by: Brandon, the Random Man

Do You REALLY Want it All to Stop?

2013-05-17T07:00:00.000-04:00

This is a reprise of a sermon I preached in 2007, unfortunately, the world has NOT changed for the better since. If you are like me, you wonder how much longer will God tarry. Do you pray like me, that He will send His son back soon?
I hope you will consider this message when you pray.

Do You Really Want it All to Stop?

An Adventure in Missing the Point

Text: Jeremiah Chapter 12

Intro:

No news is good news, and I'll tell you why. Every time I turn on the radio or pick up the paper, something else has gone wrong in the world. Recently storms made tornadoes in Texas, six people lost their lives, many being flung far from their houses! Hurricane season is approaching and it seems like yesterday when Sandy came to the States, and caused so much trouble. Everyday it seems like someone else is dying for what amounts to no real good reason. Have you seen the Crime coming out of Chicago? Do you ever feel like the world is broken? What about the people around you? What about the government? Why is it that Lindsay Lohan can be arrested multiple times for drugs and alcohol and spend less than 2 hours in jail, but you sleep in the bushes, and it takes three months to get a court date sometimes!?! It's messed up and I'm tired of it!

The bad news is that this is nothing new. I say it's bad news because nothing has changed as far as injustice is concerned. Things were messed up when the Bible was written, and I'll just go ahead and say that things will be messed up until they are made complete in Christ's Kingdom. No matter who is the leader, you will find injustice. Jeremiah the prophet lived in the middle of one of the most wicked times in the history of the children of Israel. There was rampant idolatry, manifesting itself in wicked practices like temple prostitution by both men and women, and child sacrifice. Even the kings of Judah, the very sons of David would engage in this horrible practice. This is what Jeremiah Says:

Jeremiah 12:1-4 Righteous are you, O LORD, when I complain to you; yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? (2) You plant them, and they take root; they grow and produce fruit; you are near in their mouth and far from their heart. (3) But you, O LORD, know me; you see me, and test my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter. (4) How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the evil of those who dwell in it the beasts and the birds are swept away, because they said, "He will not see our latter end."

It is important to understand what we feel when we look around at all the suffering, and I think that this passage is one of many that shows that God doesn't expect us to keep living our lives without question why sometimes. The problem I think, and that this passage will show us is that many times when we ask for Justice, we don't really understand all that that implies, and that we often get more than we bargained for. For one thing, things here are in a state of constant flux, and everyone agrees that seemingly insignificant acts can lead to something with grave unintended consequences. I think God is doing something big, but it's something that is taking a long time in manifesting itself in the world. Things really are so screwed up God is going to have to use a do-over to make it right! As we look at this passage, I want us to see one point taking shape: Because making things right means making things over, let us brace ourselves for the change to come. To understand this, we first need to realize that things are not right, and it's not fair.

point one: The question has already been asked: how can an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God allow evil to go unpunished? Things really on the surface seem to be unfair. Jeremiah starts the passage off assuming that God is righteous, and yet he doesn't do anything about the situation. Jeremiah can see and record with his own eyes the atrocities of the people, even the leaders and priests are not innocent in the matter. First of all this isn't the first time Jeremiah has complained about evil people winning. Jeremiah 5:28 says that the wicked have grown "fat and sleek" by way of their wickedness. Read Psalms 73:1-12, or listen to this: "I have seen a wicked, ruthless man, spreading himself like a green laurel tree." That's what Psalm 37:35 says, the wicked just rest themselves, go check out Job 12:4-6, and Malachi 3:14-15. Jeremiah could say much the same thing today, just listen to these recent little news blurbs:

a. The eldest member of a young trio that beat and stoned a homeless man in March of 2007 pleaded no contest to aggravated battery.

Jeremy Woods threw a punch that sent John D’Amico tumbling into a wall March 27 in Daytona Beach. The 58-year-old homeless army veteran was then pelted with rocks and bricks by two 10-year-old boys, suffering a serious eye injury.

Woods, 17, agreed to a maximum sentence of 15 months in state prison with his plea before Circuit Judge Juliane Piggotte. He will ask for less when he's sentenced Sept. 6. The two 10-year-olds are now in juvenile detention programs. (From the 13th Juror Blog)

b. A Florida judge sentenced John Evander Couey to death for the kidnap, rape and murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.

Couey, a convicted sex offender, buried Lunsford alive in two black trash bags with her hands bound and her favorite purple stuffed dolphin tucked in her arms, Circuit Judge Richard Howard said. Lunsford's body was found in a grave in Couey's yard about three weeks after she disappeared. (From Fox News)

Jeremiah wants to see the bad guy get theirs! He screams out in prayer, aloud to God, and on paper so that we can read it today. He asks God to set them apart for the day of slaughter because even the very land the wicked inhabit cry out against them. Today, I think it would be wise for us to pray like Jeremiah prays here, to pray to God to make things better soon, because it is so hard to stand. Also, I don't think we will be ready to hear God's answer to Jeremiah until we express the disgust in our souls.

Good Lord, your righteousness is from everlasting to everlasting. You see all, and not even a simple sparrow dies on this earth without you knowing about it and allowing it. Father we ask you to no longer let the unrighteousness go unpunished. We ask you to bring judgement on those who continually do us harm. Do not delay in bringing judgement Father, our hearts are heavy, and we feel sick. In Jesus' Holy Name we Pray, Amen.

Remember we are going to learn today that making things right means making things over, so we need to brace ourselves for the change to come. When I am honest to God about how I see things, it helps me get ready for how God responds to me. God's response is shocking in this case.

point 2: If we are going to pray bold prayers, we can expect God to answer boldly. Many of you missed my sermon called "shirt, tie, and mohawk" but in it I mentioned that Jesus likes to mess with us a little bit. In that sermon we saw Jesus messing with a blind man by rubbing dirt into his eyes and telling him to go wash! He gets that trait from God. God messes with people and in this text, he messes with Jeremiah by telling him that things are only going to get worse. Listen to the next part of the passage:

Jeremiah 12:5-13 "If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? (6) For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; they are in full cry after you; do not believe them, though they speak friendly words to you." (7) "I have forsaken my house; I have abandoned my heritage; I have given the beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies. (8) My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest; she has lifted up her voice against me; therefore I hate her. (9) Is my heritage to me like a hyena's lair? Are the birds of prey against her all around? Go, assemble all the wild beasts; bring them to devour. (10) Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard; they have trampled down my portion; they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. (11) They have made it a desolation; desolate, it mourns to me. The whole land is made desolate, but no man lays it to heart. (12) Upon all the bare heights in the desert destroyers have come, for the sword of the LORD devours from one end of the land to the other; no flesh has peace. (13) They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns; they have tired themselves out but profit nothing. They shall be ashamed of their harvests because of the fierce anger of the LORD."

Remember, today's sermon title is "Do You Really Want it All to Stop?" Listen to what happens to the children of Israel because of their sin. It's horrible! Consider Jeremiah, he didn't escape the wrath, he was a part of it all, all the suffering in Jerusalem, all the famine, all the killing. He was even kidnapped and sent to Egypt with some Jewish rebels. I really wondered when I studied this book, if Jeremiah would have run away sooner if he had really known he was going to be in the middle of it. Part of being a person who calls on people to repent is being with that people when they suffer, and suffering alongside of them, so what are you going to do? The little things affect big things: Consider what happens when the gov't JUST changes the mortgage interest rates. Stocks fall, houses go cheap, people lose their jobs, everyone panics! We want God to bring Justice, but let us consider what it would take to punish all the rebellion that's been going on since man started living in rebellion. I do rest, and comfort in one thing though: God fully intends to bring judgement. Revelation six nine through eleven says:

Revelation 6:9-11 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. (10) They cried out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (11) Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

For the nation of Israel, God tells them that he plans on abandoning the temple in Jerusalem. This is significant to the people of Israel, it is, after all, what made them special. They had God with them! No longer would that be the case. God will bring about His punishment in his own time, and when he does, it is complete. I want to know why God Doesn't do it now though, I think I can find some pretty good reasons why not in the scriptures, especially in the New Testament: He wants To Bring the unrighteous to repentance:

2 Peter 3:1-10 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, (2) that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, (3) knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. (4) They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." (5) For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, (6) and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. (7) But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (8) But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (9) The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (10) But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

He also wants to keep His true people from stumbling and living in constant fear, think about Christ's parable about the wheat and the weeds:

Matthew 13:24-30 He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, (25) but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. (26) So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. (27) And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' (28) He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' (29) But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. (30) Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"

Also, I think God withholds his judgement because He wants to teach us about loving our enemies:

Matthew 5:43-48 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' (44) But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, (45) so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (46) For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? (47) And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (48) You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Sin is God's enemy. God will destroy His enemy completely. He desires us to restore ourselves with our fellow man because that's part of missing the point. Sin is what's wrong, and it is the sin that must Go! When we ask God to bring His justice fully and completely to this world, as we did earlier, we are really asking that He takes all the sin out of the world.

point three: I trust this will happen, over time, because this world is proof that God takes His time. As we continue learning that we must brace ourselves for the change to come, we need to remember that things are really screwed up, and that they are only going to get worse. This is good news, because even in the midst of all this evil, we can accept the lessons God is trying to teach us, and that God will bring us back to Him. Listen to what God says at the end of Jeremiah Chapter twelve:

Jeremiah 12:14-17 Thus says the LORD concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit: "Behold, I will pluck them up from their land, and I will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. (15) And after I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them, and I will bring them again each to his heritage and each to his land. (16) And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, 'As the LORD lives,' even as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of my people. (17) But if any nation will not listen, then I will utterly pluck it up and destroy it, declares the LORD."

God's punishment in this life is meant for one reason only I think, I think it's to bring purity. God tells the lukewarm Church of the Laodiceans in Revelation the third chapter: "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent." We would do well to heed that advice. If we do so, God will bring us to our heritage. God's children have a heritage and God will welcome us in it. God even tells the Israelites about us all. Listen again: "and it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, 'as the LORD lives,' even as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be bult up in the midst of my people." God has a two fold invitation: that was His invitation to follow God and live. God also has an invitation to destruction: "But if any nation will not listen, then I wil utterly pluck it up and destroy it, declares the LORD."

Conclusion: Either way, brace yourself for the change to come. Expect judgement, if you will continue to live in disobedience. God will find you. You cannot hide. God did not spare the Israelites, not even one escaped judgement. You won't either. God will burn the sin out of you when the time is right. I want to live. I want you to live too! I would rather have my sins washed away than burned away. God may promise the judgement for the future, but He promises salvation today for all who will seek Him. We all know that the world is messed up. We know that things are going to get worse. We also know that God will take us back inspite of all we have done to offend Him. Don't miss the point: Because making things right means making things over, let us brace ourselves for the change to come. Seek God out with me today, and do not allow yourself to be caught unprepared for the holiness of God to overtake you.

OMG! OPEN SOURCE HAM RADIO!

2013-05-16T23:14:00.000-04:00

Dual bands for $199 on an Arduino based platform?
Yes please!
http://qrper.com/2013/05/ten-tec-introduces-the-model-506-rebel-an-open-source-qrp-transceiver/

Today, at the QRP ARCI convention–Four Days In May–TEN-TEC will announce a new QRP transceiver based upon a completely different platform than any others rigs they have in production: a QRP radio, buit on the chipKIT™ Uno32™ (Arduino-based software) to be known as the Model 506 Rebel.

And, folks, I’ve been lucky enough to get my mitts on a prototype…!

Read the rest, it's awesome! 20 or 40 based on internal jumpers, Already got some groups running to help develop firmware for the radio. Everything about this is ready to win. Now to raise the scratch....

Enough Time to Plan

2013-04-30T23:14:00.000-04:00

W2LJ has announced that the NJQRP Club will sponsor the 2nd Annual Skeeter Hunt in August.

Could be a good chance to test some portable setup stuff I've been wanting to test out...
to be continued...

The Killer Watt Radio

2013-04-30T08:28:00.000-04:00

Dave Benson is awesome.
Dave runs Small Wonder Labs, and creates some of the best kits. They just work, and they tend to just work right the first time. I've owned several over the years. My first HF CW QSO was on a borrowed SW-40. I had to modify it to work in the "Novice" part of the band because I was only a Tech plus at the time. Shortly after getting my general I purchased a built SW-30 off of QRP-L. I had that radio a while, didn't sell it until after we moved to the current QTH, and I had an SW-40+ to build.

In 2006 I got an SW-40+ for my birthday. I built that radio, and started thinking of all the ways you can make this already awesome radio cooler. First, I decided to limit my output to one watt under battery power. I did this because I wanted to qualify for certain point multipliers in QRP contests, but my schedule at work has kept me from being as contest active as I would like. I also did it because I wanted to be able to tell people my output was "One Killer Watt". At bench supply, the output is a higher, a watt with a lil lagniappe. After I built this radio, I put it in the genuine SW+ enclosure I had received with the SW-30, and have enjoyed it immensely!

One day, looking at the radio, I decided to ask myself what I could do to make this radio better for my situation. First thing was that the packaging had to be redesigned. I like to operate from a pelican case, I got it from a package deal when I bought "The Mighty FT-817" back in 2001. When I sold the radio, the case stayed with me, and I use it when I work from the field. I wanted to be able to use whatever is in the case without having to reach around the radio for wires, etc. In short, I wanted all controls and connections on the front. I have this vision in my head of one day having the radio in a pocket or something, using it in the field to sling dits and scatter dahs all over the globe, with my "One Killer Watt" of raw, unadulterated Morse code power.

The board for the radio is slightly bigger than would comfortably fit in a standard pocket, but I gladly wear cargo pants, and have at various times, large enough pockets for a small radio like the SW+ series. The board will very narrowly fit in a Radio Shack Aluminium box, model 270-238. It takes a little effort to get it to fit, but fit it will!

Ready for Action!

The pic has the SW-40 in the front, I have speakers, key, and antenna hooked to it. This was right before I used it to QSO with KO1U. The big knob controls tuning, and the little knob controls RF gain. All the way up, and the little speakers pop when the QRN is high.

In the future I plan on seeing how far out I can spread the bandwidth without loosing too much linearity. I replaced the standard tuning pot with a 10 turn job I had left over from a failed project and you definitely notice a less linear tuning rate at the top of the tuning range. Linearity is lost because the radio uses varactor tuning. A varactor is a special diode used to take advantage of a characteristic all diodes exhibit, when reversed biased, the two halves of the diode act as a capacitor. This capacitance is predictable for a given voltage, and a varactor diode is made so that as the reverse bias voltage changes, the capacitance changes in a predictable manner. I also notice that tuning a signal is a lot easier. Right now, I have about a 30KHz tuning range. It tunes from just below 7030 to just below 7060. I would like to make it so that it tunes from the low sevens to over 7040.

Unfortunately Dave has decided to mostly give up the kitting business. You can still buy new rockmite kits, and I'm due to build another coupla those. You can also get the freqmite kit and install it too.
Possible future articles that will cover other mods I make to this radio:
1. The Killer Watt deconstructed: modularizing the board to further compact size.
2. Modding the VFO for greater tuning flexibility, adding a cap and a switch to go from lower part of band (where the DX is) to the upper part of the band (where the SKCC guys hang out for rag chewing.)
3. Adding an onboard audio amp and internal speaker.
4. making digi-friendly.
5. Taking suggestions.

World's Ugliest Dummy Load Part 2 (Caution Pic Heavy)

2013-02-11T21:29:00.001-05:00


Only one of these is a Dummy Load

This is Part 2, Part 1 is HERE.
So I completed my Dummy load late Saturday Nite, early Sunday Morning. Here's how it went down.

All the parts.

I started with the dummy load, and added two wires to it. I decided to keep traditional colors to indicate which side goes where, think red positive, black negative, red goes to the center pin of the UHF connector, black to the ground side. In the picture on the left, the parts are (left to right) dummy load, UHF connector on jar lid, and Jar. Some folks put theirs in a paint can, but I put mine in a glass jar so as to see my handiwork. The jar is "recycled" (repurposed?) from our pantry. Coconut oil came in it originally.

Here are some closeups of the dummy load itself. They are as good as my phone camera could take :D

Purdy ain't she?

The underbelly is equally attractive. You can't really tell, but the pads are jumpered together using the resistor leads. I would pull the lead through one side and thread it through a hole two pads down to give the resistors up top space.

I attached the UHF connector to the top of the lid by drilling a hole in it, and rolling a lip onto the edge. It felt pretty snug once I got the connector fully seated on top. It was easy to hold the connector in place and use a 1/8 inch drill bit to drill out two of the holes for mounting screws. I searched in my junque drawer for the hardware, and settled for some bugle headed machine screws that fit down in the screwhole for the connecter. I also drilled out a hole for the ground wire to come up through. I wanted to be able to solder the wire to the top of the connector. Here's how it looked:

Ready for connection!

In the jar, but Dry.

After threading the ground wire through the hole to the top of the connector, and soldering it down, I soldered the red wire to the center pin of the connector on the underside. Before I put mineral oil in it, I wanted to make sure it was a 50 ohm resistive load. So I grabbed my trust $4 Volt Ohm Meter and started poking it.

It Works!

Yep, it works! I put mineral oil in the jar and sealed as tight as I could. Rechecked resistance, and it works!

Of course the real proof was in the measurement of forward and reflected power. The only accurate and calibrated meter I currently have is my trusty NoGAwatt QRP SWR/Reflectometer. I grabbed it, and powered up the SW-20 and the Killer Watt Radio. At 20m, there is no reflected power, neither does it reflect power at 40m. When I hooked it up to the 2m radio, though, there was beaucoup reflected power, my lil' Diawa crossed needle setup on that band indicated an SWR of 5:1. I wonder how much of that is due to poor construction technique.

This is 1.25 watts at 14.06ish MHz

Behold the Final Product in all Her fullsized glory!

Beautiful!

All that's missiing now is a label that says "World's Ugliest Dummyload" or something.

73,

Twin Tube Operational Update

2013-02-08T08:46:00.001-05:00

Been a while since I posted on the NoGA Twin Tube 80 (link opens the first article in the series, see Ham Radio Masterlinks for a list of all the articles), figured I'd post an update, and talk about some project ideas I have for this set up.
Not long after successfully using the transmitter, I ran into a difficulty. The next time I tried to use it, I powered the radio up, I got sparks when I keyed down! Hmmm, that's not right! I also was getting no power out.
I decided to give the rig a break for a lil' while, and focused my efforts elsewhere. Since I was going to be up, I took the transmitter back out, and began poking about.
2 months hadn't improved the situation, it still didn't work.
Power supply was good,
I suspected the transmitter had shorted something out when I tried to go poking about the last time I successfully used it, I wiggled wires, and mushed down parts. Still no dice.
I replaced the three 33pf capacitors and checked the 100microhenry inductor for continuity.
I then inspected the pins on the tube sockets, and sighed when I saw that pin 6 had a loose hookup wire.
hmmm, soldered that puppy down, made sure everything is bent to not short out, and closed the case back up. I think that the use of an Altoids tin in this situation is a mild gamble. It works decent enough, but there have been several times when I've come dangerously close to knocking something seriously out because the tin is somewhat flimsy when you begin poking holes in it.
I plugged the transmitter in, and things began to glow.
no Smoke, and no fires. That's a good sign.
Glow in the tube, antenna is a dummy load, DVM on, and keydown.
20V on the meter!
that's 1 watt folks.
we back in business!

The Thermionic Energy is Astounding!

These two glowing eyes
Voltage amplification
This is hollow state.

Of course, now I need to find someone to QSO with late at night on about 3582 KHz. The crystal is 3579.4 KHz, nominally, but it pulls a little higher in this circuit, I'm guessing that I need to add some capacitance somewhere to pull it back down. That gets me to my next point.
Back when I was building this thing, several suggestions for experiments were made to me, but it's not easy to swap parts out of this altoids tin. I've got a couple extra tubes that will work in this getup, and I'm thinking of building a breadboard that I can plug parts in and out of. I need some more tube bases first though.
The schematic is availble for view HERE. KL7H has done a great job of documenting this and Mike's 12 v regen project.
Any suggestions for substitutions?
Should I attempt to wire one tube as an oscillator and the other as an amplifier? (MOPA esque?)
Suggestions for boosting power?
73!

World's Ugliest Dummy Load Pt 1

2013-02-07T09:30:00.001-05:00

In the last post I mentioned making a dummy load, and things not going quite as expected.
Things are turning out down right UGLY! LOL!

Pretty Is as Pretty Does

So far, it's going well, but when I got the leads prepped for adding a UHF connector, I found the Junque box fresh out! hmmm, I have plenty of BNC's but no UHF. Time for a trip to RadioSnack I guess.
I figured out what I'm doing wrong with this, and the solution. I tried adapting K4EAA's methodology, he uses a drilled brass plate to hold things together, I thought I was being slick using circuit boards. My problem came when I tried to line up the resistors to insert into the second board. Dadgum thing refused to go together!

I forgot this part in K4EAA's article:

Note on easy assembly - Solder all 20 resistors to one plate, and then, starting at one corner, and working toward the opposite corner, cut the lead lengths starting from your minimum length, to progressively longer as you work towards the opposite corner. This will allow you to insert a few leads at a time as you combine the two plates. If they are all the same length, it will be very hard indeed to thread the 20 resistor leads into the bottom plate!

My Daddy told me once that "Common sense isn't", and boy I relearn that lesson about every week, hi hi! In reality, I should have been listening to my inner voice that said "4 resistors on strips, like they come in bulk". I dismissed it as a dream, I don't have Dremel (generic or for real) so making strips out of PCB is tough. I tried cutting a double side PCB to make some paddles out of it, and it takes a LONG TIME with a hacksaw. I need to get a Dremel to finish that project. This morning I had my epiphany though. Being a QRP operator, I have an Altoids addiction. I claim I use them for the tins, but in reality, I just like munching the things down. As a result, I have a container that has nothing but Altoids tins in it.

Don't Judge, chances are you have one too.

:)
So at some point in time in the nearer than the further future, I will be modifying this project.

1. I want to remake the dummy load with 3 watt resistors instead of 2 watts. That way I will have have a 100+ watt DRY Dummy load. The nominal rating of this one is 88 watts (44 2 watt, 2.2KOhm resistors) I will probably order the resistors the same time I order some MV21's and binding posts to capture the Peak voltage of the circuit. If I decide that the cost is too high, I may just reclaim the resistors off of this board. I don't think it will be too hard to get them all apart (famous last words, hi hi)

2. I will make it using strips of 4 resistors each (11 strips total). Airflow will be better, and appearance will be better. Fun to be had by all.

OTHER NEWS:
N8VCL has become a Kitbuilder!
See his excellent adventures assembling a NS-40. Note the lack of any iron donut winding. That's kitbuilding HERESY! :) Check out the video of his kit in action. I hope he QRVs and QSOs with it soon.
Looks to be a neat kit, and N8VCL (Scott) certainly did a better job than I did the first time I tried to assemble anything. He's been added to to the ham radio bloglist on the right panel.

73!

Cliches and Operating

2013-02-06T09:18:00.002-05:00

You that old saw, "It's not a failure if you Learn something"?
I've always hated that statement. I try to learn from my failures, but failure is failure, and for something to fail means that I wasted time doing something, and time is really my most precious commodity.
So here's what has failed, and here's what I've learned.
1. I wanted to build an antenna that would cover 10m, 20m, and 40m. I failed because I didn't understand the nature of what I was building. Instead of making it small wavelength to big wavelength, I needed to make the calculations for the whole antenna first, and build the whole thing, then tune from the smallest wavelength to the biggest wavelength.
2. I attempted to operate from the field (work parking lot) twice this last week, both times was a bust. My semi-success with the 4SQRP outing in October. I had to learn lessons there too, like, easy setup is more important than antenna efficiency in times of expediency. I think something like the St Louis vertical, or the St Louis Loop is a better choice for time sensitive ops, where the W3EDP is a better choice for times when you have time to set up. As an operational note, W1AW was 599 to my QTH on 40m Monday night.
3. Right now, I'm building a dummy load out of 2 watt resistors. 44 of them in parallel to be exact. Even that has had "Learning opportunities", namely when it comes to lining holes up. That has changed from being something pretty and elegant to downright ugly. I just want it to work.

Tonight, I think I might just go to bed, leave the soldering iron cold...
sigh.
or maybe I won't...
stay tuned!
73

Operating is the Trick

2013-02-02T13:57:00.000-05:00

So my antenna woes continue at the home QTH. I've decided that the 10/20/40m dipole I'd been planning was a boondoggle, at least in the manner in which I had planned it out. I might be able to make something out of it but not before I get some more ladderline. I'm not cuttin' up what I have now because I can use it to depoly an all band no fuss "Double extended Zepp" type antler for 80m. I'll just run 450 ohm feedline for that sucker, and call it a day!
To get myself out of the ham radio doldrums, I decided to play radio from the field, well, kinda from the field at least, so it's time to operate KG4GVL from the work parking lot in the FYBO contest.

Ready to Deploy!

The antenna I decided to use is the W3EDP. I've featured it several times on this blog, and it is my favorite antenna. I use a sister antenna to this one at home for my primary antenna right now. They are generally stealthy, simple to deploy, and tune well on all the bands, except 10 and 30. I've gotten them to tune there, but not without struggle. Getting it to deploy was a mild challenge, I arrived at work 15 minutes before I had to clock in just so that I could deploy the thing, and maybe even strike up a QSO or 2 before clocking in. Murphy struck a couple or three times, and I barely got the antenna up before clockin time.

Ready to Operate!

Notice the picture on the right? I'm using "The Killer Watt Radio", my trusty ZM-2 antenna tuner, battery power, and a straight key. I have the world's worst callsign for contests, but hey, I like it just fine for most of the hamming I do. In the middle of the lid is my "Highly Calibrated Whistle Thermometer." It will provide real time temperature readings, and serve as a handly emergency signalling device should the need arise.
Because I'm using "The Killer Watt Radio", I am stuck to 40m only. That's ok, but it's times like this I do miss having an FT-817.

Check out www.qrpspots.com for KG4GVL when I get QRV!
Follow up Post to come later.
73!

Ham Life: The Struggle

2013-01-31T22:21:00.002-05:00

Well now, seems like we had ourselves a little storm or something last night.
I knew this had happened:

Fallen is the Dipole!

Fallen is the W3EDP!

because I'd seen it on the ground the day before. There was a mighty wind a'blowin'. What I didn't know was that the W3EDP had lost a support too.

Woe is me! I got to thinking about the situation. My reason for going ahead with the stubbed antenna project was because the dipole had fallen. No better time than the present to go ahead and make something better. First things first though, I needed to secure the W3EDP in a position where if it's going to be up at all, I want it to be usable.

I broke some rules about how you are supposed to orient ladder line:

Yep, it's Bent!

It's all good though, pragmatism trumps theory all the time.
Right now the W3EDP is deployed to a single support. It does not touch the tree the support wire drapes across, and is in free space as an inverted-vee. I checked it to see if it got noise, and sure enough, it's noise on 40m, and tunes up nicely. Tonight I may try to get "The Killer Watt Radio" on the air, and see if it can't snag me some tasty DX.

After doing my "radio check" I decided to roll up the 40m dipole. I need to work on it some, the whole thing is over ten years old, and it's beginning to look a little worn. I plan on using the spot it was in to deploy the new antenna I introduced yesterday. Don't tell anybody, but I'm also thinking about putting up a dipole for 80m, and fed with ladder line. The W3EDP will tune 80, but I have a plan for getting another antenna up high, like about 50' high.

What does ten years do to an antenna?

A bit Crufty She Is

Makes the outside go from copper red to dirt brown/black.
Funny thing is that when this antler was in the church attic, it didn't get too bad over the couple of years it was there. It spent a lot of time in storage, and was sitll a lil shiny when I deployed it in the yard the first time. Now it has almost a film on it. Strange. I'm thinking I should replace the wire at a minimum. The wire is about coming out of the ears where it attaches to the balun too. Not too bad I don't think. The UHF Connector still shines good. Must be something to using Coax seal and electrical tape over the connection...

Now tonight, if I'm still awake when I get home, I'll get the Decoupling Stub Antenna on the workbench!
If you have a copy of "More Wire Antenna Classics Vol2" by the ARRL, it's Chapter 3, page 17 should you want to follow along.
73!

******UPDATE******
Ok, Last nite I got the first phase of the antenna built. I attached a center insulator to two 8 foot pieces of ladderline. Then I realized I was doing it wrong! LOL!
Pics during testing phase to follow...

Antenna Modeling and Making

2013-01-30T21:27:00.001-05:00

I've literally been working on this post for a while, just haven't had the time research what needed to be researched. Still not done researching either ;-) This is what I would call a first effort.
After reading the latest antenna-centric issue of QST(way back in March 2012), I was a little disappointed. I knew I would be when I saw the front page and read "Special Ad Section Inside!"
hmmm,
I was hoping to read more about actual antennas. That is not to say that what articles there are not excellent, they are well worth reading. I guess I just can't get enough reading in on antennas. I'm always looking for a good idea or three. After looking through the magazine, I decided to work on modelling a multiband antenna project from the book I received when I rejoined the ARRL.
The idea is simple, you use shorted quarter wave stubs off the end of the antenna to isolate resonant sections. That's easy enough to understand, right? Ok, so I needed to see this antenna, and think about it for a second, and then I got it.
PROS:
Multibands without tuners!
   This is a big win for me, anytime I get to avoid a tuner is a good time.
Relatively simple to build!
    450 ohm Feedline, antenna wire, solder, insulators, and measuring tape. No traps to wind, no coils to dip, no ultragreezy uber kul big dollar capacitors either. Just wire, lead, tin, plastic.
CONS:
Mostly full size on lowest operating band.
    OK by me, I've got room for a 40m Dipole in the back yard.
Needs three supports.
   Could be a big deal to get all straightened out.

The model:
https://gist.github.com/1935227
Click on the link, and copy and paste the NEC file into a text file, save the text file as a .nec.
I'm pretty sure I'm doing it the wrong way :)
The internets so far have been no help, they simply don't know how to model this.
The build:
I will build this antenna in stages, testing each stage as I complete it, the object being a permantly install, no tuner triband antenna on 10, 20, and 40m.

Tonight begins the build. First Up, 10m Section.

Short Note on RF Absorption and Coil Forms

2013-01-29T20:46:00.001-05:00

Recently, on the "Glowbugs" google group, there was a discussion about whether a pill or vitamin bottle was suitable for use as a coil form for a tank curcuit, or other more general RF use (loading coil form, etc).
According to that fine bunch of OMs and YLs, the test is temperature after being microwaved for a bit. Here's how the test works:
1. Take a microwave safe dish, and put a cup of water in it. Make sure dish is shaped so that both dish and test bottle can fit in the microwave oven without one being on top of the other.
2. Clean and dry the container you want to test. I tested a bottle that held fiber, that's what's in the picture. Trickiest thing about the prep work on this baby is that you want to make sure all the metal from the freshness seal is removed from the rim.
3. Place both the test bottle and the cup of water in the microwave. Take note of the temperature of each, "room temperature" is as precise as this measurement needs to be.
4. Nuke it for a minute. (see below for further advice)
5. Compare temperatures: the test bottle should still be at room temperature, and the water should be noticably hotter (scalding hot on some microwaves, so be aware!)

Them what was tested.

Above is my test bottle, a repurposed fiber containment vessel. Errr, it's not mine man... I'm to young to take a fiber supplement! (maybe...)

K5KVH had mentioned the RF microwave test, and this is what hed had to say way back in 2011 on the Glowbugs list:

PVC is easy to verify if it has additives to increase loss. You can

check your PVC easily with the microwave test. Put a sample of the pvc
on a paper towel in the microwave oven. Put a cup of water in there
next to it. (no metal trim on cup, plain china).

Set the microwave to 3 or 4 minutes. When you see the water is boiling,
stop the oven. Carefully test the pvc with a wet finger tip, to see if
it got warm, ie warmer than the hot air around the cup.

If not, it is good for HF for sure. This is based on a formula for
dielectric loss that shows such loss is directly proportional to
frequency, the higher the test frequency, the higher the loss would be
for a given material. Thus, no heating at microwaves means it is
a good insulator at HF.

Ok, I will buy that.

My test results indicate that this material is good for winding tank circuits, or whatever, at HF frequencies.

It is made of "Recycle Material Number 2", ie High Density Polyethylene (HDPE).

I recently acquired some more tubes, so I'm probably going to be using this soon.

I also have pillbottles.

73!

The First Annual 4SQRP 4X4 QRP Sprint

2012-10-09T09:41:00.003-04:00

So,
I sprinted out my cube, into the parking lot, and partook in the 4SQRP club 4X4 Sprint.
:)
Here's what that means:


20m Vertical

My job is to monitor jobs using something called CA-7. (as a comedic aside, when people ask me what I do, I tell them "I push the L button... a lot", I know, it's not funny, but this is humor in my head) Each day, the jobs start at 6pm. On Saturdays I work a 12 hour shift. When I get in, yesterday's jobs are still running. I take a half hour break sometime after they finish, and before the next set of jobs begins at 6pm. I also take a couple of 15 minute on the clock breaks. I decided that I needed to use my 2 fifteen minute breaks for set up and take down, so that's what I did. I've tried operating from the work parking lot before. Haven't exactly been successful either. Mostly there's a time problem. Half an hour isn't a lot of time to set up, operate, and tear down. I've had to adjust my scheduling so that I get outside during a break, set up the antenna, and then come outside. Fifteen minutes isn't a long time to set up. I decided that since I was without multiband blackbox radio, or multiband kit radio, I would go monoband radio, monoband antenna. The only setup I for that right now is 20m.

I get QRV^ on twenty because some time ago, I acquired an SW-20+ from AL7FS. He had an unbuilt kit, and was offering it at a fair price on QRP-L. I decided to buy it. I swapped the Killer Watt Radio* out for this, and have been using it for a while now. Turns out, I'd been a real QRP operator with that radio, because I thought I was putting out a buck and a quarter (1.25 watts) with it, but in reality, I was putting out 250 milliwatts! I had about 5 QSOs in the log with it before the 4x4 contest. After retweaking it to put out 1 watt with 8AA batteries for a power supply, I hit the field, hoping for a QSO. When I use the bench power supply, it's about 1.8 watts. The SW+ line is most efficient at 1.25, but can usually be tweaked out to about 2.2 watts without stability issues, if you heat sink the final transistor. I may decide at some point in time to put a diode in line with the bench PS, just for the drop in supply voltage, but not just yet. The Killer Watt Radio is in the wings though, it abides, waiting for the day I aquire Molex KK crimp terminals, but when they get here, and they are installed on the ends of my connectors... it will be awesome.

I needed an antenna that required minimal fuss to get put up. I tried the St Louis Vertical before, and while it's a great antenna for field ops, it requires some fussing with to get up up correctly. I've got some ideas for fixing it up right, but it's going to be a while before I get ready to work those issues out. When I get the Killer Watt Radio back in action, I'll go back to the SLV, until then, I use a 20m vertical. I choose to use the vertical design because they 'radiate equally poorly in all directions' or something like that :) I took a collapsible fishing pole I'd been using as a field antenna for 6m when I had an FT-817, and adapted it for 20 after building the radio months ago. I quickly discovered that I had been using poor math when planning the antenna. I knew I would be using just over 16.5 feet of speaker wire when setting the antenna up. I also knew that my fishing pole was 16 foot long, and that was close enough for me. Yippee, no worries! right? Wrong! When I initially created this antenna, I created it with with an elevated feedpoint. I did this on purpose. Why, I don't remember, but I know I had a reason! That shortened the usable amount of antenna length by about two and a half feet. I decided to ditch the top part of the antenna. It's Florida, and if I'm not at the beach, chances are, there's a tree near by, so I just stretch the radiator part up, and use the tree to keep it high. At home, I was able to get the SWR down to near perfect. In the field, I find that getting the radials deployed right is a little tougher, so I use an Emtech ZM-2 antenna tuner.


Battle Station!

I tuned up my antenna on break, and went back inside to wait for my jobs to finish running. After it finished, and after I'd done some database wranglin' in preparation for the next run of jobs, it was time to QRV. This is where I literally sprinted to the sprint. Radio operators occasionally enjoy operating in radio contests. That's when they pit their skill against radio wave propagation and try to make as many radio contacts (QSOs) as possible while following a certain set of rules. One of those rules is usually some sort of time limit. A sprint is usually 4 or fewer hours. I've even heard of a "Russian Sprint" where you Work a station, then that station takes over the frequency and you QSY, thus keeping the frequency active with new callsign. I've tried contests before from the parking lot. Mainly, they turned into learning how not to quickly deploy an antenna in the parking lot lessons. I think I'm going to try to make it a regular habit to QRV during the Spartan Sprint (SP). Back in the day, when I had the Might FT-817, I would often get QRV during 'SP', using the full QRP gallon of 5 watts. I had a lot of fun. Now that I know what I'm doing at my job, and I know that I should be able to have some time to take a lunch break in the middle of the contest, I might try to get PLP (Parking Lot Portable) some more during the SP. I tried in October, but there was no signals audible on 20m. I did call CQ though, and I did get picked up on the Reverse Beacon Net (RBN), so it was good to halfway confirm that my signal was radiating. Last week, I heard about the 4SQRP Club 4x4 Sprint, and decided I was going to give it my best effort.

20m is a Daytime band, it needs some sunshine to really be effective, and I got outside at 19:30 UTC, 3:30 pm local. Tuning around I could hear several stations calling CQ 4S, and threw my call out there to answer them. Three of them actually heard me well enough to call me back!
I worked KB4QQJ who was the loudest signal I heard, a genuine S-9 Plus, and there must have been a pipeline to his QTH in North Carolina because he gave me a 599 too. I tried really hard for about 15 minutes to work WA5BDU but just couldn't do it. He was loud, about 579, but there was QSB, and I think that's what got him down. I did work WA0ITP. WA0ITP was the weakest station I could copy. He was usually about 229, occasionally he was 559. I gave him a 229, and he gave me a 559. Unfortunately, that was it for my operating time, so QRT for me, and I clocked back in. I went back out after checking to make sure nothing had exploded, and managed to work KG3W who was 559 to me during my second 15 minute break. I tore the antenna down, and was content with my three QSOs. After the sprint, my membership in the 4SQRP club was approved, so next year I will be worth more points!
:)

When I got back inside, this dude was sitting by the badge access reader:


You Can't See Me!

Purdy neet huh?
73

^ I make extensive use of Q-codes. Q-codes are a kind of short hand when using Morse code. A list of common Q codes is here.

* The Killer Watt Radio is an SW+ on 40m, originally given to me as a gift for my birthday the year we moved to the current QTH. It may only radiate 1 watt of RF, but that 1 watt is 1 killer watt! Once again, this is humor. Laughter is appropriate.

Tradition, A Meal and Doing New Things

2012-10-07T09:33:00.000-04:00

This is the communion meditation for Highlands Church of Christ, as given 10/7/2012:

Tradition plays an important role in how my family does things. I got to thinking about that when I was making hotcakes for everybody. My wife reminded me of how my life has been shaped by tradition later that evening. My first name is a traditional first name for my family. Hotcakes are a traditional breakfast. I grew up going to weekly fish fry suppers at Possum Hollow, and Sunday Dinners at Grandma, and Grandpa's house. When it is the fourth of July, it is time for a family reunion, and I look forward to my 80th birthday party, that's the big party in my family. Tradition is important, it keeps the family together, and tells the stories of where we have been.

Some people are against tradition, I don't understand why, but they feel like change is coming, and that change is good. I like change every now and again my own self. Sometimes change is needed and necessary. Something may be broke, and not fixable. Something could be worn out, or inadequate for the job you are trying to do. There is a danger here though, because change for the sake of change is a dangerous thing. From what I've seen in this world, things that change too quickly do not do well. Perhaps you've heard that bit of wisdom "It's not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop at the end." I also know that a pond that is stagnant and unchanging will die, suffocated. Somewhere between rigid unchanging repetitive motion, and constant change is life. I think tradition helps us find that. The relationship we have with God is built in tradition. When used appropriately tradition calls to mind the past good that God has done for us, and calls us to do right. When done wrong, tradition condemns us, and enslaves us. I think it helps when we establish the right tradition. The right tradition begins in Scripture, with The Good News, the Gospel. The Gospel has been present since the fall of man, and is present with us until the day of the coming of the Lord. The message hasn't changed, listen to it:

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (ESV)

1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

You see, this is our tradition! The tradition was initialized in the Garden of Eden when God promised the Crusher is coming. It was there when Jacob blessed his Children, and promised that the scepter would not depart from Judah. The Tradition was confirmed when Moses told the Hebrews to slay a lamb, and spread its blood on the lintel and doorposts. The tradition flickered, but was passed down through Isaiah during dark times, when he promised that the stump of Jesse would produce a branch that would bear fruit. The tradition came to Mary, and she was with a child even though she had no husband. The tradition lived in her son, who is the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, the Crusher, the Ruler, the Stump of Jesse, the Lamb of God. He made the tradition real and tangible on the night he was betrayed, taking bread, and calling it his body. He took a cup, and called what was in it his blood, the seal of the new covenant. Then he made that tradition the Final Tradition, offering himself on the cross for our sins. That's the key to what we proclaim when we take the bread and cup during this time. Christ has made us a promise. His body and blood for our sins, and we share in that tradition every week.

Tradition and Innovation

2012-10-07T08:00:00.000-04:00


Sliced Apples, Ready for Innovation

Hotcakes are a big deal in my family. One of the first things I remember cooking is hotcakes with my Grandpa. Visiting my Grandparents usually meant stuffing yourself silly with 4 inch hotcakes, buttered and soaked in cane syrup that comes in what looks like a paint can. He was smart, Grandpa, he'd keep some cane syrup blended with some Aunt Jemima put a lil dollup on top, and a couple of days later you were reaching for the full strength stuff your own self.
I try to make hotcakes once a week at least myself, usually on Saturdays when I don't have to be anywhere until noon, if not then, Sunday is the day. Sometimes it doesn't work out, and I miss a week, but I try.
I made some regular hotcakes this Saturday, then got to looking at who was left to feed, and what I had to work with. I decided that since it was just my wife and I left to feed, I would try something innovative. I had some apples, and wondered if I could make something special. I sliced them thin, and covered them in cinnamon and sugar, we keep some mixed up and handy for a quick 'cinnamon toast' snack. Then I decided to fry the apples in butter in the official hotcake pan of the Hoyt House:

Fry!

I use a black iron flat pan, made in America, and in my possession since my college days. Cooking hotcakes on black iron is the right way to do it, no teflon, stainless, or anything else will do. The key to cooking anything on iron is using lots of butter, and keeping the temp low. The iron is a massive heat sink, and helps even out the cooking, the draw back being, it takes a while to warm up, and doesn't react as quickly as stainless to temperature changes. It forces you to slow down and think about what you are cooking. It's not a bad thing, but it is a thing. Beware of things. My idea was simple, fry apples, apply batter, and treat as a normal hotcake.
My griddle is a size that means I normally make 3 hotcakes about 4-5 inches in diameter. I knew the apples would cook up well if sliced thin, and kept in large pieces, as is illustrated in the pictures. I gathered the apples together in the center of the pan, and poured the batter on top. When gathering the apples, I made sure to keep the apples from touching each other, seemed like it was a good idea to make sure batter could get around the apple. I did discover though, that the batter would push the apples around if you weren't careful. Next time I may fry the apples, let them cool, then put them in the batter to cook. I may also try cutting the apples some more.

This is what yummy looks like about five minutes before serving! You can kind of see in this pic how the apples get pushed out as the batter comes down. When I was taught how to make hotcakes, I was taught that you wait for the bubbles to come up and when they are done popping, the hotcake is ready to flip. That works when you are using normal milk for your batter, but lately, we've been cutting out the milk from our diet. Now I have made my hotcake batter with water before... you will do about anything to fill your belly when you are broke and in college... Doing so by choice is just plain wrong. I decided that while orange juice was a great choice for cereal, it, like water, was also a poor choice for hotcake batter. We've supplanted our milk with almond milk, and when we first started doing that, I decided that I would try to make my hotcakes with almond milk. That is a winning choice, but it does pose some challenges. First of all, almond milk has a slightly different flavor than regular milk. There's no sugar in standard, unsweetened almond milk. That also means that it cooks a little different. I've noticed that I need to cook the hotcakes a little longer, and I think that's because there's not as much sugar in the batter to carmelize and turn brown. I find that the hotcakes are best turned when the bubbles have stopped, and the edges of the hotcakes look a little dry. You have to be careful though, or the hotcake will dry out on the griddle.
Got to get it just right.

Flipping this thing was a challenge, that's another thing about putting apples in the mix. The apples make the hotcake kind of break up a little, but if you are careful, it can flip. On the bottom side you can really see the difference between hotcake and apple. The apple is brown, not only because it's been on the heat longer, but because the sugar carmelizes. You can taste the difference. Using unsweetened almond milk is a great choice because the sweetness of the apple really pops when you bite it. Now I'm getting ahead of myself...

I cooked the cake a little longer, when I was done, my wife was kind, and allowed me to share have of it with her. I was originally planning on giving her the whole cake, so you now see how excellent my woman is!


Yum

After cutting in half, adding a few normal hotcakes, and adding a generous dollop of my ever dwindling supply of Henry Corley made cane syrup, I had an enjoyable meal.

Project Clean Up Part 1 Chapter 8

2012-10-05T12:36:00.001-04:00

Chapter 8: "Walking in the Hollow State"

This is a continuation, the First part is Here, a complete list is available under "Ham Radio Master links" on the sidebar.

Getting the power supply working, putting out good, well filtered voltage was relatively easy. The hard work was getting the radio itself QRV once again.
That's right, more problems.
Seeing that I was trying something crazy, like switching tubes, I decided that I would revert to the original two tubes, in their original sockets. Why tempt the smoke? It needed to stay in the caps this time, or money would be spent!
I put the two tubes in, confident in the knowledge that I have made QSOs with these tubes, tuned the Swan 100-MX to 3579ish, tuned the antenna on that frequency, switched antenna outlets, keyed down, and heard noise! Victory? Not quite.

So I tried peaking the tank cap, no dice, then went investigating the tube sockets themselves again because I stopped getting any signal out when I jiggled the connection. I didn't notice anything immediately obvious, but Warmed some joints anyway, and made sure nothing was shorting anything out.

Then....

I packed up shop for the night, scowling at my fortunes.
No power, no nothing, just time for bed.
Suddenly, I had an idea!
What if one of the tubes was bad? Like the one that was still on the chassis when I smoked the radio the first time? Couldn't hurt to try right?
Sho' nuff, soon as I switched tubes and gave it a minute to warm up, bam! power out. Then I went to bed.

Time for the Finishing touches

I decided to button up the power supply. I clipped the primary to secondary connection to shorten the wires. The plan here was to mount the capacitors and surge resistor in the middle and the rectifier more or less on top of the secondary transformer.
More or less that's how it went.
Getting that bugger in there was tough! I had to cajole, caress, tweak and twitch over the course of two nites, but sure enough, it happened, and I was able to get that sucker in there!

Now it's time for a QSO!

That corresponds to ONE BLAZING WATT of RF on a dummy load.
On to the next project!

73,
DE KG4GVL TT-80 QRT

Thank you all for reading!

ps,
I will occasionally post followup articles to this series, and will keep a list of all the states I've worked and confirmed. My goal for this rig will be WAS or something. Look for me round about 3579KHz, in between all the digi stuff...

Project Clean Up Part 1 Chapter 7

2012-09-28T12:11:00.002-04:00

Chapter 7: "Persnickety Power Problems Pwned and Pacified"

This is a continuation, the First part is Here, a complete list is available under "Ham Radio Master links" on the sidebar.

Ok, so things went well in the wee hours of the morning for the power supply. I'll let the videos speak for themselves:

I had to turn the camera off to capture the results because I couldn't find a safe way to hold my camera and take the measurement. Here's the after video:

The power supply is pretty much ready to run at this point. All that is left is packaging and hooking up the radio, There's just one last check to make, the one for ZAP!

The rest of the night was pretty interesting and I have some more testing to run before I'll be ready to post.

73,

Project Clean Up Part 1 Chapter 6

2012-09-26T11:18:00.000-04:00

Chapter 6: "After Action Report and Rebuild Plans"

This is a continuation, the First part is Here, a complete list is available under "Ham Radio Master links" on the sidebar.

So Here's what I have been able to discover:
I'm still not 100% certain why the unit failed the first time. Initially I suspected the power supply, but I'm reinvestigating, I discovered another loose solder connection on one of the tube sockets. I'm not sure that's what did it, but I'm always suspicious of any changes I made. I changed tubes, the supply blew up. Thems the facts. Whether changing the tube caused a supply malfunction remains to be seen.

You can notice from the pic that I changed out the crystal holder part of the circuit. I did this to keep the metal case of the crystal WELL away from the supply voltage terminal, and because it looks better put together up and off of things as opposed to flopping around all dangly like. The bad news is my thumb is sore today because I think I poked it with a wire. If things don't improve soon, may have to go see the Dr about lockjaw! Heh!
how you 'spain that one to the XYL?
The second time the supply failed, I am 100% certain was because I used a severely underrated rectifier diode. I used a 1N4001 blindly following a misprint in the schematic I was using, instead of a 1N4004. So I'm beefing up to a 1N4005 just to make sure, and that's only IF I can't find any 1N4007's laying around the junque box. Next I will isolate the 150 B+ part of the circuit from the line, and instead of using one diode, I will go ahead and use four, building a full wave bridge rectifier. This is because I got diodes, and math is on my side...

From an awesome mess
Comes a beautiful circuit
Arise O Phoenix!

OK:
so you take a half wave rectifier like W3IRZ(sk) first designed into this rig, and you take the caps he had for smoothing, do some funny math, and using the max transformer rating of 1 amp. I'm not expecting to actually draw more than about .05 amp here, and yes, I know about derating the transformer current rating in a bridge rectifier, the actual rating is 1.2 Amp. Radio Shack sells a 3 Amp transformer too, it is part number 273-1511 you can ship it to my address from QRZ.com or hit the donate button in the top right hand corner of this webpage :)
anyway,
you do the math found at MIT: and discover that there is 24.1 Volts of ripple voltage when the load draws 1 Amp.
Now this is worst case scenario mind you, but still. at 50mA which is a lot closer to the actual current draw, it will be a lot less, like 1.205 volts ripple, which is less than 1% of peak voltage (150VDC). An acceptable number, but since the 470 microfarad caps needed to produce this performance are now BBQ in the trashcan, it's time for plan B.
I have some caps suitable for filtering, but not the exact values as before. I needed a way to lower the required amount of smoothing needed to get a usable DC voltage. I decided to build a bridge rectifier, and use a couple of caps left over from the earlier efforts. Using two 220 microfarad capacitors, I actually drop my ripple voltage a little bit, to like .95 volts at 50mA. I can handle that!
Now you can buy a bridge rectifier at the local shack, but this is an exercise in understanding, and I don't have any 1 Amp, 120Vrms AC bridge rectifiers in the Junque box. I do have 4 1N4005 diodes though, and knowledge, and a community of assorted skalawags, errrr, electrically inclined persons who can help me out.

This is the bridge, as I have constructed it. The alligator grippers are holding it at the position where I hook in the AC, one side to top, one side to bottom.
The bridge will be hooked the (originally primary) secondary of a 12.6VAC to 120VAC transformer.

Here's a closeup, showing the AC wires hooked into the circuit. I've intentionally left the 'ears' on the soldered circuit leads so I can do some testing later. You can see that the bands indicating the cathode of the diode are running from left to right. As it is layed out, the rectified positive voltage will be on the right, and the negative side is the left.

This is an overhead shot of the circuit so far, laid out on a potential housing mount. The pic is upside down from the way that I took it, but whatever.
you see that I have two identical transformers, they are Radio Shack "120-12.6VAC 1.2 Amp" available at most stores. I have rolled up and taped off the center tap of the transformer, because I don't plan on using it. The two outer leads have been tied together. I will take my 12 VAC filament voltage from this point. Hot and neutral wires will be hooked up to the primary transformer on the left, and the diode bridge is hooked up to the secondary transformer on the right. If all goes well, and I haven't done anything stupid, we will have pulsed DC ready for smoothing at the secondary end.
Here's a video showing how everything is currently laid out:

I won't be hooking AC up to it until I've got the unit planned out and tightened up a lil bit, namely I will be solving space issues, hooking up a switch and fuse set up, and hooking it up the way I will have it inside the box.
So what do you guys think?
Go or No Go?

Click here to continue to Chapter 7: "Persnickety Power Problem Pwned and Pacified"

73!

Project Clean Up Part 1: Chapter 5

2012-09-24T09:00:00.001-04:00

Chapter Five: "Ecstasy and Agony"

This is a continuation, the First part is Here, a complete list is available under "Ham Radio Master links" on the sidebar.

Good news, I made my first QSO with the Twin tube 80!

Bad news, won't be making another one any time soon!

Yay smoke!

In Chronological order, the good news first:
I made my first QSO with this rig!
Yep, it's true, actually made my first two QSO's, one with W1PID in New Hampshire, and one with AK4O down the road from me in Tampa. I got so excited, that I forgot to video the QSO w/ W1PID, even though that was my intention. Here is a vid from right after the QSO,

I felt pretty good about it!
About three hours before 9pm (local time, 0100 UTC), I announced that I would be QRV at 0100 UTC on the QRP-L reflector, the NoGA yahoo group, and other places. About 20 minutes before starting, I went out to the shack, turned on the RX rig, and plugged in the TT80, I noticed a lil' spark right as I plugged it in, looking back I think this was the beginning of the end of the capacitors in this iteration of the power supply. At the time, I didn't think anything about it because hey, tubes were glowin', and there was no smoke!
After getting some of the kids in bed, and tucked in for the night, it was radio operating time. I started calling CQ, and it seemed like almost immediately, I got a return, notably, from W1PID, click his call sign and read his adventures, they are well worth it! He takes his radios all over the place :) Considering my antenna on 80m is a W3EDP with the counterpoise unhooked (is just over 1/4 wave on 80m), and worked against my station ground, I'm glad to have worked anyone, but feel especially good that my signal made it all the way to New Hampshire!
I then took to calling CQ again. Avoiding static crashes, and other QRN, and the ever present Digi QRM, it wasn't easy, especially using the Swan as a receiver. It says "CW" on the mode selector switch, but this is a lie :) it's really the USB SSB filter working, so you hear 2.7KHz of bandwidth all at once. I've had some success using an active audio filter, but I've got a lot of work to do in the shack before I get that particular aspect of the problem solved. I have seen people homebrew CW filters to install in the Swan 100MX, but I don't know if I will yet or not.
About 20 minutes after the first QSO, I copied and replied to AK4O who lives about 36 miles from me (as the signal flies), and also got a nice email from him. I called CQ some more after that, for about an hour, without any luck.
Then, I unplugged the TT80, and tuned around some with the Swan, on 80 and 40, and decided to start trying different tubes (same type) in the sockets. you know what they say about not messin' with a good thing?

And Then:

EGADS!
Whatever went on in there, wasn't good.
hmmm,
since the first thing I did was change out a tube, I checked the tube base, and I didn't see any obvious shorts, so I began to suspect the capacitor. I remembered the extra beefy spark when I first plugged in the power supply, and I knew I had a suspect!

I found pieces of the rectifier diode, and cleaned up the box and filament transformer with simple green. That's some awesome cleaner. Then I decided to function check the filament transformer. It passed. I tested the resistance across the power surge resistor between the two capacitors: it failed. No continuity!
I then rewired up a new power supply using my last 470 microfarad 250v rated electrolytic, and a new 220 microfarad 250v electrolytic. I went to a 50ohm 10watt power surge resistor (it was as close as Radio Shack could get). Now I am ready to test things out before hooking the TT80 back up. I'm just looking for 150V dc power. Whelp, as soon as I plugged it in the 470 microfarad blew up again.
dang.
I'm throwing this cord out, grabbing another, and trying to scrounge up a couple more caps.
Until then, this project is officially on hold!

Click here to read Chapter 6: "After Action Report and Rebuild Plans"
73,

Project Clean Up Part 1 Chapter 4

2012-09-21T15:06:00.000-04:00

Chapter 4: "Clean Up and Key Down!"

This is a continuation, the First part is Here, a complete list is available under "Ham Radio Master links" on the sidebar.

I decided to open the power supply up, and clean up some circuitry. I wanted to make sure that things stayed put once I was ready to QRV. Here's how things looked before getting them all put together.

Innards of the power supply. You will see in the final pic that I replaced the B+ wire, the red and black wire in this picture

and here's the transmitter:
I secured the top to the the lid using some ultra heavy duty fastener called dual lock. I wanted a rock solid mount, and I think I got it!
I have two other plans for the transmitter that I haven't decided if I'm going to do yet or not. First, I'm thinking of replacing the clips for the crystal. I'm not really satisfied with how they connect but they are protected. Second, I'm thinking of breaking the rig down, and redoing the chassis all together. The lil' Altoids tin it's on now is showing its ten years of age.

In this pic you can see the transformer, two filter caps, ground connection, and B+ line out. Everything is ready to be buttoned up and fed AC! The caps are mounted to the aluminium plate using mounting tape, and actually rest upside down inside the Power supply. I actually bought a 50 Ohm 10 watt resistor to go between the caps, but decided that the 45 ohm 5 watt would work better because of size. Radio Shack doesn't carry a 45 Ohm power resistor in the store, they carry a 0.47 :/
if you look closely at the power cord, it has a piece of heavy gauge magnet wire wrapped around it, this is to prevent me from accidentally pulling the cord out of the power supply, placing stress on the solder connections, and generally increasing the potential for fail.

Now for a demonstration of the awesome power of hollow state:

My theory on increase power output is that the powerbuss solder connections are better now, and tubes are awesome.
seriously on the powerbuss connection though.
Originally, in the interest of using things over and making due, I had hooked up connections with some spare wire I had laying around that at one point in time was part of a microwave. I noticed when I was hooking things up that this wire was silverish and didn't take solder well. As I remember there was no solder for power buss lines in the microwave, it used crimped terminal connections. hmmmm, probably is made from something from the lowest bidder. Fortunately, I also had some real buss wire laying around, so I replace unknown material with copper.
More copper means less power wasted heating a wire.
Here's how everything looks set up and ready to play:

no QSO yet. Will announce on twitter, QRP-L, SKCC facebook group, and other places when I get QRV.

Continue on to Chapter 5: "Ecstasy and Agony"
73!

Project Clean Up Part 1 Chapter 3

2012-09-20T01:57:00.004-04:00

Chapter 3: "Totally Tubluar Transmission and Technical Tidbits"

This is a continuation, the First part is Here, a complete list is available under "Ham Radio Master links" on the sidebar.

Now that I am reasonably sure of my polarity, and I'm done cussin' the feller who put this plug together, it's time to go over the transmitter itself, and see if there's any improvement to be made. Heh. My radio uses 2 6AQ5A's in parallel. The filament takes 6 volts, and are wired in series. Right off the bat I saw that I had I had the filaments wired in parallel. This was from a time when the only transformer I could find was a 120v AC to 6v AC. I certainly corrected that lil' problem. It also explained why the sucker glowed a lil' more than I expected the first time I lit it up. 12v on a 6v filament will do that. I'm glad I didn't blow the tubes! I also cleaned up some wire and leads underneath, and made sure my point to point all went to the right places. In the process, I discovered a cold solder joint, and found a better way to route some parts.

The Kind of Ugly that's a Pretty all of it's Own

It's not necessarily my best work, but hey, it will do!
And yep, that's three 33pf NP0 capacitors wired in parallel.

Time to do some testing.
first, go see Dave Benson's website, Small Wonder Labs, and order a rockmite :) also, check out his documentation section. Download a manual for the SW-40+ transceiver, and look in the testing section. In that section is a circuit you can make pretty easily, and use it to measure the power your radio is putting out. I built mine on some radio

Circuit, dummy load, and babyfood jar.

Prototyping board, specifically so that things would stay together. I connected the orange and yellow wire across the dummy load, and made sure that I hooked the yellow wire to the side that goes to the pin, and the orange wire to the side that goes to the ground side of the plug. At the measuring end of the plug are two posts made from surplus resistor leads, I hook my Digital VOM to them using probe hooks. The set up is hands free once you hook the probes onto the posts, and turn on the VOM.

Here's a little video about what I discovered when I measured the voltage across the dummy load:

Ok, so, according to theory, the voltage measured here is Peak-to-Peak voltage.
Knowing that, tell me how much power is getting to the dummy load.
Show your work!

Continue on To Chapter 4: "Clean Up and Key Down"

Nothing Deep or Meaningful

2012-09-19T02:10:00.002-04:00

Went to shack to take pics for post I'm working on, brought out radio. Took pics, did some prep work getting things ready for final packaging.
Turned on radio, tuned it up, tuned around...
Came time to choose, finish article, or play radio, it was time to play radio!
Worked F5IN at 05:40 UTC
Received a 569,
gave him a 579.
my power, Less than 100 watts.
Band was only meh tonight.
73!

Project Clean Up Part 1 Chapter 2

2012-09-18T01:31:00.000-04:00

Chapter 2 "Why the White Wire is Hot"

This is a continuation, the First part is Here, a complete list is available under "Ham Radio Master links" on the sidebar.

I didn't want to button my power supply up before figuring out why the hot wire was white. Basically, I wanted to make sure this radio could work anywhere, and having a hot white wire was troubling. Like David suggested in his comment, I suspected the outlet, and then the wiring in the Mains box. Time to flip breakers and do some inspecting!
First, I flipped the breaker to the shack, and trundled back into it, hoping to find a black wire where a white wire should be. The Shack in the Back was built before we moved here, and is 'unfinished'. The guy who owned the place two owners ago built it with scraps left over from some of his contracting jobs I think. When I unscrewed the socket from the recepticle, everything looked, well, fine. I was impressed with the craftsmanship of the socket to tell you the truth, connections were tight, and in the right place. Time to check the mains box, but I knew it was going to look fine there too. It did.
Back to the thinking bucket.


Yon Thinking Bucket

I juiced the shack back up, grabbed my VOM, and began doing things my mother told me not to do, namely sticking metal things in electrical outlets. By metal things, I mean VOM probes. I always feel weird sticking things into electrical outlets, makes me make sure I do so with fear, and caution. That's not a bad thing, I suppose.
First, I checked the socket for power, Hot wire to neutral, and I got 120v AC. Good!
Then I checked for what should be the neutral wire to ground, and got no AC voltage, Good!
for the kicker, I checked what should be the Hot wire to ground, and got 120v AC, Good!
So the socket is good! Should have done that first instead of assuming it wasn't... hmmm.

Next test, the power supply strip I plug into the socket. Maybe there's something miswired there,
Just checked Hotside to ground, 120v AC. Good!
So the power supply is not the issue.
must be the power cord.

The Cord- Not Polarized

notice that in the picture of the plug end, the plug is not polarized. This plug and wire was salvaged from some piece of computer equipment, and at one point in time had a female chassis mount plug on it, the kind that looks like this:


Female Chassis Mount

On a polarized plug, the narrow slot/prong is hot, the wide slot/prong is neutral and the round prong is ground, my non polarized plug fits in the socket the way a polarized one would, but, was it wired like a polarized socket? Just where did the white wire go?
I made sure the plug was unplugged, clipped the cord out of the power supply, and I decided to idiot check the green wire first, green for ground right? Switching my VOM to measure resistance, I continuity checked the green wire to the round prong, and it was Good! Then I checked between the other two wires, and no other wire lead to the round prong, Green is good!

I then oriented the plug like I was about to plug it in.

Right is hot, left is Neutral...

As this picture shows, the prong on the right, goes to the hot side of the socket. That's the one I want to check.
First I check the black wire, no continuity.
Then I check the green wire, no continuity.
Finally, I confirm that the right prong, the prong that normally connects to the hot side of the plug is connected to the white wire.
The white wire is hot because it goes to the hot side of the socket.
Heh.
I have no idea why this cord is made this way.
I just know that I can safely button up the power supply knowing It's the Cord, not my shack!

Next Up: Chapter 3: "Totally Tubluar Transmission and Technical Tidbits"
73!

Project Clean UP Part 1: Twin Tube 80

2012-09-17T00:24:00.000-04:00

This is Chapter 1: The Power Supply!

This is part 1 of a series, a complete list articles in this series is available under "Ham Radio Master links" on the sidebar.

Recently I've been wanting to clear various projests out of my project queue. Some of them are things I've been working on, and needed specialized parts to complete it. Others were not working because of technical issues. Some are because I'm afraid of drilling holes into some things and potentially ruining them :-) This last week I've been working on a radio that has vexed me for for ten literal years. The radio is the NoGA Twin Tube 80 schematics and instructions available at that link. I built it as it appeared in the NoGA Compendium available here. The kit itself is no longer avaible, but the parts to build it are out there. Mike Branca W3IRZ (sk) helped me get the kit working when I was having issues with it at my house. My goal was to put it on the air for the NoGA CW net on Tuesday nites. Well, Mike gave me a lot of great advice about building radios on that trip to his shack, and at the end of the day I had a working radio. On the drive home, something affected the æther stored in the radio, and while after plugging the radio in, I got no smoke out, neither did I get any RF! Alas ! Every trick I tried played out, and I set the little tube transmitter aside for other projects. Somehow, I knew the problem was in the power supply. I suspected the large value capacitors in the rectifier circuit.
Fast forward to the present.
Every time I would look at this radio I would get sad. Sad for the loss of a friend (W3IRZ sk in 2003), and sad that I couldn't seem able to figure this thing out. I decided it was worth a try. Time to stop being sad, and get back to slingin' dits and servin' dahs.
Since I've always suspected the powersupply in this radio, I decided to just hammer away at the power supply until it was working. The way this particular rig works is that you have a 12 v ac line for the tube filaments, a 150 v dc line for the plate, and a ground that you ground through the plug. I got out my caps, diodes, resistor, plug, and began the project for the third time. After soldering everthing together, making sure to follow instructions, I took the leap and plugged it in. No smoke! I tested the 12v ac circuit. I got 13v, that's ok, the transformer output is actually rated at 12.6v ac, so no big surprise. The 150v dc line, no dice.
Hmmmmm, this is where I left off ten years ago. I went to bed dejected and tired. I'd stayed up until 3:00am for nothing. I hadn't even learned anything yet. Course all that was going to change the next night.

I do my best to junk out old stuff so I can have strange parts when I need them, you can't buy 220 microfarad 250volt rated capacitors at radio shack. You have to go online and look them up on Mouser or Digi-Key. Fortunately, one of my recent junking exercises produced the caps I needed. This is recycling! The next night I replaced the caps and diode (just in case) double checked my wiring, plugged it in, and nothing! Still no B+ voltage. Dejected I tuned around the band hoping to find something interesting. I began thinking of what the issue could be and applied a little problem solving.

Grabbing the VOM, I hooked the ground wire up to the black probe and began poking things with the red. Positive terminal of 470 micro farad cap, nothing, positive terminal at 220 microfarad cap, nothing. Bottom side of 1N4001 diode, nothing. Top side of 1N4001 diode, I switch to AC because I'm connected to the ground and the black (hot) wire directly, nothing. Wait, whut?
Nothing?
I have 13v ac at the transformer, between the white (neutral) and black (hot) wire I have 120v ac, but between green and black I got nothing?
Then it clicked. The black wire wasn't hot, the white wire was! Two snips and a dab or two of solder later, and I have the white wire hooked up as if it were hot, apply juice, check voltages, and we are good to go:

How's that for live action?
It's also why every shack needs a 'chicken stick' of some sort. Link takes you to a qrz.com site all about stories of chicken sticks.

So, I have power at my supply, but It's coming from a funny wire. Before buttoning everything up, I needed to figure out Why the White Wire is Hot.
That's Chapter 2!

Continue on to Chapter 2.
73,

New Ham Radio Blog

2012-09-15T19:47:00.000-04:00

Well, he's new to me...

Everybody that reads me has probably already found this guy,
but!
I need to tell you about M1KTA's QRP Ham Radio Blog because it is awesome.
Lots of projects
Great ones like his take on a KD1JV inspired PTO (Permeability Tuned Oscillator)
Great info on the W3EDP antenna (!)
All around, he seems like an ok fella!

I've got a project in the pipes I'm working on, and promise another update real soon.
73! (and 72)