A Crummy Commercial

I noticed that some issues of the French language version of CQ magazine have been uploaded to Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/cq-radioamateur-1995-06-no-002/page/30/mode/2up There is an SWR meter article by Doug, W1FB on page 30.  Here is a try at machine translating it back to English using the Yandex site: https://translate.yandex.com/ocr I only tried the first column as I think I may have the original English language version around here somewhere: As usual, the output is a little awkward but certainly better than nothing. I'll have to see if there are any of the French issues of CQ with interesting articles that I haven't ever seen (I stopped subscribing to CQ after W1FB died). Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I tuned into the second half of the Cary Grant movie: Arsenic and Old Lace on PBS Wisconsin.  I had started recording the first half but when I watched the second half I noticed that it had that "interlaced" combing thing.  In a static scene (like a title card) the interlaced video looks fine.  But when there's any movement you can see the ghost of the previous interlaced frame on top of the next frame.  It's annoying since they are called movies :) I've also noticed this on the PBS Wisconsin repeats of the Carol Burnett CBS show. see those annoying horizontal lines on Carol's ear/nose Anyway, I deleted the Arsenic and Old Lace recording.  It's a fun movie but not worth saving with that interlacing thing. Could a better TV or codec or something technological help ?  Probably, but it's not worth the trouble or expense of investigating a fix for me. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Try searching Ebay for:      AD9850 module https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?kw=ad9850%20module You will still get over 100 results, but the prices !  Yes, they used to be MUCH cheaper.  Here is one I purchased for $8.53 including shipping in 2014: a module from 2014 There is also another version, very similar: from a current 2022 Ebay listing Of course, it isn't a requirement that a module be used, here is a DDS signal generator using an AD9850 that I built a couple decades ago (I think): I found the blue DDS module while checking through my junkbox - now I have to wonder:   Why were these modules made ?   Was there some kind of massive project somewhere that required zillions of DDS modules ?    Because even at current Ebay module prices it would be hard to make ANY money selling these modules.  The AD9850 chip itself is still available, it sells for over $28 at Digikey: Yes, I am still a stockholder in Analog Devices, one of the reasons why is that Analog Devices can get these kin

  I finally found an 88 mH toroid, this one has red/green windings which are not twisted tightly together like they are with RF bifilar or trifilar transformers.  I also have 88 mH toroids which have two green windings separated by cardboard spacers but I haven't found them yet. This toroid can be compared to the washing machine solenoid coil mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/10/i-found-this-solenoid-coil-in-junkbox.html The toroid measures 112 mH with both windings in series using the Morse LC meter.  The coil resistance is 7.7 ohms so as mentioned before presumably a much higher Q than the washing machine solenoid. Obviously 112 mH is much larger than 88 mH that would be expected, this page gives a possible partial explanation in the 4th paragraph: http://techlib.com/electronics/largeind.htm The other reason could be the inductance measuring of the LC meter being off. Anyway I don't think that this toroid is going to be useful as far as LF antenna tuning. The n

I was looking for a magazine article by W1FB which dealt with using relays to remotely switch antennas.  I couldn't find it in the magazines I have at hand so I decided to look on the web.  I believe it is from his CQ column, Doug's Desk, which ran from 1993 through 1997.  I know I have it here somewhere - per the Hamcall search I *think* it is from October 1997.  As I recall it used auto (Bosch) relays with some kind of power saving circuit.  Anyway I thought it would be handy to have an index of his CQ columns: 1993 Jun Working With Toroids, 82 Jul Basics of simple HF receivers, 76 Aug no Doug's Desk column Sep Some thoughts on broadband transformers, 110 Oct Solid state amplifiers for beginners, 62 Nov no Doug's Desk column Dec no Doug's Desk column 1994 Jan Power FETs versus bipolars at RF, 80 Feb Enhanced audio quality on transmit, 82 Mar Some Answers to Common Antenna Questions, 96 Apr no Doug's Desk column May Unstable Solid-State Amplifiers - Some Remedi

I found this solenoid coil in the junkbox.  It came off a valve assembly for a washing machine.  These valves often get gunked up with minerals and stop working correctly.  But the coils are still OK. I was wondering if it might have any use for ham radio applications.  The center blue tube is big enough for a ferrite rod so it might be useful for permiability tuning ? I got out the old LC meter prototype: It was discontinued in 2010: http://wb9kzy.com/lcmeter.htm It uses the shifted oscillator method to measure inductance or capacitance and outputs the measurement with Morse code.  There were two reasons why it was discontinued, first, the high accuracy leaded caps from Panasonic became unobtanium.  Second, I was never fully satisfied with the accuracy measuring inductance. Anyway here are the measurements for the solenoid: 160 mH coil inductance 8714 Hz measurement frequency 860 ohms coil resistance (measured with Metex DVM) It doesn't look like it would be too useful for ham rad

source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10206080043095636&set=a.1384116358475 This is a piece of  satirical artwork done by Cris Shapan on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/cris.shapan This struck me for two reasons:   1) my grade school, Maple Dale in Fox Point, WI, had excellent hot lunches.  The ladies knew how to turn that USDA surplus stuff into very tasty meals.  I particularly remember the hot dogs wrapped in a slice of buttered bread and then baked on a tray.  Also the Thanksgiving meals with turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy and especially the stuffing which was served using an ice-cream scoop :)  Can't forget the sweet potatoes with the little marshmallows on top either !  A friend of mine has tried to re-create the pizza-burgers from Maple Dale but only with limited success.   And the 2 cent milks in little half-pint cartons to wash it all down, yum !  So I never had a lunch box as a kid. 2) I remember going to the local Sears store in Glendale, WI wi

 Yesterday I tried the machine translate on an article from the April 1998 issue of CQ Ham Radio by JS1RSV.  Here is the next article by JS1RSV which concentrates more on the antenna for the LF timecode receiver.  I tried scanning it this time rather than using a camera. . JG1RSV first talks about a ferrite bar antenna he removed from an "atomic clock".  The ferrite bar antennas for WWVB (60 kHz) used to be available from Digikey but I'm afraid they are now unobtainium.  He also tried winding an antenna using a ferrite bar from an AM radio and 10 meters of wire but I'm not sure if the result was better or not. JJG1RSV points out that the antenna is directional - not sure if he's going for most signal or most rejection of noise.  Anyway he hooked it to his computer and was able to decode the time information. JG1RSV also furnished an updated receiver schematic, it looks very similar to the previous version but he added another op-amp amplifier stage after the trans

 Previously I mentioned using the internet to help translate DX ham magazines: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/10/idea-use-online-tools-to-translate-dx.html I found another article from the April 1998 issue of CQ Ham Radio by JS1RSV.  It's an active filter based receiver for JJY, the Japanese timecode station on 40 kHz that's the equivalent of WWVB here in the USA.   Here is the first page: and the second page: In 1998 I didn't have access to internet translation (I did have dial up email access though :) so I never got further in looking at the idea except to "decompile" the active filter sections: Compared to an audio active filter the gain and Q are pretty high, usually an audio filter will keep the gain at roughly 1 and the Q well below 10.  The author does address this: first page column 1 . first page column 2 . first page column 3 . second page column 1 . second page column 2 . second page column 3 As with the previous attempt the translation isn't per

December 1994 Any ham radio experimenter knows the name/call: Doug, W1FB.  He was a much published author in various magazines, QST mostly but also in CQ magazine, sometimes SPRAT (journal of the GQRP club) and in Monitoring Times.  While many of Doug's articles are only available via paid access the Monitoring Times column, Demaw's  Workbench, is available on the ever wonderful Worldradiohistory site: https://worldradiohistory.com/Monitoring-Times.htm AFAIK the column started in August 1988 and ended December 1997 (Doug died in September of 1997).  Here is a quick index to W1FB's articles (but you will probably end up downloading all the issues like I plan to :) 1988 Aug    Making a circuit board Sep    A Simple AM Radio Oct    Transmitter Basics Nov    Improving AM Transistor Radio Performance Dec    Lowband converters 1989 Jan    About toroid Cores Feb    Build a frequency converter Mar    Build your own boxes Apr    Transistor and crystal testers you can build May    Ab

Run to Daylight was a book by Vince Lombardi and WC Heinz (lotsa pictures / diagrams, too).  It was about one week from Monday to Sunday (game day) during the 1962 season.  I believe this was the first time I ever read the book, it certainly was interesting although possibly a little too "inside baseball" but a true portrait of what a head coach in the NFL does for a living. Read it here: https://archive.org/download/runtodaylight1963lomb/runtodaylight1963lomb.pdf A few items I noticed: 1) Vince read the sports pages (it would be impossible for a 21st century coach to read/watch/listen to all the media about his team even if the coach actually wanted to :) 2) Vince probably ate too many hamburgers (sometimes 3 a day). 3) If a Packer player made a mistake by missing a change made by the QB at the line, and put that QB in jeopardy he was gone ASAP.  a) it's not a question of smarts or athletic ability, they have to perform in public, no hiding, sorta like acting on the stag

. It won't be long till winter ! Best Regards, Chuck WB9KZY  http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

It was windy all day here Monday (10-17-22) and it continued into the evening -  the power went out about 9 PM so decided to read a Hardy Boys novel: The book was posted by Worldradiohistory.com :   https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Bookshelf_Enjoyment_of_Radio.htm https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Novels/Novel-The-Hardy-Boys-Shortwave-Mystery-Dixon-1966_21-08-30.pdf Can't remember reading any of the books as a kid.  I kinda remember Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk on the Mickey Mouse Club reruns as the Hardy Boys Here's the summary of the plot from the book: The book was ham radio assisted detection, no murder, just a little violence and  of course as with any "boys book" plenty of descriptions of food and hungry kids enjoying meals - eating food is the favorite things of any kid, even more than fooling with radio. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

source: https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/6348d35d28967831e0feb08b/master/w_600,c_limit/221024_a24109.jpg But when I think of a chemist I picture  Martyn Poliakoff from the Periodic Videos channel on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos Although Periodic Videos isn't on a rigid release schedule like many other Youtube channels (especially after the pandemic hit), they do produce quite a few videos and I find them all very interesting. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

In the olden days of the 20th century I used to watch the Tonight show, sometimes even after the monologue !  One thing that Johnny Carson did was to have guest hosts on his days off.  My memory tells me that at least once Orson Welles was the guest host.  One of his first guests that night was a young lady (in her flight suit) who did the traffic reports in LA.  Orson was still interested in girls :)  Another guest that night was Terri Garr who I think surprised Orson by asking a technical question about Citizen Kane, I couldn't find the clip on youtube but it was about this shot.   Orson answered her question and I think he was impressed and flattered that Ms. Garr knew that much about one of his movies. Citizen Kane was Orson Welles' first movie and many judge it to be not only his best but possibly the best movie ever made.  Certainly it's an interesting movie, an exaggerated telling of the William Randolph Hearst story.  The camera work is quite modern, lots of camer

      https://archive.org/details/VicandSade1944/Vic_And_Sade_440926_BOX_OF_OLD_LETTERS.mp3 Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm             

Videos from PBS Space Time's Dr. Matt O'Dowd appear on my Youtube feed a lot.  This one was really kinda cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d0EGIt1SPc I'd mentioned those "Dali-esque" gravitational lensed galaxies before in a blog post on the JWST: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/07/jwst-on-pbs-program-nova.html But it never occurred to me that this phenomenon could be used with the largest mass in our region (the Sun) to create a big big space telescope. I am glad that there are a lot of smart folks in the world to dream this kinda stuff up :) As a ham I have to wonder if gravitational lensing could also be used for radio/TV ?  Probably it can but the longer wavelengths would make it even more impractical ? But it would be really cool to listen to alien radio :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I finished listening to the Librivox audio book of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.  I did enjoy the book and thought that the twists and turns of the plot were probably one of the reasons why many modern mystery stories have unexpected twist endings.   original blog post:  https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-moonstone.html It is a long listen, 47 chapters.  And the Librivox recording itself is somewhat entertaining as the story was read by a number of readers.  Also in chapter 12 there were in the background the screams of kids at play :)  One of the narrators was a non-native English speaker but it's the story that makes for compelling listening not the voices. Unfortunately I've forgotten the name of the professor who recommended The Moonstone but thanks to modern technology I finally finished "reading" it.  I found the book a very enjoyable listen with interesting characters, a unique first person structure with multiple narrators (which were well served by th

An idea struck me (don't worry, didn't get hurt, it doesn't happen that often :) use an online text recognition and translation tool to translate some of the articles from DX ham radio magazines.  In particular, the CQ Ham Radio magazines from Japan that I have.  I used to go to a Japanese mall in suburban Chicago which had a bookstore.  They sold all kinds of Japanese magazines including CQ Ham Radio.  They are pretty expensive even with a subscription due to the high shipping costs.  The earliest issue I have is from October 1993,  over 544 pages of articles, news, columns and ads. I had previously blogged about using online translators to figure out the writing on the Terryscope: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/05/was-it-in-japanese.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/05/terryscope-translated-from-chinese-to.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-big-but-fun-waste-of-time.html Here is the site I usually use: https://translate.yandex.co.il/ocr The first candidate