A boy's passport to the world

Charlotte Observer ^ | 6/1/08 | Joe DePreist

[JRandomFreeper]

Besides, I needed to breath some aerosolized PCBs today.

I am so not letting my grandbabies in this house, ever again....

/johnny

[mylife]

Well. it sounds like the problem is with grounding or old deteriorated insulation.

Hopefully all the damage is in the first stage of the power conversion.

I attempted to fix an old 1920’s tube tester and it was all deteriorated. It was just a pile of work.

Check WWW.eham.com for parts or to sell parts

[JRandomFreeper]

I've got an AM reciever made from scratch.... as in the tuning coil is wrapped on a tp tube, all the caps are handmade with al foil and wax paper. Parts of cigarette packs were used. Rectification is an old razor blade. Only manufactured parts were wire and the carbon speaker from a telephone handset.

It's all doable... heck, someone did it first, a long time ago. You just need time, patience, and a severe lack of personal life.

/johnny

[JRandomFreeper]

Thanks for the link. Believe it or not.... Drake still works on their radios. I could send it to the factory to get fixed.

If I was rich.

/johnny

[mylife]

The popping and sizzling went on for 5 minutes after I unplugged it.

Impressive! ;)

Seriously, I, sorry to hear that

[mylife]

L0L!! L0L!!

[mylife]

Drake isnt outrageous. I almost bought the R8? got a ten tec rx320 instead of course when you get to broadcasting it gets expensive.

I just listen and make contacts on internet. Thats pretty cheap

[mylife]

Wow! That is an old beasty!

I used to work on the old Collins R390A and Collins actually still supports their stuff but some of the unique tubes are long gone, except what you can find at garage sales.

[mylife]

Manual and schematic Here

[Bobalu]

Yes, it’s fun to play with microwave signals.
If I get good results from my surplus PrimeStar dish I may pick up a castoff 12’ TVRO dish and see what I can do with that.

An amazing system is that WildBlue 2-way satellite internet system.
A tiny dish pretty much like a DirecTV dish in size with a 1 watt 29.5Ghz transmitter on it.
That 1 watt uplinks your data 23,000 miles to the satellite in geosynchronous orbit and a 90 watt transmitter on the satellite sends data back to you using a spot-beam.

One watt with a small dish actually puts a pretty good signal at 23,000 miles..... with microwaves line-of-sight is everything. That single watt would be readable on the surface of the moon without too much trouble.

[steveo]

[mylife]

Ahh ha! it was Steveo had the ping list!

Check out the field day story from Iraq

[JRandomFreeper]

Old, but sweet. She's been in the family for a while. I am hearing impaired, managed to pass the 13WPM code test anyway, and the old Drake was my preferred receiver. I had heck trying to pull signals out of the Alinco DX-70, and it's finals crapped out later anyway.

Sweet sound and good control with the Drake transmitter and receiver.

It is a little tougher to set up.

/johnny

[Squantos]

Baulin ? Is that the right name ???

[mylife]

Audio can be a prob as we get older

headphones sure help

[JRandomFreeper]

notch filter to match the radio, and a little gizmo to translate that to something within MY notch filter help a lot too. All filtering downstream of audio.

I'll never see 40WPM, but I do miss it, and can play with the novices down on 40.

/johnny

[mylife]

I’m a novice but I like this DSP filtering thats out now and the noise reduction

[JRandomFreeper]

Balun? I'm not sure what you are looking for...

/johnny

[Squantos]

Where did the pcbs emit from ?!?!?

Not sure if that is the word for what I am thinking ......sort of a sink for the radio ?

[JRandomFreeper]

Lots of transformers and capacitors from the old days contain PCBs. This xformer doesn't have any internal anymore. Neither does the capacitor.

It's all ok.... I filtered it through a cigarette that was burning at the time.

/johnny