brainwagon

Courtesy of the Make blog, check out Nyle Steiner’s Electronic Composition, using a variety of audio circuits which use bits of heated zinc instead of transistors. Nyle has done a bunch of experimentation with zinc negative resistance oscillators on his Spark, Bang, Buzz website, all of which are awesome. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z44jlvpRHXc

Now, I don’t have to write this myself.

Weeks ago, I found the following website on constructing ham transmitters using class E amplifiers, and today, I tried to find it again. It took me a couple of tries, so I am archiving the link here. If you want to create a fairly beefy AM transmitter, this is the website to go to. The […]

W8LIW’s grabber on 30m is currently showing my “MV” beacon transmissions as well as the DFCW of VE1VDM (I presume) and the flying W of W1BW, as well as the faint sawtooth of WB3ANQ. I can’t spot myself on W1BW’s grabber at the moment: my ability to get into Concord, MA seems limited over the […]

Thanks to Joanne, K9JKM for pointing out that Space Weather Radio is piping audio of Ursid Meteors crossing the radar fence which guards our country from the Ruskies. If you tune in, occasionally you’ll hear a rapid descending tone, caused by the radar bouncing off the ionized trails of meteors. Pretty cool.

With VE3IAC, lost the first part because fldigi crashed on me, but then got this: Sorry, had a software glitch there. Odd. Anywwhoo… BTU de K6HX.. eneoK6HX de VE3IAC, K6t , de VE3IAC I an sunning a special setup this evening ICOM-7000 @ abt 40W, battery power, about 200AH reserve w/ N8XIK nntter booster Antenna […]

While I am on the antenna kick, Howard, G6LVB mentioned his page on putting two cheap yagis on the same boom. Very, very nice. 10db of gain for a reasonably small antenna, and RHCP to boot. Homebrew Satellite Antenna.

While searching for a link for my brother on building antennas for HDTV (you guys are all ready for the oncoming digital TV Apocalypse, aren’t you?) I found this interesting link on an antenna which seems very good, and suitable for amateur construction. Seems like I could use some of the 12 gauge wire I […]

Okay, I hadn’t been doing any WSPR beacon operations since before Thanksgiving (which was also before my new callsign) and I was kind of bored today, so I dug out my power supply, tuner and interface and set my computer beaconing again on 30m. It’s a combination beacon: using WSPR above 10.140100, and a visual […]

Laura Halliday mentioned this page on the QRP-L while discussing the innards of those Radio Shack “atomic clocks” that you can buy. Seems like there are some good links to helpful information regarding the time services provided by NIST via WWV. NIST Time and Frequency Publication Database. Addendum: Jim Miller, AC3BV gave this link on […]

Alex wasn’t the first to recommend this article on building a 80m transmitter from parts scavenged from a CFL bulb, but his link was enough for me to elevate it to front page status. It’s a fairly neat project: the 80m transmitter only requires a handful of additional components (most notably, a crystal, but also […]

While browsing around at the airport before Christmas, I ran across this page by PE0FKO about his program IQRec.exe, which is used to record the quadrature outputs from a Software Defined Radio. It includes an example recording of nearly 30 minutes of the CQWPX contest recorded on 40m at 96khz. In theory, that means that […]

John, KB2HSH, whom I chatted with a few times on the #amsat IRC channel has been writing up his experiences working satellites and the like. This morning, he was taking advantage of the Geminid meteor shower, and doing some listening for high speed meteor contacts. Very interesting, and even inspiring. I’ll have to do some […]

This morning, I decided to take the new box that I had acquired and remount my K1EL keyer into it. The new box is somewhat larger, so it actually has space for all five of the possible dedicated buttons that the K1EL supports, instead of the mere three that I had haphazardly bored into the […]

I woke up this morning, and wanted to relax a bit before the day’s exciting activities (more on this later), so I noted that NOAA17 was coming up. I got out after the pass (which had a maximum elevation of under 15 degrees) was under way, but the audio sounded pretty clear, so I recorded […]