Station Log

2/27/2011 - Well, what can I say...its been awhile since I update my page..sorry. Finished the dual bander and after some tweaking, got it the way I wanted it to end up. Never used it last summer, but maybe this year at Dayton. I did add a page call the "Super VXO" which I should have done about a year ago...at least that is when I finished the playing with it part on the work bench. I can get about 30 KHz swing out of a plain old cheap 40 meter crystal. See the material I post here.
Been playing with ATMEL AVR chips and plan on some PIC playing too before we leave for some camping this spring! Not sure what I will play with next...but have a Regie II that I bought last year at Dayton from Rex at QRPme...so maybe I will do that first and then figure out what to play with this summer.

5/1/2010 - Amazing that summer is almost upon us. Working on a KD1JV dual bander (80 and 40 mtrs) rig along with some odds & ends. Getting my RV station gear ready to put in the camper for some fun at Dayton and then camping in MI, OH, IN and NY.
1/14/2010 - Started playing with PICAXE and AVR microprocessors on breadboards...lots of fun and easy to setup and use. I think I need to distract myself from RF stuff for a time and just play with whatever catches my interest. Watch for updates on the mircroprocessor page (coming soon!).
12/18/09 - Been playing more than updating things...including my web page and lab book. Have been working on a 40 Combo Rig made with 4SQRP's NS-40 transmiter and VRX-1 receiver. Have it together and have been actually on the air with a contact with Ron, K3SEW out of Howard, PA. I need to create a separate page for all the info and pictures. Click here for what I have posted so far.
8/24/09 - Been quite busy camping this summer. Hope to get some homebrew projects done now that I am home again.
3/29/09 - G3RJV Polyvaricon Tuned Sudden Receiver.

Built up a project this weekend. It is a direct conversion receiver for 40 meters, but can easily be scaled for any band.
Got the idea from a blog site. You can see the article at qrper.blogspot.
I am putting most of the info here on my web site, DC Receiver Project

3/3/09 - The last few weeks have been rough for me, but now all seems to be back in order.

The Willamette it done and working very well. Hope that my first contact will be with Jason, NT7S who is the one who designed the project.
Started the Four State's Club project called the "HF Test Set". Fun and easy kit to assemble. My grandkids left today for home so I hope to get this new project done soon.
I am working on a local club (Casades Amateur Radio Club here in Jackson) project for a series of homebrew projects. Have six guys who are interested in participating...we will start with a RF Probe using a 1N5711, then a Noise Generator, then a TT2.
Will be changing some admin stuff on the web page and might lose access for a couple of days, but will update as soon as possible.

1/8/09 -Spent days working on getting the receiver parts installed on my Willamette 20 meter CW Transceiver. This is the most fun homebrew project I've done in a long time. I'm posting the MDS between -125 and -130 dBm, audio out is crisp and rich in sound with little to no hiss/noise. Now starting the transmitter portion.
12/21/08 - Spent the last few days building and playing with a Return Loss Bridge (RLB) and a "Direct-read Impedance Using a Scope" bridge of sorts.

The RLB is from Jim, K8IQY's web page and can also be found in EMRFD. It works as expected and has really opened my eyes to what return loss is about.
The Direct-read bridge consists of five resistors in a bridge configuration. You can measure both amplitude and phase with it. The phase part is important if you want to get an idea of what the impedance is of the DUT.
I will get some schematics and comments for both items on here soon.

12/15/08 - I spent nearly the entire time today in the shack working on my analysis of the UWA.

The measurements done last night (actually very early this morning) were not quite right. The output levels were 2 or 3 dBm low caused by a termination issue which I didn't recognize until I talked with the UWA designer today. Got that little glitch resolved and the rest of it ended up on its own web page...click here to see.
I am now pondering what to do next. I would like to get an RF Probe and Noise Generator done and uploaded here on the web. I think that would add some easy to build but quite useful tools for a homebrewer who is just starting out.
W8DIZ recently introduced a new RF Toolkit call " 5 Watt CW RF Amplifier" that uses one 2N5109 and two 2SC5739s. This is going to be a FANTASTIC circuit to have around for boosting very low levels of RF up to around 4 to 5 watts. More to come.

12/14/08 - Wideband Amp, new paddle, understanding instrumentation measurements.

Built up one of W8DIZ's RF Toolkits, this one is call the Universal Wideband Amplifier (UWA). I will try to get some info up on a page once I get done looking how linear it is from 3.5 to 30 MHz.

I also received a new set of paddles a couple of days ago from K8VF. The paddle is made in the Ukraine and seems to be all brass. The name of it is CT 599 Iambic. s/n 062, made in 2004. I really like this paddle!
I had a heck of a time setting up my scope, SA, freq generator and power meter. Learned more about what I never knew or had forgotten <smile>. Scopes display voltage in terms of peak-to-peak (pk-pk), and not in rms. Determining power levels in dBm from a scope presentation is a fun exercise in math...I cheated and used a table I found on the internet. I did go back and revisit the math required though. Measuring signals in the RF range require termination in a particular way, and in my case in ways I wasn't expecting.

<> Want to add a pic of my dual lever paddle, it is a CT 599 brass made in the Ukraine. Very comfortable to use and the looks are very nice.

Received my digikey and mouser orders, also got an OCR Regen and SW-4-+ kits from a 4-lander. Felt like Christmas today...LOL.

Want to start doing a template for laying out either "glued down" pads or "islander" pads for JXN TT2 project.
Want to build NT7S's broadband noise generator
Put an attenuator in the Tracking Generator for my W7ZOI SA so the signal does not swamp the baseline display on the SA.<><><>