Busy days of Summer

Its been a while (how many blogs do you see that on?) Let's see . . . I built a fence to keep the little one out of the pond. It my work out as a great camouflage for a better antenna. I am thinking of a sloper from a corner of the fence to the chimney or vent pipe on the roof. A few radials and viola -- I'm on 40 again! I also built a Rockmite 40 for travel. I would like to also finish an amplifier and a tuner, also a portable set of paddles. I am looking forward to being able to operate when I have some down time (on vacation or such.)
Oh yeah, the smt Bitx is still waiting for me fo finsh the rx filter and PA. Just seems hard to get to it all right now.

Some of us Take a bit longer . . .

Ok, So I am building an oscillator for my SMD BitXxx(20.) A long time ago my dad taught me how to read the codes on capacitors – 1st significant digit, 2nd significant 3rd is the multiplier.
So … why is it so hard to get the #$#$@ thing down to 4 Mhz? When I started I had a 19Mhz VFO (vice 4!) Let's think about this -- a cap marked 104 is 1 and 4 zeros pico-farads (10,000 pF or .01 uF) a 103 is .001 or 1000 pf. Now what is 330? I thought my dad had taught that (my fault, not his) it should be 330pf (cause zero makes no sense as a power of ten!) At the age I learned it, I thought that 10 to the 0 was absurd. It was not until later that I learned that it was equal to 1. So if the caps I was using were 330 pF they would have been marked “331.” It was when I was trying to figure out what a 681 cap would be if 680 were 680 pico-farads . . . that the light finally came on and I realized the error of my thinking. Wow, it only took 40 years to straighten that one out! Think how fast it could have happened if I had had a capacitance meter!

So now it makes sense that my Oscillator is going at 18 Mhz instead of 1.8

My shack building continues on. I finally created a hole in my exterior wall so I could feed cables out in another way besides through the open window (not popular around here and it does look a bit tacky.) So I finally got to tear into Vinyl siding and put in an external outlet box (J-Box.) It came out pretty nice. I will have to put some photos up.

I also figured out that my screening is Al . . . not fiberglass. I was trying to figure out why my mag-loop was so badly de-tuned when sitting on the screen porch near the edge. I still have yet to make a contact on that antenna as my stupid microphone quit working on the Yaesu (another long story!) and my confidence in my CW skills are still pretty low.

Someday, I will actually be able to talk on Ham radio!

Low Voltage at High Current

So , in addition to my great need for an antenna that works, I am also trying to cleanly wire up the 13.6 to the equipment in my shack. Along with many others I turned to Anderson Power-pole connectors. Having struggled with trying to power it all up and keep it neat for may years, I have to say that I think this is going to work out!
Imagine: one connector for every piece of equipment that uses "12" volts!
Not only is it one connector, the parts of the connector are the same! No "Male" or "Female" to keep straight, no need for different housings for different size contacts, what a great idea.
However, in making up the "pigtails" to connect my Heathkit, which has this octal 13 pin connector on it. the cable has four 14 gauge black and four 14 gauge red wires. Unfortunately I couldn't cram all the wires into the powerpole contact. So I made a very messy splice (actually, I made two ugly splices) to a short length(s) of 10 gauge wire. . . very ugly and is going to require some re-think and rework.
The amazing part of it all is that now all my radios and power supplies will use the same connector for power, eventually I will. It is so obvious, why didn't I do something like this before? I am about to wire my Ham Radio insert for 12v powerpoles. This way the wiring, at least for power, can be neat and under control. The coax may never be so easy to manage, but the power distribution will be a work of art.
I did manage to do some listening this past weekend. I think the weather was way too nice to stay inside. So I didn't!

My Shack

So here is my current shack -- most of the equipment works, but not all is hooked up yet -- I am still working on antennas. The most clever part, I think, is the monitor swivel. In any shack I have ever set up, the most critical and precious space is what is directly in front and easily reachable for the operator. By making the computer monitor swing out, I maximize usable space and am still able to use the computer. With the monitor stowed, I can use the setup as a computer station. Also 2 meter FM is still very doable as there is not much tuning required. The shelf insert is also part of my main requirement to make it all reversible and invisible when I am not using it.

What's so hard

So among my projects (I try to have a few open at any time so I can work on something I feel like doing when I get a few moments.) . . .anyway, I picked up a Kenwood 2 meter rig with no CTCSS tones. A tone board goes from $12.00 to $60.00: a bit much for a radio I spent 40 bucks on! I also used to love to build things. I have recently discovered Eagle Cad and the idea of printing the layout onto a glossy magazine page so it can be ironed onto the pc board material.
The last pc board I made involved rub on transfer pads and tape. Wow, does this do a better job! Not only is it much, much faster, I can do down to 20 mill or less pitch -- that's darn near my limits for hand soldering. Anyway, the key to the process is the correct iron temperature -- too hot ad it smears, too cold and it doesn't stick, For my iron it is two clicks above "woolens." I wish I had a thermometer so I could do this a little more accurately.
Anyway, I decided on my tone encoder to use a MX465 chip and surface mount parts (the chip is a 24 pin wide dip.) By mistake I ordered 603 components instead of 1206. I found that it was not that difficult to solder. I do have to admit to having a bit of experience with hand soldering, and really it is more about technique than some unique skill. It went OK (other than losing a few parts!) and the board works, although I ended up hacking up the rigs case trying maintain access to the dip switch on the tone board. My mechanical engineering skills are still no better than they were 15 years ago!
I also have parts for a smd bitx20 that I laid out the board for. I am excited and a little nervous about it. I would like to build it into a small rig I can use in the car. I am including a mod for CW (yet to be finalized,) and provision for at least 40 and 20 meters (I would like to also have 15 and especially 10, but we shall see.)

My Challenges

After a 20-year hiatus I am trying to get back into Ham radio. I am amazed at how much it has changed. Surprised that my prize transceiver is now considered a “classic” - or even worse - “antique” radio. Perhaps I would appreciate it more if the title “boat-anchor” were used.

Perhaps my biggest challenge is the dreaded CC&R's which are attached to my property, along with the included HOA (Home Owners Association.) When we were looking for our home, we found it impossible to find a home that we could afford, that was in a decent neighborhood with decent schools that did not include CC&R's. It seems that developers and the city love them as a means of helping to sell homes and as “free and easy” code enforcement.

Along with the HOA and CC&Rs, I also am married to a wonderful wife, who unfortunately does not share my aesthetic appreciation for antennas. To me, few things are so inherently symmetrically beautiful as a four element multi-band beam on a 60 foot tower. Except, of course, the aforementioned wife. Even a dipole has a certain simple elegance and no-nonsense visually clear purposefulness. To my wife (and to my HOA) they destroy the beautiful clean uncluttered roof lines. They clutter up the yard . . .

So where do I stand? How do I get on the air?

A wire run under the eave shows promise, except that the noise is well over S8 – S9 . . . not so useful. One day when no one is home, I plan to turn off / unplug everything to see if I can localize the noise. My portable antique short wave radio shows that the AC wiring in my walls is where it's coming from. In fact, I can trace the wiring with the radio! A spectrum analyzer would be handy, then I could watch what EMI disappears when I unplug, say, the wireless phone base station (another one of my offenders.)

I have been playing with the mag-loop; I think that will be my answer. I have a 16-foot circumference square loop that listens great! I am still working out the kinks with the trombone cap. I can get 40 and 30, or 30 and 20; I can't quite get 40 – 20 meters. I am close to making the darn thing a 40 and 30 meter antenna, and then make another one for 20 – 15 ( or maybe even 10.)

I would be in a bigger hurry to get back on 2 meters, except that 2 meters is fairly quiet compared to where I used to live (in K6 land.)

I also used to have a whole bedroom dedicated to my hobbies; now I have an entertainment Armoire! But, I think I can make it work. The first project I really want to share is the insert I made for it. See, the ground rules are that I can make no irreversible mods to the furniture. Now the biggest problem so far is what to do with the computer monitor. You see, this amoire also contains my computer. I think I got that solved and will share that as soon as I work out the kinks.

Enough for my first post here. More to follow.