Al Klein wrote:

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:49:48 GMT, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

Can you say "Yes, I ar wun"?

Can't you spell any better than that?

A spelling flame! I'm vanquished!


Not really, I just hate needless abbreviations, and even more so as
my vision gets worse.


So, Al. Can you tell us how many receivers or transmitters have you
built from scratch? Not from a kit, or someone else's design, but from
scratch? Drew a block diagram that was converted to a real schematic
one block at a time where you did all the math, laid out the chassis,
cut and drilled all the holes and built the equipment all by yourself?

3 receivers, about a dozen transmitters. Oh, yes, and the automation
system of the Hong Kong Space Museum planetarium, the old Amtrak
ticket printer, some software that's in use in over 50,000
installations around the world ...

But I'm not the typical ham, I've been a design engineer for a long
time.


I was asked a number of times why I didn't have a degree in EE. When
I found a problem, or saw something that needed improved I didn't just
run crying to the MEs. I researched the problem and wrote up a detailed
report. I found the way to correct the problem, found a source for any
part we didn't already stock, and submitted it directly to the engineer
responsible for that item. After a while they would just flip through
my paperwork and submit it to be typed up on the proper forms, then sign
it off. I had planned to go to college and get my degree, but my time in
the Army threw those plans out the window.


What is the biggest transmitter you've ever built or used? I'm a
disabled now, but I worked in broadcast

Never built anything over a kilowatt, but engineered some pretty hefty
ones. (Ch. 40 in Waterbury CT, WWRL, WHN, a few others.)

(You remind me of an IBM HR department of old. They always wanted to
know the largest program the applicant ever wrote. Someone
legitimately told them, back when software was a few k, that he'd
written a 3 meg program. It was a translation program with a 3 meg
dictionary. You're playing "mine is bigger than yours.")


Not really, but a lot of guys have never done anything more than
solder a microphone plug to a cable, and then use those crappy
solderless coax connectors. Actually, I'm always happy to meet a ham
with some real electronics skills. I meet a lot of retired hams here
near Ocala, and very few of them know any electronics. I hear the same I
could through together a CW rig from scratch in an emergency, then they
admit they don't even have an old ARRL handbook to look up a schematic,
or any parts. One told me he would use parts from his TV set, that the
horizontal output tube and a few other parts would put him on the air.
He didn't even know that his six month old TV only had one tube, and
I've never seen a transmitter built from a CRT and salvaged, unmarked
SMD parts.


Biggest isn't the goal, but a long term large project is always
interesting. I always liked a challenge, and left the easy jobs for
everyone else.


Tell us, what can you do other than whine? Have you ever built a commercial TV station from
scratch?

All by myself, no. Ever build a planetarium automation system all by
yourself from scratch (including inventing some of the technology -
which is still, after 30 years, state of the art)? But I'm not going
to get into a ****ing contest with you. If you were mentally as old
as you claim your body to be you wouldn't have started one.


I never built anything like that, but I did repair some electronics
for the manager of the planetarium at the Orlando Science Center years
ago. I have worked on numerous industrial control systems, as well.
Sounds like it was a bit of a challenge. Good for you. My next
couple projects are an electric gate controller, and a motorized flag
pole, both with custom controllers with 100 MHz Ethernet interfaces so i
can run them from any computer on my home network. I have about 50' of
used TV tower in storage. I'm going to weld angle iron up two legs and
use a motorized trolley to raise and lower the flag. The gate openers
are a pair of used 24" sat tv jacks with a custom controller, a web cam,
and an emergency open button that sets off the security system as the
gate opens.


I found CW boring years ago, and have some hearing problems so I said
to hell with Morse code and got involved in the equipment design end of
things. It was more fun for me to develop a design and built it, get it
aligned and working, then move on to the next design.

Since I totally depend on 2 4 channel BTE aids, I can't receive CW
that easily any more, but that's not a good reason for the FCC to drop
the requirement. It's not even a bad reason. But when anyone can
guess well enough to pass the "technical" part of the exam, the
license isn't worth much.


What about the people locked out by CW requirements who wanted to
design and test RF equipment? Not the "I don't do solder" types, but
people with a real love of electronic design? I've always had a severe
dropout in my hearing that made it impossible to listen to CW for more
than a few minutes at a time. I would end up with headaches, some that
lasted for days. I finally threw in the towel and went into other areas
of electronics. I wanted to learn microwave communications. Along the
way I worked in Broadcast and Two way radio servicing. My last job was
building commercial microwave receivers at Microdyne. They were custom
built from base models for the customers application, on whatever band
or segment they needed, and with IF and video bandwidths from 10 KHz to
40 MHz. In a place like that you would have thought there would be a
lot of hams, but I only found about a dozen still licensed, and not one
who was still active.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida