I had some technical difficulties, so my audio is a bit distorted.

Monday September 19, 2022

Sorry, I had some technical difficulties, so my audio is a bit distorted.

NIMCELS? Niche Internet Micro Celebrities. I dunno.... Can our listeners come up with an acronym that describes our place in the universe?

Sponsors: Parts Candy. Carlos in Chicago. Great leads. Don't scrimp with a crimp! You need some good quality test leads on your workbench. Get yours from Carlos. Click on the picture on the blog page or go to PartsCandy on e-bay.

"Techno Wizardry"? Our lawyers at Dewey Cheatham and Howe will be after them for that!

Bill's Bench:

Hex Beam has made me a DXer. 91 countries. Having fun. Mozambique (Long path), San Andres island, and Saudi Arabia, all on Friday. All homebrew SSB 100 watts.

Put my old 20 meter CW station back on the air: Barebones superhet and the VXO 6 watter. WYKSYCDS. This may be one of very few CBLA Receivers in the world! . Lots of fun.

We are looking at Farhan’s Daylight Again Analog rig. Using parts from Dean’s 3D printer, we have made PTOs. See blog post for picture. (But are they really PTOs? Or just Variable Inductors?)

VFO madness. Solid stating an HT-37 VFO. Grayson: “You have clearly lost your mind.” Perhaps. 100 MHz FM broadcast RFI. This brought me to capacitors and linear tuning:

SLC, SLW, SLF and Midline/Centerline caps. Do special caps explain why some VFOs have linear tuning while others do not? NO, not really. You can get linear tuning with ordinary caps. See blog post

Working on the bench. Reading Adam Savage’s book on workshops and tools. (link to the book in the right hand column of the blog. Some other workbench links on the blog. Upgrading tools and test gear. I have a proper bench power supply. Better side cutters. Engineering rulers. Digital calipers. Better solder (I was talking to Ron WA6YOU – a real solder authority - about this. Kester 60/40 ).

SHAMELESS COMMERCE DIVISION:
mostlydiyrf.com
Currently offering seven items:

· UDVBM-1 (in three versions)

· PG-TIA Broadband IF Amplifier
· TIA-AGC IF Amplifier
· Dual-Gate MOSFETs
· OA741D Op-Amp (discrete components)
· 8-Pole QER Crystal Filter
· I2C Rotary Encoder
Three more are shown as coming soon:

· GP Audio Amp (general-purpose audio amp)
· HyCas IF Amplifier with AGC
· M-Cubed (Michigan Mighty Mite kit)
· Mostly DIY RF offers hardware for hardware-defined radio. That's not a comment on software-defined radio. SDR is cool and useful, and it has its place.
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I need YouTube viewing hours. So I am putting some of the best SolderSmoke podcasts up on the YouTube channel. Please listen/watch on YouTube. Here is the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv9MEKq1quk-gnxog7eBqY_y7cpQadf6T

Google feed no longer sending our e-mails. So please follow the blog, Get yourself a blog feed reader. I use Feedly. It is free. Download, search in Feedly for SolderSmoke, hit subscribe and you are done. https://feedly.com/i/discover Follow Pete’s blog too! It is easy.

Pete’s Bench

Resurrections:

SBE-33!

TenTEC Model 540

KWM-1

Mailbag:

Dan KC5VPI getting into homebrewing. No longer WRONG!

Michael AG5VG built subharmonic DC receiver, put it on 40 and 20. FB.

Mike AA9IL working on old tube stuff including a DX-100 AMD UUHF gear up to 122GHz.

Ed WA4MZS liked the SolderSmoke book. USCG vet. As is Mike Rainey AA1TJ Semper Paratus!

Clint KA7OEI – The Music of the Beams – My Hex does not sing. So far.

Walter KA4KXX – The Knack started early. Video of getting a toolbox for Christmas. And working on PTOs! He likes them!

Phillip G4HOJ Also working with subharmonic mixers – using the more complex 4 diode version.

Peter GW4ZUA Built an amazing rig from RADCOM (1980s) Cool VFO with varactor fine tuning and a coil with a dust core that was cut in half to minimize temp effect. Box now holds 3 band version of Pete’s SimpleCeiver. FB.

Bruce KC1FSZ building 25 Watt amp for his Peppermint Bark rigs. We won’t turn him in to the QRP authorities.

Grayson KJ7UM tested the 12BY7A from my DX-100 VFO. It was in fact weak. Thanks Grayson.

Charles Smith KV4JT has some really interesting stuff on how to solid state tube gear. Especially R-390s. https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/08/trigger-warning-solid-stating-old-tube.html

Gianfranco I0ZY Old friend from Rome. Amplifier manufacturer. FB.

Paul WA1MAC getting started again after long hiatus.

Vasily.. I mean Todd VE7BPO. Always great tech info. Thanks.

Mark WB8YMV building a superhet with a 455 kc IF.

I sent Farhan some comments on his Daylight Again video: He wrote back “I marvel at their stamina to watch an hour long video of a man talking with a funny accent!”

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBntzO4wBKg
Uploader: SolderSmoke

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