Copasetic Flow

 How difficult is it to build a single tube ham transmitter? Honestly, I don't know because I haven't tried. The gang and I are out camping this week and thoroughly enjoyed listening to the latest episode of the Soldersmoke podcast as we were out exploring the area around Baker, NV. In the podcast, (episode 260), Agent Sonya  came up again. (Here's the Soldersmoke blog post for the podcast.) I have to say, I'm still a believer. Maybe it's time to put my money where my mouth is though. So, this week, the kids and I will be researching: The article in the 1936 radio handbook on page 111. Whether or not we can still get our hands on a functioning 6C6 tube and socket. Can we find a crystal that fits into a socket like the ones advertised in the back of the handbook? Can we maybe bring the plate voltage 6A6—aka a 53 tube—down to something more manageable than 450 Volts?  How does the circuit function and how does it depend on plate voltage anyway? What sort of oscilla...

 The Soldersmoke blog referenced a post about a really cool missile tracking helical antenna.  Soldersmoke reference to EI7GL's writeup of the antenna. The specificity of the plaque down to the Marker Number reminded that the gang, my partner, and I had visited the White Sands Missile Range outdoor missile museum back in 2017 . Glancing through my pictures to see if we'd taken a look at the antenna, I came across this doozy which had this plaque on display in front of it I'm just saying here: when you have to start out with the sentence, "Not a flying saucer" and then follow up later with "action was initiated to start the vehicle spinning for stability" and then offhandedly mention that the vehicle traveled at 1.2 times the speed of sound before firing an explosive charge at apogee... ahem... Not a flying saucer indeed, but you know, totally a flying saucer :) Here's the entire plaque text: " Balloon Launched Decelerator Test Vehicle Not a f...

 The Soldersmoke blog pointed out an interesting post that was a focal point of a larger book review for "Agent Sonya: The Spy Next Door". The post's author was quite convinced that the key protagonist of the nonfiction tome could not and did not construct her own QRP communication rig in the 1930s as stated by the book's author. I beleive Agent Sonya could have constructed the rig  More about the book on the publisher's site The Soldersmoke post The focal review post The 1936 Radio Handbook So, as I was saying: I, for one, believe. I'll admit up front, I didn't have time to read the entire linked post. The following assumes that the issue was Sonya being able to build a transmitter in 1939 for use from Switzerland to Moscow. The short version? It should have been the picture of simplicity.  As an aside and a bit of a bona fides, we routinely QSO from San Francisco to Texas and beyond. That's the same distance as Switzerland to Moscow. I grew up in a ...

 Remember saving software on audio tapes? No, of course I don't either. I mean really, who's that old? OK, it's me. I am.  What brings all this up? a post from soldersmoke about tapesponding . One of the many amazing things the video mentioned there reveals is that pirate radio stations used to broadcast software... You know... The kind you saved to audio tapes! Back in the '80s, I pestered my parents for an entire year for a Timex/Sinclair 1000. Of course I saved programs on audio tapes! The reference to pirate radio broadcasts of software was something I'd never thought of, and it's sheer genius in my opinion. How cool! As a kid in the early '80s, I used to tape record conversations and broadcasts using my dad's shortwave receiver, an EAC R-390 A/URR. I wish I'd held on to the tapes! The kids here who are 14, 12, and 10 are still audio tape afficianados thanks to our '95 Isuzu Trooper complete with tape deck.  Perhaps we'll have to try ...

 I heard last night that Chuck Carpenter W5USJ is a silent key. He passed on December 2nd. Chuck was a fun person and a great mentor for all things Rockmite on the groups.io Rockmite forum . His advice was instrumental in the creation of Project TouCans and he even mailed a few toroids to KO6BTY and I when we were working on removing RFI sources from the earlier wired version of the project. Reading through Chuck's site this morning, I found a reference to SWBCI . Having never heard the term before, I googled it. And found not much, mostly references to The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I tried again adding ham radio to the search and was rewarded with a link to a SolderSmoke post from March of 2010! If you look through the posts on that page you'll find things about shortwave broadcast interference, sunspots, WSPR, and safe-ish car tube based radio circuits! There's so much stuff! Bill had and continues to pull off the advice of Jeff Tripplett t...

 Bill Meara over at Soldersmoke built a cloud chamber particle detector! He has all the details on the Soldersmoke  blog , including the plans for the detector and a few videos of particle traces. Cloud Chamber de Soldersmoke Between the chamber and the book the plan came from, it all put me in mind of the time Ruidoso High School had not one, not two, but three particle accelerator science fair projects occupying the high school lab. Including a Tesla Coil version, a cyclotron, and one of these highlighted in the plan book Bill links above: From  "The Amateur Scientist" by C. L. Strong  (The cyclotron was mine.)