Ham radio in the news – October 14, 2011

October 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Here’s another edition of Ham Radio in the News:

Gloucester County 4-H club leader encourages ham radio hobby. I liked this article because it didn’t talk only about emergency communications. It quotes Corey Sickles, WA3UUV, president of the Gloucester County 4-H Amateur Radio Club, as saying, “It ties into that whole engineering, how do things work, mindset.”

Museum welcomes “spook” donation. No, this does not have anything to do with Halloween. Instead, it describes the donation to a Coventry (England) Herbert Art Gallery and Museum of a radio “used during the Second World War by one of Coventry’s “secret listeners” to help defend the country…The national treasure was used by the city’s very own secret ‘spook’ – Frederick Arthur Noakes (Arthur) – between 1940 and 1945. He was one of at least four secret listeners in Coventry who were recruited by MI5 for their ability to read Morse code under difficult conditions, use and maintain a shortwave radio and their steadfast ability to keep a secret.”

Filed Under: Emergency Communications / Public Service, Ham Radio in the News, Vintage Radio

Heathkit Nostalgia Event

September 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

On July 23rd, 1954, “Mr. Heathkit,” Howard E. Anthony was killed in a plane crash. To honor “Mr. Heathkit,” The Great Outdoor Radio Club, or GORC, is proud to sponsor the First Heathkit Nostalgia Event. This event is open to any licensed amateur radio operator. The main objective of the event is to communicate with classic Heathkit Radios. This is not a sprint nor is it a contest. This is a friendly gathering of amateur radio operators who own and operate Heathkit radios. If you don’t own a Heathkit radio, you still may join the fun!

Sponsor: The Great Outdoor Radio Club – GORC
Date: October 1st, 2011
Time: 0000 UTC – 2300 UTC
Bands: 160m, 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m, 10m, 6m
Modes: SSB, CW

A certificate will be issued to any amateur radio operator who makes contact with a minimum of ten Heathkit radio stations. A special certificate will be issued to any amateur radio operator who operates his or her Heathkit radio station outdoors and makes a minimum of ten contacts. This certificate will have a graphic your Heathkit radio model on it.

Exchange: Call, RST, Heathkit Model (or Power Level if no Heathkit radio used)

Please email all logs to: heathkitevent@wa3wsj.org

Or
Mail to:
Heathkit Nostalgia Event
775 Moonflower Ave.
Reading, PA 19606-3447

Filed Under: Special Events, Vintage Radio

Gear and Gadget Notes – 9/10/11

September 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Here are some gear and gadget notes:

  1. Ed, WA3WSJ, has opened up the Hot Water Corner, a website devoted to Heathkit HW-xxx radios.  He says, “If you have any pictures of your Heathkit HW-xxx radios, please send then to me with a story about the rig(s). I’m sure others would like to read your story.” I need to dig out my HW-101 and take some pics of it.
  2. On the AMRAD mailing list, Terry, WB4JFI recommends the SDR Cube.  He says,

    I wanted to say how impressed that I am with George Heron’s (and OH2NLT) SDR Cube kit. I have an SDR Cube Development setup sent by George, as I am considering how to interface it to the Charleston SDR & Digilent FPGA boards. I have since ordered and received a complete SDR Cube kit, less the Softrock 6.3, which I already have. I anticipate cutting some traces, and soldering additional wires directly onto the dsPIC chip for the Charleston interfacing, so I needed my own boardset.

    The kit has excellent instructions, see the sdr-cube.com website. Each board comes prepackaged with its own parts, with SMT resistors and capacitors taped to a paper sheet, and ICs in a small anti-static bag. I have put together almost two boards so far, and everything went together very nicely. Almost Heathkit quality instructions and construction techniques.

    I normally don’t like to push a vendor, but this kit is very well done.

  3. Looking for a club construction project? Consider the Sure PS-LP11111 5~16 VDC linear DC voltage power supply kit. I think this fits the bill perfectly for a club construction project. It’s inexpensive, relatively simple to build, and when it’s complete, the builder has something useful. As one of our club members pointed out, this isn’t actually a complete power supply—it’s missing a transformer and enclosure—but it costs less than $9 in quantity. Suitable wallwart transformers can be purchased for about $5 mail order, probably less if you snoop around the next hamfest.
Filed Under: Building/Homebrew, Gear/Gadgets, Kits, Vintage Radio

Operating Notes – 9/10/11

September 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Some operating notes covering the past couple of weeks:

  1. The bands have been in fine fettle most evenings lately. I’ve been getting great reports and stations have been booming in here. It’s made operating a lot of fun.
  2. Despite that, conditions on 20m seemed kind of poor today while operating down at the museum. I made a couple of contacts in the Arkansas QSO Party, then turned the beam NW and worked a station in Luxembourg that was operating some European DX contest. Luxembourg is a new country for us.
  3. I don’t know if our 40m dipole has deteriorated, or the conditions have been marginal, or if it’s the difference in antenna performance between the beam and the dipole, but operating on 40m is now just a real pain. We’re scheduled to move the dipoles on Thursday, and I’m hoping that rebuilding the dipole and moving it to the other side of the roof will help.
Filed Under: Gear/Gadgets, Operating, Vintage Radio

Two Radios for You to Build

December 5, 2010 By 1 Comment

On the AMRAD mailing list, Andre, N4ICK, posted a link to the YouTube video, “12AU7 regenerative radio on a tin bake plate” (see photo at right) It’s a very cool regenerative radio made with a single 12AU7 vacuum tube. The only problem is that there are no links to the schematic for the radio.

So, I Googled a bit, and came up with this circuit. The cool thing about this circuit is that it uses a 12V power supply, not the high voltage power supply normally required for a tube circuit.

Over the weekend, I went to a big rummage sale sponsored by the local Kiwanis club. They had quite a few aluminum baking pans there for very little money. I should have picked up a couple of them. :)

Simliar Radios
VK3YE has also posted a YouTube video of his experiments with a similar circuit. Unfortunately, he also doesn’t include a link to a schematic.

Another related YouTube video is for a one-transistor radio. This is actually a very well-done video. It shows you step-by-step how to build the radio. This is something that we may actually be able to do down at the museum with some kids.

At the very least, watching the videos is amusing. At best, maybe they’ll inspire you to do a little experimenting.

Filed Under: Building/Homebrew, Receivers, Vintage Radio Tagged With: , ,

Build a TX for the 1929 QSO Party

November 6, 2010 By 2 Comments

This from VE7SL via the qrp-l mailing list:

If any of you were thinking about putting something together for the Antique Wireless Association’s 1929-style QSO party, there is still time to throw together a little Hartley or TNT!

The 1929 QSO party runs Dec 05/06 and Dec 10/11 (2300z-2300z). This is the contest where entrants are required to use a tube and tx circuit design that was only available in 1929 or earlier (210, 245, 27….there’s a bunch of them, mostly triodes). No xtals are allowed …..self-excited oscillators only! Your transmitter doesn’t have to look pretty either! Most of the activity is on 80m (3550-3580) but there are always a handfull of brave soles venturing way up to 40m (7040-7060) as well.

There has been a significant rule change this year that allows the ’29 member stations to work non-’29ers for points (previously these QSO’s could not be scored) so even if you don’t put a transmitter together, please join in the fun and listen to the chirps and buzzes of what the bands once sounded like….and then call them!

For inspiration, I have posted a gallery of eligible transmitters. The AWA has a ‘quick-build’ plan on their website, and a page on replica vintage transmitters.

Hope to hear you in the contest.

73 / Steve

Filed Under: Contests, Vintage Radio Tagged With: ,

An Interesting Find

November 24, 2009 By 1 Comment

Recently, someone donated an entire TS-820 station to our Ham Radio at the Hands-On Museum project. The equipment included a fully decked-out TS-820, plus a lot of other stuff from that era (the late 1970s), including a Heathkit code practice oscillator, a Handbook, and other assorted books and materials.

I’d looked through this stuff before, but somehow I’d overlooked the Heathkit Amateur Radio Log. Here are a couple of scans I made:


heathkitlogp1
heathkitlogp2
heathkitlogp3

Kinda cool, isn’t it? I’d never seen one of these before.

Filed Under: Vintage Radio Tagged With:

Hams Aren’t the Only Nuts Who Restore Old Electronics

November 12, 2009 By 3 Comments


IEEE Spectrum is running a short article on a group of “vintage” engineers who are restoring a vintage IBM 1401 computer. The computer had been in storage, but there was extensive water damage, damage that took 10,000 man-hours to repair! Think about that next time you get your hands on an old Hallicrafters.

Make sure to check out the slide show at the end of the article.

Filed Under: Computers, Vintage Radio

WD8DAS Searches for Heathkit

July 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

While his family went to the beach, WD8DAS visited the sites of the old and new Heathkit plants in St. Joseph, Michigan.

Filed Under: Building/Homebrew, Vintage Radio Tagged With: ,

A Tale of Two Tubes

May 25, 2009 By 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I worked N4QR on 40m CW. I could tell by the tone of his signal that he was operating a homebrew transmitter. There wasn’t any 60 Hz on his signal, and it didn’t chirp exactly, but I could tell it wasn’t the pure tone you get out of today’s radios.

I asked him about his rig, and he told me that it was a one-tube transmitter made with a 6L6. I forgot to ask him where he got the schematic, but a quick Internet search turned up the following:

  • The May 2005 issue of the K9YA Telegraph has an article written by N4QR titled, “The Wonderful One-Tuber,” that contains the schematic for the transmitter. The K9YA folks don’t make issues of The Telegraph available on their website, but I was able to get a copy of the issue by e-mailing them.
  • A 6L6 Classic (shown below)
  • WB2MIC 6L6 Transmitter Project


This one-tube transmitter is made with a 6L6 pentode.

The 6L6 is a pentode that, according to Wikipedia, was introduced by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in July 1936. Apparently, it was used quite a bit in public address systems.

After the tube became successful, tube manufacturers introduced a number of variations, including the venerable 807. The original 6L6 was capable of delivering 19 W; the latest variation, the 6L6GC is rated for 30 W. The 6L6GC is still used in guitar amps, and is still manufactured in Russia, China, and by Groove Tubes in the U.S. They sell a number of different 6L6 variants; the cheapest is $16, the most expensive $180!!

Tube #2
One of the reasons I was interested in the 6L6 is because about a year ago I came across a schematic for a transmitter using 6A6 dual triode. I had just come into possession of a couple hundred tubes, and while I didn’t have a 6A6 (at least I haven’t found one yet), I do have a couple of 6J6 dual triodes. They’re not quite as high power as the 6A6, but I’m still thinking about building a little transmitter with one.

As you might expect, there’s a bunch of information on the Internet about this tube:

One interesting fact about the 6J6 is that IBM used it in the 604 computer. Unfortunately, they found it to be not as reliable as they wanted it to be, but at first none of the tube manufacturers were interested in making a more robust version. This led IBM to set up a tube-making laboratory where they could experiment with designs. They developed a more reliable version of the 6J6 and finally convinced RCA to manufacture the tube. According to the author of the history of the 604, part of the concern is that IBM would decide to get into the tube business.

So, the next time you hear a signal that doesn’t sound so perfect, remember that there just might be a story behind it. Ask the op about his transmitter, and listen to what he or she has to say.

Filed Under: Building/Homebrew, Vintage Radio Tagged With: ,
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