A Crummy Commercial

 Recently I've seen some pictures of bugs and sounders from the middle days of wired telegraphy.  And that got me looking at an early wireless telegraphy book: https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technolgy-Early/Wireless-Telegraphy-and-Telephony-Morgan-1920.pdf Before proceeding, I thought this dedication was interesting: Alfred P. Morgan was a fan of Tesla One thing that struck me were the drawings and pictures of multi-wire antennas.  The first drawing of a transmitter shows an antenna with multiple wires and that "fan" connection that probably gave rise to the antenna symbol used in schematic drawings. Here is a photo of an amateur antenna and shack: This all reminded me of that famous Sarnoff/Einstein/Steinmetz photo mentioned previously in the blog: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/06/famous-people-meeting-or-not-plus-ultra.html   Sarnof, Einstein and Steinmetz The tangle of stuff above the heads of the group appears to be the terminus of a mighty multi-...

"Time for Reflection" by Christoph Niemann, cover of the July 25,2022 New Yorker When I saw this cover painting I thought of Morse Code during a contest on a horizontal waterfall display.  But the artist probably didn't :) Possibly an idea though for waterfall displays:  make the signals on closer frequencies (to the dial reading) larger than the farther away signals ? All I know is that water is hard for an artist to represent accurately, even someone like Winslow Homer could have trouble Breezing Up (a fair wind) by Winslow Homer 2nd half of the year resolution:  more fiction, more art - less non-fiction, fewer schematics :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

 Once a year I get to try out my Sony 2010 receiver on the air band.  It's usually a week before the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh.  The Washington Island Lion's Club holds their annual fly-in fish boil. For those who've never had it, a fish boil is a Door County, Wisconsin thing.  Hunks of whitefish along with potatoes (and possibly other stuff like onions) get put in a metal basket and cooked outdoors in wood fired kettles full of boiling, salted water.  After everything is cooked a small amount of kerosene is tossed on the fire to cause the pot to boil over - hopefully removing the unsightly froth of a vigorous boil from the food. OK, maybe more than a small amount   The basket is lifted out of the pot and the food gets served with plenty of butter. It was a nice day today (7-16-2022) but not sure how many planes flew-in for the fish boil as before the pandemic.  Although I didn't attend it's fairly easy to hear the planes lining up to land both the mot...

 I was trying to search for all the How's DX? columns in QST using the ARRL Periodicals Archive and Search: http://www.arrl.org/arrl-periodicals-archive-search    I clicked on the two versions of How's DX in the Column's Box: and got 1720 hits (!). Then when I clicked on either:  2  or  next     I got this: what happened to all the results ? Then noticing that the column(s) box showed that How's DX? had been un-selected I tried a search of just How's DX? and got 1688 hits but again when 2 or next were clicked it did the same thing as before: So not wanting to give up and ask the ARRL I tried this searching by year starting with 1996, this generated 51 hits but when the 2 or next were clicked, it does the same thing. Finally I tried just searching for How's DX? as keywords?  That works !  well sorta: but only 415 hits, but I can at least proceed to page 2 of the results Nothing is easy :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9k...

On Wednesday evening (7-13-2022) I watched this entire show:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF-7eKtzAHM and didn't fall asleep !  see https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-safest-sleep-aid-ever-invented.html   A very interesting overview of the history, launch and "first light" use of this new infrared telescope. Parents are happy, kid and dog don't care about JWST Dali-esque gravitational lensing Dali knew ? One thing they didn't mention was the fact that the James Webb Space Telescope mirrors are made of Beryllium.  Apparently the polished surfaces are plated with Gold, 500 to 600 atoms thick, but mostly the mirrors are Beryllium.  Beryllium is the fourth element on the periodic table, light, strong, stiff and resistant to expansion/contraction with heat.  But when I hear Beryllium I think the of Heathkit SB-230 amplifier.   Why ?  Because the heat sink of the SB-230 (it was a conduction cooled amplifier, no fans) had a Beryllium oxide "The...

 One of the weird things about a low power microcontroller circuit is that repeated power on/off cycles can result in strange circuit behavior.  The culprit is the low power nature of a sleeping microcontroller.  If a microcontroller is using less than 1 uA while sleeping it will take time to discharge even a small 2.2 uF power supply cap.  However with something like a keyer this is easily done by just pressing and holding the dit or dah.  The micro wakes up, current increases to mA range and the cap is soon discharged. However with some other low power circuits that use low frequency clocks (32.768 kHz) will only use in the range of 10 uA while active.  So it's harder to rapidly or repeatedly power cycle these circuits. Now there is also the phenomenon of soakage (dielectric absorption) as mentioned here: https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/analog/article/21796328/whats-all-this-soakage-stuff-anyhow   I don't think that's a factor with the ...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d198MtZHbZ0 This video popped up on my Youtube feed.  The radios being built may be the Philco model 511.  I was impressed by the 4 gang tuning cap apparently with brass plates (because they are soldered).  Philco was really vertically integrated except for the tubes.  They even made their own speakers and capacitors !  The 511 needs those 4 ganged caps as it is a TRF (Neutrodyne plus).  When I see 4 ganged caps I think expensive (for example: the Hallicrafters SX-88). How did they ever get them to track ? Schematic from this nice site: https://philcoradio.com/library/index.php/service-info/early-schematics/ Per this page:   http://www.tuberadioland.com/philco511_main.html the 511 fully outfitted was $160 which inflates to $2734 in 2022 dollars !   I suppose things changed really soon after the filming due to the depression. An interesting video Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kz...