Circuit measures capacitance or inductance. You don’t need a fancy LC meter to measure capacitance or inductance. This short article show you how to do it with a function generator, multimeter, frequency counter, and an oscilloscope. Hmmmmm. By the time you get that all lashed up, it might have been quicker to just buy one of these LC meters from China.

Understand Radio Architectures. This is the first in a series of excerpts from the book RF Circuit Design, 2e by Christopher Bowick. Even though this appears in an engineering trade magazine, some of this is pretty basic stuff. You even get a schematic for a crystal radio!

The post From the trade magazines: capacitors, inductors, radio architectures appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

Twitter is abuzz with news that someone is trying once again to revive Heathkit. The image above was taken right off the Heathkit home page.

Even more amusing is the online customer survery. It’s quite an extensive survey and very heavy on the amateur radio questions. GB Hoyt (KB4GVL, @kb4gvl on Twitter) has an interesting take on what it will take for them to succeed on his blog.

Take the survey and tell me what you think. Can Heathkit be resurrected?

The post Yet another Heathkit? appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

Low SWR isn’t the “be all and end all” it’s sometimes made out to be. Just because you measure a low SWR, it doesn’t mean that your antenna is radiating efficiently. Conversely, a high SWR doesn’t mean that an antenna won’t radiate. Remember that a 50-ohm dummy load has a 1:1 SWR.

Most modern rigs will reduce or cut off transmit power if the SWR the transmitter sees is higher than 2:1, so you do have to make sure that the impedance the transmitter sees at the antenna connector is close to 50 ohms. To do that, we often use an antenna tuner. An antenna tuner will make the transmitter happy, but that doesn’t mean that the transmitter’s output power is being radiated by the antenna. There are many other factors that come into play.

Take the time to read reliable material on the subject. The ARRL Guide to Antenna Tuners, by Joel Hallas, W1ZR, is a good starting place. You can also find lots of solid information in the QST archives.

73!

Dan KB6NU

THIS WEEK’S WINNER!
Every week, I select one of this list’s subscribers to get one of my e-books. This week’s winner is Jared, N7SMI.

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ke9v
Dayton in the Rearview Mirror | Smoke Curlshttp://t.co/PI25XUisGR #hamr

g6avk
This looks like an interesting and easy to use PCB package - http://t.co/xsL7rY2t7n

The post From my Twitter feed: future of SDR, Dayton review, fritzing appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

My day started very early. I always have trouble sleeping in hotels, and last night was no exception. I woke up about 2:30 am, and didn’t get back to sleep until 4 am. I got up for good at 6:30. Ugggh. At least breakfast was good. The Homewood Suites where I am staying serves a hot breakfast, including waffles, eggs, and sausages.

I got on the 7:30 bus, which, of course,didn’t leave on time, and then got stuck in rush hour traffic. It was after 8:30 by the time we arrived at Hara Arena. Then, there was some confusion with my speaker badge. I finally got that about 9:15, and that only left me with about a half hour to look around the flea market before my 10 am talk.

The talk went really well, I think. There was a good crowd, and my message was well- received. During the Q and A, one of the attendees, a teenager, gave my study guides a big plug. He said that he had used them to get his Tech and General.

The forum lasted until almost noon. Iwas pretty tired already by then,but I still tramped around the flea market and the inside of the arena. I saw some interesting things, but my heart wasn’t really into it. I didn’t buy a single thing. I did see a lot of people I know, including a couple of guys that were in a recent Tech class. That was fun.

Hopefully, I’ll get a little more sleep tonight and really attack the hamfest tomorrow.

The post A long, hot Day One at Dayton appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

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The post Amateur radio tip of the day: DXers have their own set of phonetics appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

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The post Amateur Radio Tip of the Day: Choosing your first radio appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

An alternate method is to use a wire cleaning pad like the one shown above. You stick the iron into the pad and then draw it back out. The wire scrapes the oxides and dirt from the tip as you do this. Proponents of this method claim that this method increases the life of the tip as it avoids the rapid temperature changes that using a wet sponge cause.

73!

Dan

OUR FIRST WINNER!
Larry, KB8QJE, is this week’s winner of one of my e-books. His name was randomly selected from the subscriber list.

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GOT A TIP?
Do  you have a tip that you’d like to share with other radio amateurs? E-mail it to me. If I use your tip, I’ll send you one of my books.

The post Amateur Radio Tip of the Day: Keep your soldering iron tip clean appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

Chris_Diemoz
Who’s intruding #hamradio bands (and how)? The answer is blowing in the April @IARU_R1Monitoring System newsletter!http://t.co/Afp6XUScxH

n0rc
Giving Away HackRF #sdrhttp://t.co/zxXnOyg4q2 #hamr #diy#electronics

The post From my Twitter feed: Field Day, HackRF, intruders appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.

As shown below, the 30m elements hang down below the 40m elements. If you space the elements close to one another, you may have to tweak the lengths of the elements for the best SWR. In my case, that wasn’t a problem.

If two bands is good, why not four or five? Yes, you can do that. You can add as many bands as you have space and wire for.

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Do  you have a tip that you’d like to share with other radio amateurs? E-mail it to me. If I use your tip, I’ll send you one of my books.

The post Tip of the Day: Add elements to make a single-band dipole a multi-band antenna appeared first on KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog.