A Crummy Commercial

I was looking at the July 1959 issue of QST and saw this article: source:  https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/QST/50s/QST-1959-07.pdf A really clever design.  I remember seeing a book detailing a "computer" that used a rotary dial for data entry but never had seen a dial used for Morse code before.  And in all my years as a kid who liked to take things apart I never actually took a dial apart !  I've got "two tree" dial phones around here, I may have to remedy that ! Here are the only diagrams from the article, too bad they didn't show the complete set of 19 dials but I guess QST space was too valuable for that.  I can see where the dah heavy numbers would require a dial to themselves although several shorter characters can be put on the same dial. This kind of mechanical approach to Morse code sending reminds me of this previous blog on a contest "memory keyer" by K2UBC: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-mechanical-memory-contest-k...

Angkor Wat I saw a NOVA last night on TV (only dozed for a few minutes :), here it is on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QADE8CkEVCw The program was on the enormous ancient city of Angkor in Cambodia.  It was a very interesting show explaining the rise and abandonment of Angkor.  Angkor Wat is only one of the hundreds of temples in Angkor the city.   I thought that the LIDAR usage was really amazing, it penetrates the overgrowth and gives a sense of what the city must have been like.  The whole city is built on a flood plane which regularly has standing water so the houses of Angkor residents were built on mounds (visible on LIDAR). the Angkor Wat temple in white The other thing I didn't realize was that since the big temples in Angkor can't be built on actual bedrock the builders used a couple of techniques to get around the lack of a solid foundation.  First while the outside cladding of the temple was sandstone the main structure is of a more p...

I saw this in a Lafayette Radio Electronics sale flyer from 1962: source:  https://www.microscopemuseum.eu/catalogues/Lafayette_1962_621.pdf This is like the old school airplane earphones, I love it !  And there is one on Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/325734328258 BTW, be sure to watch the item before buying, the seller offered me $20 off.  I suspect the seller would accept a lower offer. The price on Ebay is in the ballpark of the 1962 price inflated: And here is the SH-100 in the 1963 Lafayette catalog (it probably didn't sell): And the 1963 price inflated: I looked in the 1964 catalog but Lafayette had dropped Pioneer as a vendor.  I didn't see any Pioneer items in the 1963 Allied catalog either. The follow up product from Pioneer was the SH-P1 but I wasn't able to find a price: source:  https://global.pioneer/en/corp/info/history/chronology/archives/1950/ (page down to 1963 and select Home Audio on the right to see the photo) It would have been so cool if t...

I was looking at this issue of Popular Electronics from January 1972: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Poptronics/70s/1972/Pop-1972-01.pdf I downloaded it by accident (wanted another magazine from January 1972) but as I paged through it this single page article caught my eye: Knowing the levels of current required for the various body responses (including DEATH) is interesting intellectually but the main thing is to develop good habits when it comes to working with electricity. The next page of the issue is an article about medical electronics - one thing that occurs to me is that  electrical experimenters and project builders should avoid at all costs is connecting the body to something like an home made pulse counter UNLESS the circuit is powered by low voltage batteries.  And an "AC Adapter" shouldn't be used either.  Medical gear is expensive for a reason, it is as safe as they can make it ! BTW the only experiences I've ever had with involuntary muscle ...

The Athletic Pulse newsletter mentioned this: source:  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/world/asia/climbing-buildings-skyscrapers-alex-honnold.html Glad he made it alive - it immediately brought this Harold Lloyd movie to mind: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R07icdfFDwE Harold and his movie "pal", played by Bill Strother, were both fit but yikes ! I doubt I could do a single pullup ! PM Update: I forgot to mention that I first heard about the climb of Taipei 101 on The Barbara Gaines Show : source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y7vAmJ1WdE   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw this issue of Radio-Electronics magazine from November 1972 on the always interesting Worldradiohistory site: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-Electronics/70s/1972/Radio-Electronics-1972-11.pdf The article that caught my eye was on signal generators on pdf file page 49.  Here is the schematic of author Huffman's design: The circuit uses three Colpitts oscillator transistors which are powered via one section of a three position band switch.  The other section of the band switch connected each oscillator output to a buffer amplifier AND the 365 pF tuning cap.  This multiple oscillator approach is easy with transistors but a huge problem with tubes cost wise.  One other item: B&W Miniductor coils are used instead of either toroids or slug tuned coils.  It is much easier to wind a solenoid air-core coil than try to create a slug tuned inductor from scratch !  Also, Miniductors are still available ! https://www.bwantennas.com/Mini.html ...

I saw this video pop up on Youtube today: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuaxB90OMBc I remember him and the "magic white" but didn't realize that there was trouble between Bill Alexander and Bob Ross: Bob and Bill look happy here ? https://www.grunge.com/243657/the-truth-about-the-rivalry-between-bob-ross-and-bill-alexander/ More info on Bob Ross: https://allthatsinteresting.com/bob-ross-military When I was a kid this fellow, Jon Gnagy, was the TV art guy: https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/artbound/before-bob-ross-jon-gnagy-was-americas-first-tv-art-teacher And of course in real life (1960s grade school) it was Mr. Caucutt: this must have been in the 1970s or 1980s source:  https://sites.uwm.edu/ties-that-bind/allen-caucutt/ But Mr. Caucutt wasn't just teaching sketching or painting.   He also had more of a build / manual training kind of focus.  We got to use hammers and saws as well as brushes, crayons and pencils - it was fun until "clean up" :) Be...