Len Over 21 wrote:

In article , Dave Heil
writes:

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to Leonard that my funeral pyre will
be fueled with those magazines. I'll lie in a rack cabinet as I'm sent
off to the amateur radio valhalla. A special A-1 Op Club honor guard
will be present. The ceremony will be performed by local members of the
Royal Order of Wouff Hong.

G'bye...have a nice afterlife... :-)

After you, Leonard, old chap. After you.

Dave K8MN

In article , Dave Heil
writes:

Len Over 21 wrote:

In article ,
(N2EY) writes:

(Brian Kelly) wrote in message
.com...
PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message
...
In article ,

(Brian Kelly) writes:
(Len Over 21) wrote in message
...
In article ,

(Brian Kelly) writes:

snip of Len's lecture on IC's

What was his point, anyway? That 74192s aren't in current production?

I've run into more than a few hams who say they "hate contests because
they make the bands so noisy". What's really going on, in at least
some cases, is that the effects of so many strong signals on the air
all at once raise the apparent noise floor of their *modern*
transceivers, in part due to phase-noisy oscillators in the
contest-haters equipment.

So...you hate the contest haters all on account of "phase noise?"

Not at all!

The effect was mentioned to demonstrate the impact of phase-noisy oscillators
in HF ham rigs. Those same hams might find the bands a lot less noisy with
different equipment, allowing contesters and noncontesters alike to enjoy the
same band.

Tsk. You ought to get used to the fact that not everyone likes
contests for the simple reason that they are contests, organized
by contestant-wannabes so that they can Win and show off that
they are "better" than the non-contestants. :-)

??

Not everyone likes sports, either. Particularly when the roads are clogged with
people going to and from the stadiums, TV programs are preempted for sports
coverage, etc.

Were the recent Olympics all about "contests for the simple reason that they
are contests, organized by contestant-wannabes so that they can Win and show
off that they are "better" than the non-contestants"?

Perhaps we should inform the IOC.

How are you involved? Wanting to win at something and being competitive
are part of being human. Don't want to participate in an amateur radio
contest? Don't enter. Oh, that's right--you couldn't enter if you
wanted to.

Len can enter any amateur radio contest he wants to. All that's needed is for
him to obtain a valid amateur radio license, and an amateur radio station. His
choice of home location may be more suited to listening to cbers on the nearby
freeway than to working the rest of the USA, however.

One of the problems with older solidstate equipment is that much of it
used custom parts for which the only sources are the manufacturer (if
they still support the unit) or junker units. If there was a weak
spot, finding a junker with a usable part maybe hopeless. The Kenwood
TS-440s reputedly has this problem in its display.

So...you think vacuum tubes will be with you always? :-)

If he doesn't have enough, I'll give 'em to him. If I die first, I'll
will them to him.

Thank you, Dave!

In fact, I've been reducing my tube and parts stock because I have far more
than enough. It would be wonderful if I could live long enough to wear them all
out!

The fact remains, however, that a lot of solidstate electronic devices
(including ham gear) were made with custom parts which can be difficult or
impossible to find, or even identify. End result is "can't fix it because the
parts cannot be had". It is probably easier to restore a 40 year old R-390A or
75S3 than a 20 year old R-70, if certain parts are needed.

Of course this is driven by a whole bunch of factors, ranging from increased
reliability (if it doersn't break you don't need to be able to fix it) to
length of production (the R-390A was manufactured for at least 30 years by a
number of companies, including a few made under a contract awarded to Helena
Rubenstein), to the fact that newer electronics are often not designed to be
fixable, and are meant for a limited design life - if it fails, you just get a
new one.

Of course there are exceptions, like Ten Tec's policy of board-swapping. And
there are specialists who can bring almost anything electronic back to life.

One of the design parameters of all my homebrew projects is that the result
must be serviceable with parts and tools on hand. Nothing is built with "one of
a kind" or rare parts, and nothing is pushed hard. Result is that I've had very
few problems.

He can have enough to see him through his lifetime.
Does that suit your definition of "always"?

I hope to outlive my supply...

Of course...you can "recycle" them...somewhat after their useful
life...and "impress all who visit your shack."

??

A recycled component is still in its useful life, because I'm getting use out
of it. Nothing in the Type 7 is "after its useful life".

And when a tube finally fails, its base is often useful as a connector or
plug-in coil form. Other defective components sometimes yield useful parts,
too. Nothing goes to waste at N2EY.

Don't you ever try to impress folks who visit your shack, Len?

What impresses folks most is that I can recall schematics and other info from
memory.

You
know, take 'em in to view the R-70?

He bought it for CASH, Dave ;-) Somehow, that is supposed to be significant.

I find it interesting, though, that Len does not tell us of *his* homebrew
radio projects. Frankly, I would have thought that he designed and built his
own receivers, rather than buying a ready-built imported unit like the R70. A
person doesn't need any knowledge or skill in radio-electronics to buy or use
one of those.

73 de Jim, N2EY

---

And while we're on the subject, how about these specs for a new receiver:

MDS -135dBm
AM Sensitivity -110dBm
Blocking Dynamic Range 5Khz 119dB, 20Khz 119dB
3rd Order dynamic Range 5Khz 87.7dB, 20Khz 95dB
Image rejection 152dB
IF Rejection 106dB

No, it's not the Southgate Type 7.

In article , Dave Heil
writes:

Kellie and Jimmie want "my scores from the last Field Day" as
one loaded "challenge." :-) Not all amateurs participate in
"Field Day" and no non-amateur-licensee can possibly operate
legally. An example of a NON-challenge, already-known answer
disguised as a sort-of (sort off, really) "civil discourse" question.

No non-amateur-licensee can possibly operate legally on Field Day? I'd
think you'd get one right once in a great while, Leonard. That response
would be wrong.

No, he's right, Dave.

FCC specifically defines the term "operate an amateur radio station". It means
to be the control oeprator, responsible for rules compliance. By definition,
only a licensed ham can do that. Others "participate in amateur radio". Len
cannot legally operate an amateur radio station, according to FCC. Nor can
Michael Powell, for that matter.

But all that is besides the point. What matters most in amateur radio - or any
field of endeavor, really - is what is actually done, not what's theoretically
possible. That's the point of the story about my highschool friend who had lots
of great ideas (and lots of criticism) but no station of his own. The computer
folks have a word for it: Vaporware.

Who do you have more respect for, Dave:

The person with a modest amateur station who is actually on the air making QSOs

or

The person who talks endlessly about "state of the art", "better modes and
modulations", "the future of amateur radio", "progress", etc., etc., yet who
isn't on the ham bands at all?

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article , Dave Heil
writes:

N2EY wrote:

In article ,

(Len Over 21) writes:

In article , Leo

writes:

On 29 Sep 2004 18:47:50 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:

In article ,

(N2EY) writes:

Tsk. You've yet to explain that "Southgate Type 7." [other than the
unusual name] Does it appear in ham literature? In Nobel archives?

Here's a picture, and some technical details...

http://hometown.aol.com/n2ey/myhomepage/

Neat collection

Thnak you, Len!

of recycled toob equipment..

The parts are recycled but the designs are new and unique.

It seems to bother our Leonard that vacuum tubes were used.

Does it? I don't see that, Dave. He wrote that is was a "neat collection".

looks like "shacks" of
the 50s and 60s.

It seems to bother our Leonard that your equipment doesn't look like
stereo equipment.

Why should it? It's not stereo equipment. It's amateur radio equipment.

Picture is less than 2 years old.

Appears to be a giant collection of QSTs to the
right...

It seems to bother our Leonard that you have an extensive QST library.

I don't see that at all, Dave.

Every issue since mid-1926, and some older ones. Also lots of other radio
magazines, books, manuals, etc. The picture shows only a small part of the
library.

(archives of the renowned historian no doubt). :-)

Who would that be?

I think he means you, Jim. Our Leonard seems to be bothered that you
have the information contained in those magazines. It gives you unfair
advantage over him.

??

The entire run of QST is available on CD-ROM, so the info is available to
anyone willing to spend the $$. (I spent a lot less on the paper mags, but they
take up more space and it's taken me decades to build up the collection).

I have the QSTs, the whole run of CQ, nearly the whole runs of EI and
Pop'tronics, the whole run of the now-defunct Ham Radio and most of HRH.
Add to that a ten-year run of ER, five years worth of Radio Amatoori
(Finnish), about ten years worth of RadComm, some miscellaneous issues
of ham mags from Japan, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Russia, ten or so
years of Radio, loads of old Radio and Radiocraft mags.

That's more extensive than my collection. But if you really want to see a radio
library, go to the AWA annex.

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to Leonard that my funeral pyre will
be fueled with those magazines.

Please don't! Future generations will be deprived of those magazines if you
burn them. Much of my collection was saved from destruction by hams who would
not let them go to the dump or incinerator. Same for the parts.

I know an amateur (not me) who was *given* a near-complete collection of QST by
an elderly ham who knew he would soon be SK. He had saved every issue from the
post WW1 reawakening to the prsent day. He had many duplicates, too. It took 3
trips in a Citation to move them all.

I'll lie in a rack cabinet as I'm sent
off to the amateur radio valhalla. A special A-1 Op Club honor guard
will be present. The ceremony will be performed by local members of the
Royal Order of Wouff Hong.

Sounds good to me. I want bagpipes at mine. And selected readings from the Book
of Bokonon.

73 de Jim, N2EY

"happy, happy mud"

(N2EY) wrote in message . com...
(Brian Kelly) wrote in message . com...
PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ...

switched to 10 Hz or 1 Hz. Its accuracy was dependent on how well you set
the
time base and presets. Could be used with almost any rig. Hooked it up to a
75S3

I'll bet I know where the S3 came from . . .

and got an A in the course.

Lab course at Penn?

Independent design project.

.._.


Made the circuit boards meself and all.

Lotta jollies there if yer into such things. I "burned" a number of
homebrewed circuit boards, late '60s? Something like that. Making PCBs
then was basically a drafting and photographic process which
"integrated"nicely into my darkroom "assets" so I went at it a few
times. Translate the circuit diagram in QST to a physical layout for
openers. Yeah, they can draw circuits which show conductors leaping
over other conductors without shorting them but that don't work on
single-sided boards dammit! Which all homebrewers could do then. Dunno
how you did yours but there were complete PCB "kits" available from
Kass and Radio Shack when I did mine.

They provided sheets of transfers with "donuts" for wire and component
connections and IC pinouts all of which were layed out on a
transparent film. Then ya *very carefully* connected all the dots with
thin tape to make the conductor traces. Tedious. Net result was a 1:1
photograhic negative of the circuit. From there it went into the
darkroom where the negative was positioned over a piece of sensitized
board stock and exposed, developed, neutralized and washed just like
all photos are developed even today. I did a few boards which I
sensitzed myself.

The rest was easy. Drill all the holes, trim the board to size and
stuff it with the components. Then go back and solder-patch all the
busted traces! Hee!

I guess I did ten boards all told. Three keyers, one a monster K3JH
developed which was first large-capacity memory keyer, several
stripline SWR bridges, a vacuum relay QSK TR switch, etc. I think I
showed you some of those "works of art" before I dumstered all that
old crap. I have a yen now to build a couple more widgets using
homebrewed PCBs but so far I have not been able to find the board
stock or chemicals in hobby quantities.


and you're done. Could go to 1 Hz if you were willing to have it update once
per second.

Neat! (no, I'm not willing to wait a second for the nummers to come up
. . ! )

The 74192 and other TTL family chips were hot stuff 30 years ago when
I was doing that project. You can still get pin-compatible parts
today.

I fed the aformentioned dumpster a *shoebox* full of those old 7400
series chips . . .


Wait a minnit, if there are sideband signals on the LO output the
inference seems to be that the carrier is being modulated.

That's exactly what's going on.

By something. What something?

All kinds of somethings. Here's just one:

In a PLL synthesizer, the VCO control voltage may wander a bit for a
variety of reasons. Say you have a design where a voltage swing of 5
volts causes the VCO to move 5 MHz. *Any* variation in that control
voltage, from *any* source, will cause the VCO frequency to wander a
bit. 1 millivolt variation gives a shift of 1000 Hz, 1 *microvolt* of
variation gives 1 Hz, etc. Remember that the control voltage is a DC
signal and the rest is obvious.

Not quite. I gotta chase down the links Dave supplied and keep
digging.

That's just one source of phase noise.

OK

That's why phase noise is important to hams.

Huh: I learned a bit from this post.

I hope so!

The upshot of all of it is that in real-world hamming, we often have
to deal with bands full of strong signals, yet we want to hear the
weak ones.

That leaves Sweetums and his half-vast "experience" out. Long-haul
military HF comms are channelized and if a station is weak they just
twist the Variac clockwise. 40kW with rhombics just to push RTTY from
Tokyo to the west coast . . SPARE me . . !


I've run into more than a few hams who say they "hate contests because
they make the bands so noisy". What's really going on, in at least
some cases, is that the effects of so many strong signals on the air
all at once raise the apparent noise floor of their *modern*
transceivers, in part due to phase-noisy oscillators in the
contest-haters equipment.

"If ya can't take the heat go up the band!"

One can spend two lifetimes diddling frequency synthesizers and such
but if whatever freq pops out of his gem doesn't make it to the
airwaves via an engineered radiator and it's support structure one
might as well have been a lifeguard in the Mohave desert.

And THAT'S the game!

73 de Jim, N2EY


btw - the way I'd solve the problem would be to email you for the
solution.

.. . . boink . . POINT!

It's no big deal at all. As far as the "math" goes any kid who has a
decent grip on 9th grade alegebra can hoof thru it, this is not double
integral or tensor analysis country. All one needs to pull it together
is the material physical properties and the ability to jiggle a few
simple algebraic equations which are only a half-step beyond jiggling
Ohm's Law. All of it is readily available out on the Web and it can
all be done with a pencil and a calculator.

Typical materials info source:

http://www.matweb.com/SpecificMateri...&group=General

Here's a taste of the number-crunching:

http://hsc.csu.edu.au/engineering_st...ng_stress.html

For my own part I've gotten into semi-automating the whole process in
order to design widgets like tapered aluminum yagi elememts,
fiberglass quad (squalo?) spreaders, masts and towers. I run a LISP
rountine in Autocad to come up with the cross-sectional properties
then diddle the rest in Excel or Mathcad or a slick little $50
shareware program called "DTbeam" which is a finite elememt analysis
beam analyzer. The M.E.'s version of a Java-based Smith Chart solver.
Sort of.

http://www.dtware.com/

w3rv

(Avery Fineman)(so desperate to get past spam filters that he changes screen names)wrote in message ...
In article , PAMNO
(N2EY) writes:

In an ideal superheterodyne, all the oscillators would generate pure, steady
injection signals. In reality, there is always some imperfections in those
oscillator signals. In modern frequency synthesizers, particularly PLL types,
the imperfection takes the form of noise sidebands on the oscillator signal.

Technically wrong. DDS is more susceptible to spur generation and
phase noise than Fractional-N and Fractional-N is more susceptible
to that than PLLs.

Tsk. You haven't spent much time with a spectrum analyzer...

Sure have. You can nitpick over the minor points but the main thing is
correct: Frequency synthesizers do not produce perfectly clean LO
signals, and that phase noise in the LO causes performance degradation
in HF ham gear.

Trouble is, in the amateur HF environment we often want to listen to a weak
signal surrounded by many strong ones, often only a kHz or two away. Good
crystal and mechanical filters make it possible to separate such signals *if*
they can get to the filter in decent shape.

What happens when the LO signal is phase-noisy is that a close-in-frequency
unwanted signal mixes with the LO *noise*, and produces noise in the receiver
output. With a whole bunch of strong signals, the noise can be so high that
it drowns out the wanted signal. This problem is not due to IMD, blocking or
other
various nonlinearities in the front end - it's due to phase noise alone.

Tsk. Simplistic untruth.

No, it's true. You just don't understand the point.

I should have included a clarifying phrase in the above, but I thought
the average technically knoweldgeable reader would understand the
point anyway.

The clarifying phrase is:

"Even with an ideal receiver front end"

meaning that even if IMD and IP3 aren't causing problems, phase noise
*alone* can cause the apparent noise floor to rise if there are strong
adjacent-channel signals.

Note how, in lab tests, there is sometimes the annotation "noise
limited" when certain tests are made. What do you think that term
means?


Intermodulation distortion and front end noise is enough to cause that.
As part of the IMD, the 3rd Order Intercept point values figure in.

Only if the LO is clean enough to allow it. Note how, in lab tests,
there is sometimes the annotation "noise limited" when certain tests
are made. What do you think that term means?

You can get IMD in stages beyond the mixer. To "prove" that point,
you would have to measure the IMD at various gain settings (manual
or AGC).

Of course. But even in an ideal signal path, phase-noisy LOs can
degrade performance. That's the point. Note how, in lab tests, there
is sometimes the annotation "noise limited" when certain tests are
made. What do you think that term means?

The worst part of that untrue statement is that "all those other things"
were existant before the advent of frequency control by synthesizer.
In ham radios as well as the radios in every other radio service.

Nobody denies that. However, in many sets the phase noise is the
limiting factor. Particularly in real-world situations.

1 Hz is common in modern manufactured amateur equipment. But that's not
really the issue.

Tsk. Why are Jimmie and Kellie trying to make so much of that
resolution? :-)

You brought it up ;-)

R-70 is a pretty good receiver. Almost qualifies as a boatanchor now....

Only for a small liferaft. It can be easily carried in one hand. It comes
equipped with a handle on the side, apparently for that purpose. :-)

But, you will try to use my owning an R-70 as all sorts of denigrations.

Like what?

R70s were made 1982-84 (approximately), so the design is at least 23
years old (1981). You frequenctly denigrate others as "behind the
times", yet the R70 is the newest/most modern piece of HF radio
equipment you mention owning. Just another example of "do as Len says,
not as Len does".

Kellie did...and was completely wrong...but then he only "favors" those
equipments that he's owned or has handled.

Just like you, Len ;-)

Have you ever used the receiver he mentions?

How many points did Len get with it in the last CQWW? Or even the last SS or
Field Day?

Irrelevant.

No, completely relevant. One important measure of amateur equipment
quality is how it performs in actual on-air operation.

Had I an HF-privilege ham license, I wouldn't bother with
contesting. I've said that before.

So the answer is: Zero.

There are VHF/UHF contests - including Field Day.

If I wanted sports, I would go to athletics...REAL sport.

Who decides what is "real sport"? You're not the IOC. Or TAC ;-)

[if I wanted "road races," I'd get a sports car as I used to have and
do minor gymkhanas, etc., in REAL road races]

The term "road race" is not limited to motor vehicles. It's
understandable that you don't like sports.

btw, some years back I was there, at NIST in Boulder. Saw the various
standards
and how they keep WWV synchronized. Also visited the WWV/WWVB transmitter
site. Got lots of pictures, too.

Okay, so your resume got rejected.

Nope. Didn't bring one; wasn't looking for a job.

Sorry to hear about it. Glad you
got nice pictures.

Anyone can see nice pictures at the NIST website.

Not the same as being there. It seems you enjoy only second-hand
experiences.

Still living in the past...

Tsk. You are repeating yourself...as you've done many times in the
past.

Not nearly so many times as you, Len. ;-)

Time for a radio story...

Back in high school I knew a local ham down Collingdale way who was always
working on a pet project. Same age as me, saw him in school every day. Had
all
kinds of grand ideas of how he was going to build the next generation
state-of-the-art ham rig. All solid-state, full features, all bands, all
modes,
etc.

Now this kid was no dummy and his ideas were basically very sound. But he
didn't have anywhere near the resources or practical experience to actually
finish anything. He'd draw all kinds of schematics, spin all kinds of yarns
and
sometimes even gather some parts. But build a working rig? Never happened.
Not
once. When he *did* get on the air, it was with borrowed equipment that he
conned some local ham into lending him "temporarily". Until said local ham
had
to come over and take it back. I made the mistake of loaning the kid a QST,
which I never saw again. I learned fast.

Meanwhile, those of us willing to make do with less than "SOTA" were on the
air
and having fun and QSOs while he pontificated.

That was about 35 years ago but the lesson is still valid: All this bafflegab
doesn't make one QSO.

For some reason I was reminded of him. He sounded just like Len...

Poor baby. Still with the insults sugar-coated with hypocritical
"civility?"

Are you insulted? Why?

The above story is true. The ham involved (actually an ex-ham; he no
longer shows up in the database) behaved exactly as described. He
probably went on to a career in electronics in some capacity or other.
And as I said, most of his ideas were pretty good - he just never
carried them to completion or even to partial implementation. At least
he held a ham license for a while - you haven't even done that.

You *do* sound just like him, Len. Lots of words and lots of put-downs
and lots of theory. But in terms of actual radios built on your own
time, with your own resources, from your own design....nada. Zip.
Zilch. Zero. Nothing. Not that anyone here knows about in all your
years and petabytes of posting.

I even looked through the online database of ham radio magazine
articles. You had 24 "bylines" in ham radio from 1977 to 1982 (even
though ham radio magazine was in operation a lot longer than that).
Most of them were in the 1977-79 time frame (20 bylines). Not one
"build this radio!" article - lots of commentary, some theory, lots of
basic stuff on digital logic theory.

Last mention was over 22 years ago...

You talk about "independent thought". Designing and building a ham
station with only one's available personal resources requires a lot of
independent thought - and action. It also explodes the myth of
amateurs as simple consumers of manufactured products.

Tsk. I lost interest in DXing in "radio sports" and the wallpaper
collection of QSLs after working at station ADA long ago.

To each his own. Why do you denigrate what others find as fun? What is
wrong with live and let live?

Became a professional in the radio-electronics industry, got regular
money for not only designing, but building and testing, following
through in the field, etc., etc., on many projects.

Completely different game. You sound like someone saying the Tour de
France is no big deal because you did the same route in a car in less
time. Or that a marathon is no big deal because you can do 26.22 miles
in less than half the time on a motorcycle.

Point is, for your own personal use, you just go out and buy a radio.
Yet you put down the salesfolk of 20+ years ago for not knowing some
arcane bit of info about the innards of the set.

Does it work any better because you know it has a 3 loop PLL?

Do you find that without honor?

Nope.

Without any worth?

Nope. You got paid, I presume?

Why do you?

Why do you presuppose my answer?

And why do you make fun of others' work and accomplishments, yet
expect honor for your own?

"Do as Len says, not as Len does".

The main point is simple: Hams did not need synthesizers to stay in their
bands and subbands. Nor do they need 1 Hz or even 10 Hz accuracy on HF.

In Jimmie's world, yes. :-)

Why is such accuracy needed by hams, Len?

It must be right across the border from nursieworld. :-)

Tsk. Some "runner." Takes up one phrase and runs and runs and
runs trying to prove another is unworthy in his presence. :-)

Tsk. Those runs could be cured with some kaopectate...

Well, now we know where *your* mind is at, Len...

So there's only one logical thing for me to do:

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message ...
"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , Dave Heil

writes:

Now, Leonard -40F and -40C occur at roughly the same point. Have your
ever participated in amateur radio emergency communications outdoors
when the temp was -40?

I've been outdoors working when the temperature was -30 F.


-40C and -40F are not roughly the same point, they are EXACTLY the same
point.

(Celsius * 9/5) + 32 = Fahrenheit
(-40C * 9/5) + 32 = -40F

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Unless any of you can produce licensure or credentials in meteorology
or atmospheric science, I'm going to have to consider your comments
suspect.

;^)

bb

"William" wrote in message
om...
"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message
...
"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , Dave Heil

writes:

Now, Leonard -40F and -40C occur at roughly the same point. Have
your
ever participated in amateur radio emergency communications outdoors
when the temp was -40?

I've been outdoors working when the temperature was -30 F.


-40C and -40F are not roughly the same point, they are EXACTLY the same
point.

(Celsius * 9/5) + 32 = Fahrenheit
(-40C * 9/5) + 32 = -40F

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Unless any of you can produce licensure or credentials in meteorology
or atmospheric science, I'm going to have to consider your comments
suspect.

;^)

bb

Actually that would have to be metrology (the science of measurement) since
temperature is not limited to weather.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

(N2EY) wrote in message
.com...
(Brian Kelly) wrote in message
.com...
PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message
...

switched to 10 Hz or 1 Hz. Its accuracy was dependent on how well you
set
the
time base and presets. Could be used with almost any rig. Hooked it up
to a
75S3

I'll bet I know where the S3 came from . . .

and got an A in the course.

Lab course at Penn?

Independent design project.

._.


Made the circuit boards meself and all.

Lotta jollies there if yer into such things. I "burned" a number of
homebrewed circuit boards, late '60s? Something like that. Making PCBs
then was basically a drafting and photographic process which
"integrated"nicely into my darkroom "assets" so I went at it a few
times. Translate the circuit diagram in QST to a physical layout for
openers. Yeah, they can draw circuits which show conductors leaping
over other conductors without shorting them but that don't work on
single-sided boards dammit! Which all homebrewers could do then. Dunno
how you did yours but there were complete PCB "kits" available from
Kass and Radio Shack when I did mine.

They provided sheets of transfers with "donuts" for wire and component
connections and IC pinouts all of which were layed out on a
transparent film. Then ya *very carefully* connected all the dots with
thin tape to make the conductor traces. Tedious. Net result was a 1:1
photograhic negative of the circuit. From there it went into the
darkroom where the negative was positioned over a piece of sensitized
board stock and exposed, developed, neutralized and washed just like
all photos are developed even today. I did a few boards which I
sensitzed myself.

The rest was easy. Drill all the holes, trim the board to size and
stuff it with the components. Then go back and solder-patch all the
busted traces! Hee!

I guess I did ten boards all told. Three keyers, one a monster K3JH
developed which was first large-capacity memory keyer, several
stripline SWR bridges, a vacuum relay QSK TR switch, etc. I think I
showed you some of those "works of art" before I dumstered all that
old crap. I have a yen now to build a couple more widgets using
homebrewed PCBs but so far I have not been able to find the board
stock or chemicals in hobby quantities.

Go to FAR Circuits for a huge collection of PCBs available for
all those magazine article projects. Ready-made wiring. FAR
is run by a ham.

Don't keep old "crap." Save that to toss at NCTAs in newsgroups.


The 74192 and other TTL family chips were hot stuff 30 years ago when
I was doing that project. You can still get pin-compatible parts
today.

I fed the aformentioned dumpster a *shoebox* full of those old 7400
series chips . . .

Tsk. Well, if you don't know how to use them, toss 'em.

You are PCTA extra royalty. Save the TUBES, recycle 'em into
world-beating contest-quality radios to win all those accolades!


That leaves Sweetums and his half-vast "experience" out. Long-haul
military HF comms are channelized and if a station is weak they just
twist the Variac clockwise. 40kW with rhombics just to push RTTY from
Tokyo to the west coast . . SPARE me . . !

You "know" all about military communications? Of course you do.
You were of the royalty that was never IN.

You've never worn an AN/PRC-104 HF manpack raddio, have you?
Big, powerful 20 W out on HF, operational with U.S. land forces
now. Same RF power out as the SGC 2020 being made in Belleview,
WA, by the company started by Don Stoner and Pierre Goral (both
SK, sadly, long-time hams).

The full manual for the 2020 is on the SGC website in case you
wanted to find out what is done TODAY. I could tell you were to
get the four full government manuals for the PRC-104 free but you
will only tell me "where to go." :-)

The "4 KW" and (later) "40 KW" pushing from Tokyo to San Fran or
anywhere else in ACAN was for SIDEBAND. The 12 KHz first
variety of SSB carrying four voice-bandwidth circuits. If you wanted
24/7 communications on HF back a half century ago, you needed
power and antennas. You spit on that fact, relegating such "menial"
tasks to "drudges" while you brag about "eating at the captain's
table."


It's no big deal at all. As far as the "math" goes any kid who has a
decent grip on 9th grade alegebra can hoof thru it, this is not double
integral or tensor analysis country. All one needs to pull it together
is the material physical properties and the ability to jiggle a few
simple algebraic equations which are only a half-step beyond jiggling
Ohm's Law. All of it is readily available out on the Web and it can
all be done with a pencil and a calculator.

That's why Phil Smith came up with the Smith Chart back before
WW2. :-)

Not for designing antennas...for easing the work required by
Bell Telephone on long-distance transmission lines. Work that
required slide-rules and mechanical desk calculators (sometimes)
due to pocket calculators not being invented yet. :-)


For my own part I've gotten into semi-automating the whole process in
order to design widgets like tapered aluminum yagi elememts,
fiberglass quad (squalo?) spreaders, masts and towers. I run a LISP
rountine in Autocad to come up with the cross-sectional properties
then diddle the rest in Excel or Mathcad or a slick little $50
shareware program called "DTbeam" which is a finite elememt analysis
beam analyzer. The M.E.'s version of a Java-based Smith Chart solver.
Sort of.

Tsk. You should use Roy Lewallen's EZNEC. Roy is a long-time
ham. EZNEC is advertised in QST.

USN Postgraduate School folks came up with the Numerical
Electromagnetic Code (NEC) which is all free to anyone (no
copyright). Too bad the USN types at the "captain's table"
didn't mention that to you...

In article , PAMNO
(N2EY) writes:

In article , Dave Heil
writes:

N2EY wrote:

In article ,

(Len Over 21) writes:

In article , Leo

writes:

On 29 Sep 2004 18:47:50 GMT, (Len Over 21) wrote:

In article ,

(N2EY) writes:

Tsk. You've yet to explain that "Southgate Type 7." [other than
the
unusual name] Does it appear in ham literature? In Nobel archives?

Here's a picture, and some technical details...

http://hometown.aol.com/n2ey/myhomepage/

Neat collection

Thnak you, Len!

of recycled toob equipment..

The parts are recycled but the designs are new and unique.

It seems to bother our Leonard that vacuum tubes were used.

Does it? I don't see that, Dave. He wrote that is was a "neat collection".

looks like "shacks" of
the 50s and 60s.

It seems to bother our Leonard that your equipment doesn't look like
stereo equipment.

Why should it? It's not stereo equipment. It's amateur radio equipment.

Kluge City.