Tech Fail

Can't stop laughing....

1954 Vision of 2004 Home Computer

Click image to enlarge. This looks nothing like my 2004 home computer. 

What is the big chrome steering wheel for?

My First Calculator

In 1972 I entered college and my goal was an electrical engineering degree. I still had a slide rule from high school and actually took a refresher course in my first quarter at college. By that winter, affordable handheld calculators were coming out and I bought the "Bowmar Brain" for $160 that Radio Shack was selling under there own name. It was heavy to hold with an LED readout and NiCad batteries and you had to charge it each night. It didn't even have scientific notation yet so you had to keep track of that separately! By the time the batteries died in ~1984, I replaced it with an LCD Casio scientific calculator for under $20.

Hiram Percy Maxim Antenna 1915

My kind of ham antenna....

 

Hiram Percy Maxim (1AW) station 1915

He is the founder of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL),

 the largest organized body of ham radio operators. 

Mr. Maxim also invented the gun silencer.

 

Atwater Kent Radio Factory

Here is a great photo tour of the Atwater Kent radio factory. Click on the first photo to get the big views. Back then, these jobs would be considered high tech cush positions - compared to the chicken plucking factories...

Atwater Kent was the largest radio manufacturer in the 1920s. Collectors were actively searching for old sets even back in the 1960s when I was into old radios.

Pictured below is one of the sets being manufactured in the photo collage. The large horn speaker is not shown.

Zenith Royal 705 AM Radio

My dad bought this AM radio in the early 1960s to use during power outages and later when trailer camping. It ran on 4 x AA cells, had a real air variable tuning cap and an RF amp stage for excellent range. I spent many a morning listening to this little gem in my teenage years while camping or eating lunch.I can hear Paul Harvey's voice now...

Crystal Set as a Work of Art

What a beautifully sculptured crystal set. I built mine into an electric blanket controller box. This photo courtesy of 1632.org. Click on image to enlarge.

My Ham Station Photos

 

1991 - all homebrew station

1977 - packing up the station to move to Yakima (it was usually much more cluttered)

 

1981 - Northgate in Seattle

My First Heathkit

In the winter of 1968, I was taking a French class in 9th grade and wanted to tune in to some foreign shortwave stations to listen to real French being spoken. I ordered the cheapest Heathkit shortwave receiver, the model GR-81, that they had for $24. I put it together and got it working and was amazed and dissapointed at the same time. I had never used a regenerative receiver before and discovered that they made lousy shortwave receivers for AM broadcast signals but made excellent ham band receivers. Suddenly, I could understand the single sideband phone signals on the ham bands and could hear CW (international morse code) as tones rather than thumps. I quickly taught myself the Morse code, got my ham license, forgot all about French and the rest is history. I owned a number of used Heathkit ham receivers and transmitters but only built three Heathkits in my life - the GR-81, an HW-8 portable CW transceiver and the IG-5218 audio generator. I actually still have and use the audio generator that I built in the early 80s.

FORTRAN - 1954

In 1954, the first FORTRAN program was run on an IBM 704 mainframe. I remember those darn keypunch cards and Fortran from my engineering classes at the University of Washington in 1975. This photo is courtesy of Geeks Fun Blog.

Navy LF Transmitters

How do you communicate directly with a sub under water? You use very low frequency RF 15-30 kHz and LOTS of power (1MW). I live 20 miles from one of these Navy transmitters (Jim Creek, WA) and had the pleasure to tour it once with a hamfest group in the 1980s. I worked in a TV station so was used to broadcast sized transmitters but was still in awe at antenna tuner coils that you could stand up inside of. They wouldn't let us take pictures since it was an active site but here are some links from around the web of virtual tours, pictures, etc:

Yosami Japan VLF station using mechanical generators

 Jim Creek,WA virtual tour

Edison Electric Light

On October 15, 1878, Thomas Edison invented the electric light. To be more accurate, he perfected an incandescent light bulb that could last longer than 10 seconds. I disagree about it affecting the soundness of sleep....

Darth Vader Made from Tech

Workbenches For Electronics

 

my current workbench 2013

 my workbench 2008-2011

 

the late Jim Williams' workbench

EDN slideshow of Bob Pease and Jim Williams

 

neatly organized workbench

 functional and good layout

Lightning on Demand

The Lightning on Demand (LOD) project is attempting to build a project with two 10 story Tesla coils separated by 260 feet to study lightning. Find more information at the Lightning Foundry website. To make a living, I have to work on practical devices to sell to consumers but this would be a sweet and crazy gig.

Keys, Bugs and Paddles

When I first became a ham, I somehow acquired a J-38 hand key. This was a top of the line WWII surplus telegraph key that was extremely well built. Some of us got rid of the bakelite base and mounted the key on a nice piece of wood or brass (beware RF burns on conductive bases). I still have mine, decades after I quit being an active amateur.

After I graduated from being a novice, I still had a love for CW (Morse code). Not having the bucks for an electronic keyer in 1970, I acquired a used bug, the Vibroplex Original model, as shown at the right. These had a spring loaded weight that made dots automatically but it was up to the operator to make the dashes and spaces correctly. It took a lot of practice, almost as much as playing a musical instrument. I actually went to the local telegraph office and got tips on how to use a bug from the operator there. They used teletype by 1970 but the guy had been there for so long that he remembered how to use a bug and the trick of soldering a ball bearing to a screw to add more weight for use below 20 WPM.

Finally, after college, I could afford nice toys. Electronic keyers made dot and dash strings very well, and were easy to use to make perfect code. The Bencher paddle, shown on the left was the best of the best for use with the electronic keyer. I still have one of these in my closet. Both the Vibroplex bugs and Bencher paddle could be ordered gold plated if you had the money. I miss them all.

W8JK Antenna

The W8JK antenna design is a clever beast. Invented by Dr. John D. Kraus, W8JK, in 1937, it uses two dipoles, both driven and out of phase with each other, to create a directional antenna (no front to back ratio, though) that works on six bands (20-17-15-12-10-6 meters) and as a top loaded vertical on 40 meters (with a counterpoise ground). I used one of these at two locations and had excellent luck with it. The wire beam version, as shown in the top photo, is the cheap method (which I used) and you generally pick the direction that you want to work, which in WA is towards Europe, of course. In real practice it straddles the house so mine always pointed north-south and north over the pole to Europe worked for me. You need a balanced antenna tuner with this antenna and open wire or a low loss twinlead feedline. Here is a good article on the W8JK antenna by ZR6TXA. Dr John D. Kraus was an amazing physicist, inventing antennas for radio astronomy, building cyclotrons and working on anti-radar measures and ship de-gaussing during WWII.

1920s Shipboard Radio Station

 

This is a cool picture of an Italian shipboard radio station as seen on uv201.com

I guess they didn't worry much about electrical shock back then.That's the biggest knife switch that I've ever seen!

Click on image to enlarge.

Mother of All Radios

This is one awesome AM pre-WWII radio. The 1936 Crosley WLW Super-Power Radio was built to answer a challenge from Zenith who had just built the similar Stratosphere radio. Crosley also owned the radio station WLW, a 50KW AM station in Cincinnati, OH.

The Crosley radio had 37 tubes, six loudspeakers and 75W of power in a cabinet 58" tall, 42" wide and 22" deep. The chassis's were all chrome plated and the unit weighed 475 lb. There was an 18" woofer, two each 12" midrange speakers and three tweeters with frequency response form 20-20,000 cps. A microphone with a 25' cord was included so the radio could be used as a PA system. The radio tuned 540 kc to 18,300 kc.

 The radio cost $1500 at the time. A new Ford then cost $652. This radio now sells for $55,000 on E-Bay.

For more details visit Radio Magazine Online.

Johnson Viking II - Beefeater Ham Rig

The Johnson Viking II - circa 1952, kit or assembled, 70 lb, 180W CW, 2 x 6146,

2 x 807 modulator tubes, 160-10M, $279 (kit)

I  operated one in 1971, loved the knobs and smell

Tube Testers Then and Later

 

Weston 533 Tube Tester - circa 1930

 

1960s era tube tester

How quickly things got complicated. 

I had a Conair tube tester from 1970-1978 that was much like this one above.

 

 

Vintage Ray-O-Vac Tube Ad

Click image to enlarge

Releasing the Magic Smoke

as seen at ElectronicWeekly.com

Boat Anchors From My Past - National HRO-50

National HRO-50 ham bands only with plug in coil modules, circa 1951

Owned 1984 - Seattle, WA

Click image to enlarge

Boat Anchors From My Past - National Super Pro

 

Pre-WWII National Super Pro general coverage receiver
owned 1971 in Orofino, ID

Click image to enlarge

Boat Anchors From My Past - RCA AR-88

 

WWII vintage RCA AR-88 general coverage receiver

owned 1980 in Seattle, WA

Click image to enlarge

Boat Anchors From My Past - Collins 75A1

Collins 75A1 - ham bands only, circa 1947
owned 1988 - Seattle, WA
Click image to enlarge

Circuit Diagram Pun

 

As seen on xkcd.com

N4GG Spark Gap Transmitter

Spark gap transmitters were invaluable in the 1910s and 1920s, especially for ship to ship and ship to shore. N4GG has done a remarkable job of building this replica. Photos of each step can be found here.

1940 Philco Console Radio

When I was 12-13 years old, I tinkered with old radios and TVs (just before my ham radio days). People would just give them to me to get them off their hands. My greatest find was a 1940 Philco console like the one at the right. I had already seen a few other lesser consoles from that era. I liked them for the shortwave radio bands that they all seemed to include. This Philco had really cool thumbwheel tuning and volume controls and this model had dual tuning eyes although I don't see them in this picture. Most all these models had 10" speakers and sounded pretty good, except for the hum. They had speakers with electromagnets for the driver magnet. The electromagnet was powered because it was also the power supply choke for the B+. You can imagine the 120 Hz hum! Magnets must have cost a fortune then, predating cheap ceramic magnets.

Wire Gauge Chart

Audio Weighting Curves

Click image to enlarge.

Drill Size Chart

Click image to enlarge.

1944 Electromagnetic Radiation Chart

Download the Original chart here (110M) or you won’t be able to zoom in on all the details.
This thing really is a magnificent work of art (to a geek, anyway).