Left Coast Political Scene

We are down in the weeds with the actual building of the Digital LO/BFO for the new 20M Hybrid Wireless set.  But 1st did you turn off Alexa and did you check your blog, so it is sanitary? We are being watched, monitored and observed thus the concept of the land of the free and the home of the brave is now questionable. I have been working on modifying the JF3HZB sketch for the new 20M Hybrid Wireless. So far, I am able to show on the face of the display a sideband selection (USB LSB), but the code still needs to work to actually generate two different BFO Frequencies. A single BFO Frequency would work OK if you only wanted one sideband like LSB on 40M or USB on 20M.  A single BFO frequency would also work if you used a pair of filters out of say a Drake rig like a T4XC where the filters are switched in the circuit depending on the sideband you select. Thus, the filters are switched and not the BFO. A DPDT switch would do all of the heavy lifting, with 1/2 of the switch inputt...

No Radio Stuff today so now that you clicked on my link, you might want to find some other blog to consume your time.  Given our current political state, the red flashing lights are on. No doubt we are all being monitored and that suggests we need to be aware of what we once took for granted. I took a sledgehammer to that Alexa ball sitting in my living room. Here is what the Microshaft Copilot had to say when queried if Alexa was spying on me. Short answer yes! All the stuff you asked Alexa is being recorded and stored on a server. Alexa employees have been known to peek at your files and old what is his name can gain access to that info. Unplug your Alexa, do it now! What we write in a blog is also being perused and so even this homily is being scanned by some non-government or government organization. You must never use someone's real name nor suggest doing harm or other key words involving overt actions or devices that could cause harm. But is OK to say high voltage power suppl...

There are, in my opinion, two critical parts to an SSB transceiver not withstan ding solid-state or vacuum tube. These key pieces are the balanced modulator and the product detector.  Today I would like to talk about a vacuum tube balanced modulator tube, the 6JH8. Many of the tube balanced modulators in the early days of SSB used the RCA 7360 Beam Deflection Tube.  Check your early Swan's, or National transceivers and you will find the 7360. The rising cost of this tube caused a look at what else can do the job and enter the 6JH8, also a beam deflection tube at a fraction of the cost of a 7360.  Collins, Drake and Heathkit did not use the 7360 or other beam deflection tubes. A Simple Tube Balanced Modulator. You can read more on Balanced Modulator tubes for SSB HERE  I bought a NOS tested, 6JH8 for $3 which arrived yesterday. My balanced modulator go to circuit is the same as the 7360 circuit as used in the Swan Monoband SSB circuits. I have seen 45 dB of carrier su...

If you bought $10,000 worth of goods in a year subject to an average tariff of 20% you now have paid an additional lug of $2000 that has no tangible benefit to you. Big ticket items like foreign cars, stoves and refrigerators are not made here and until such time as they are, we are stuck with large tariffs! The suppliers are not paying the tariff, you are. The tariff collected is then paid to the US government where it is placed in the General Fund and from there accountability is a blur. The government is hinting that the collected revenues would pay down the national debt or perhaps even a check paid out to individual citizens as a bonus.  A $1000 bonus paid to all citizens is in the billions range and to date it is reported that the amount collected so far is about $100 Billion. So, the math says we likely we will recover only a small percentage if any at all.  There is a cure and perhaps a silver lining... stop buying stuff and put a break on your consumerism. Do you real...

The cupboard was bare, and I needed a stock of real IRF 510's. The BoJack IRF510's available at Lauren Bezos OM's shop are already smoked even before you put them in a circuit. So, a trip to Digi Key where I nearly had Cardiac Arrest. They have real IRF510's at $0.96 cents apiece in quantities of less than 50 pieces. That looks OK. In ordering 10 pieces the total bill was just shy of $20. A mental add up suggested that was too high by a couple of bucks. Yep, old what is his name Tariff added a 20% lug to the bill, or about $1.92. Translated across the new 20M Hybrid Wireless suggests a 20% or more increase to anything bought for the project. So, tell me why tariffs are a good thing? The idea of buy American is certainly a wave the flag issue. But to what is his name, no American manufacturer is about to start up an IRF510 product line and if they did the unit cost without a tariff would be closer to $2.50 versus $0.96. So, the American manufacturers simply pass on that ...

Vacuum Tubes and Tube Sockets are passe'. They are things of the past; stuff found under the tables at sweltering hot ham fests and not useful in an all-solid-state rig. Boom, today those items which were once a dime a dozen now are expensive. Sticker shock is a great term to describe two 9 pin miniature tube sockets with a shield base. Lauren Bezos OM wants $12 for these two items. Scandalous and Shameful are the two operative words. eBay is no better! I am now playing the POP card (Pity on Pete), asking anyone from the continental USA that has two of these and would part with them for the shipping costs to 91320. These sockets used to cost about $2 each and now a 300% markup to $6 each.  There is a total of 9 Tubes in the 20M Hybrid Wireless Set including five 7 pin miniature sockets (have those), three 9 pin miniature (have one) and one 12 Pin socket for the 12GE5 (have one). Tubes are an issue as well as I have all of the tubes save for one 12BE6 (transmit mixer). These are go...