHz filter is seen a lot in homebrew and commercial radios (Ten Tec). This all worked ...

In yesterday's post I was babbling about a matchbox sized SSB Transceiver. I must have been suffering from the heat we have been experiencing in SoCal. Small is not always a good thing. Today's post will look at what shrinking the size down of a homebrew rig really means. I can remember being issued a Motorla cell phone (1990's) as a part of my job. It was fat and in no way easily slipped into your pocket. Today's cell phones easily fit into any pocket in your tight designer jeans. Portability is the key operative word and so it would be with a ham rig, thus the shrink down syndrome.  Since we are focusing on a homebrew radio, the builder has total control over the size and final configuration.  My foray into creating a shirt pocket SSB transceiver started back in 2007. https://www.jessystems.com/morexcvrs.html That project didn't end up being shirt pocket size but did provide some important baseline data. Somewhat reincarnated it is in a box 7X7X2 or almost 100 cub...

VK3YE, Peter Parker has churned out a mountain sized number of projects that are a  three-fer. The Knobless Wonder is a great example where Peter has designed a 40M SSB transceiver that is a simple design, easy to build and works well (that's 3). [Of note, if you are into DSB radios then VK3YE has the subject totally covered.] In the 1st video where QSO's are being recorded VK3YE's has a terribly noisy environment as a routine challenge. The 2nd video was shot at the beach and thus you get a much better feel of how good this radio works. Essentially Peter has a designed a 10 Transistor SSB transceiver whereby choosing the right crystals builds the Crystal Filter at the operating frequency (7.159MHz). So, no LO is needed, and the incoming signal is fed to the IF. Thus, no Knob needed for the main tuning dial ~ Knobless! Most of the supporting transistors are the BC458 (NPN) and the Driver and Final are BD139's. VK3YE"s Knobless Wonder  A Build from JA2GQP The BFO c...

Needed a filler this morning since I was with Bill, N2CQR and Dean, KK4DAS participating in a new soldersmoke podcast soon to be seen on You Tube video screens in your neighborhood.    73's Pete N6QW

I had a wakeup call yesterday and while not all ham radio related, a significant part of my "personal vision" is.  How can we be so consumed with the more? You know more radios, more power output, more antennas, more gadgets and even more charged on the plastic. Crystal Test Oscillator Gadget We are ever consumed by reading the ads for new radios from the Far East. Some hams even subscribe (for $59) to getting these ads via a download from a purported radio amateurs journal. Often new stuff shows up on our phones without our even doing a search. Thank you, AI.  I am terribly guilty of looking at Amazon for new gadgets I can share with the blog readers. Shudder, I am also an eBay junkie -- trying to spot the $50 boat anchor rig that will test my technical skills at a reincarnation.  It is summertime and time for ham fests. A blog reader from NJ (yes, it is state and more than Tony Soprano) sent a link to a recent ham fest. I enjoyed looking at all of the stuff for sale. So...