Skip to main content

Sept 26, 2024. It pays to look at the data!

 

One purpose of this blog is to share some Tribal Knowledge. So aside from providing me a soap box to vent about the ARRL, I also try to highlight portions of stuff I have done or to present information on complete projects.

Sticking out like a sore thumb, the one posting that garnered about 6X the normal daily views was the Jan 26th posting on the 30M CW transceiver. This was a rig I designed, built and had published in QRP Quarterly.  Recently ZL2CTM's Simple SSB Transceiver got about 3X. Consistently most other postings get the usual small number of daily views. 

It takes effort to prepare a blog and in reality, is a great outlet to add a bit of diversion from the daily shifts at the Board and Care facility. This in itself is likely the only reason I continue. 

But given we always want something more than day old bread; I really have to stretch picking subjects that cover a wide spectrum of readers. 

On balance realizing that hardware homebrewing is dying off, I do try to add in some items that would appeal to those who have software chops. The recent Orange Pi posting got a ho hum reception likely because you have to do more than just open the box and plug it in.

So, as I search to find subjects that perhaps come close to the Jan 26th posting views, I do hope those few who read the blog continue to do so. 


A Military Field Radio from WW1



 This falls into the category of HDR (Hardware Defined Radio) most likely pretty crude by today's standards and over 100 years old! The requisite photo to catch blog readers.

TYGNYBNT. Don't eat your pet!

73's
Pete N6QW

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
Read more

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...
Read more

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
Read more