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October 3rd 04, 02:56 AM

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

(N2EY) wrote in message
...
In article ,

(Brian Kelly) writes:

I'll bet I know where the S3 came from . . .

W3ABT, now N3KZ

. . . I couldn't have missed . . !

It even has convenient connections to all the oscillators coming out the back.

My method was quick/n/dirty but it worked. No busted traces either.

Sounds OK for small one-off boards but there are some downsides to
that method. The biggest I see is that you can't get multiple boards
out of a single layout, you have to do the "artwork" for each board
which is the intensive labor part of DIY PCBs.

Agreed! But since it was a one-off, no problem.

The stripline SWR
bridge I built worked quite well and as a result I got several
requests for copies of the board and I was able to churn 'em out
pretty quickly by simply reusing the "negative". Which I also was able
to keep on file for possible use again.

Yup.

An advantage of using the commercially-supplied to-scale transfer
patterns for chips and transistors was high accuracy and density
without having to draft and cut them manually. Which is a *lotta* work
if you did a big board like the K3JH keyer which used a couple dozen
chips. Solder-patching the traces was a 5-10 minute per board
no-brainer, I did it to all traces as "insurance". In the end both
approaches have their applications.

old crap. I have a yen now to build a couple more widgets using
homebrewed PCBs but so far I have not been able to find the board
stock or chemicals in hobby quantities.

I have the board stock. Ferric chloride is a different matter...

Bare double-sided board stock is readily available but sensitized
board stock ain't and neither are the chemicals. No doubt it's just a
matter of Googling around to locate the stuff. Maybe the technology
has improved to the point where DIY "board burning" is now a piece of
cake.

Two tricks I've read about but not tried yet:

Get a pen plotter (remember them?) and set it up with your favorite CADD system
to draw the resist onto the boardstock directly. Of course it's a dedicated
piece of hardware....

There are also various techniques where you print a positive (?) onto a
transfer sheet which is then ironed onto the boardstock (literally) and peeled
off. Then etch.

Then the slickest trick of all:

There are prototype board shops that will make boards for you. You feed 'em the
artwork and they make the boards in an almost totally-automated process. Prices
are low enough that if you make a few copies it gets really attractive -
particularly since the price includes things like coating and component
locations. And you don't have to deal with the chemicals or board stock.

I fed the aformentioned dumpster a *shoebox* full of those old 7400
series chips . . .

They were da bomb in their time but today it would be easier to do it other
ways.

Right.

Here's how I'd do it today:

Still need a timebase, input amp/gates/sequencer and counters. But the counters
could be simple 2N, not decade counters.

The counter outputs would be managed by a PIC that would also do the job of
latching, storage, and up/down add/subtract functions. Also a lot of control
functions.

Or just do a mechanical dial...

Why would I do that when shaft encoders and freq counters are a
helluva lot smarter way to go??

They're only "smarter" if you have all the goodies to go with 'em. Like the
whole synthesizer and the controller and the programming. For a one-off project
that gets to be a bit much.

This is one of the trends that makes homebrewing unattractive.

In the ancient times, you mounted the parts on a wooden base, then wired it up.
Build a rig in an evening.

Then came metal chassis and panels. Do the metal layout, the metal work, mount
the parts, wire it up. Build a rig in a bunch of evenings.

Then came PC boards. Do the metal layout, the metal work, the PC board layout,
fabricate the PC boards, stuff the PC boards, mount the rest of the parts.
Build a rig in some weeks of evenings.

Then came PICS and other programmable devices. Do the metal layout, the metal
work, the PC board layout, fabricate the PC boards, stuff the PC boards, mount
the rest of the parts. Then do the software development, debug, program. Build
a rig in many weeks of evenings.

Given typical basement resources, I'll have my mechanical dial built and
calibrated before the other guy has his PC boards done.

That leaves Sweetums and his half-vast "experience" out. Long-haul
military HF comms are channelized and if a station is weak they just
twist the Variac clockwise. 40kW with rhombics just to push RTTY from
Tokyo to the west coast . . SPARE me . . !

Just a different environment. Army of Occupation takes over JA in 1945, one
of
the first orders of business is good comms back to DC and Arlington. Pick
out a
good site, put up the poles, haul up the diamonds, fire away. All on the
taxpayer's nickel. Well spent money but has little to do with the reality
of self-funded avocational radio.

Right on the money. As if Sweetums ever sank dime one of his own wad
one into any "station he operated".

Sure he did. He had a cb set, for one.

Fact is that he wouldn't have done
any of it if us taxpayers hadn't paid him to do it . . . Hell, we even
paid him to trudge thru the University of Monmouth Vo-Tech Division.

So what? That's what it was there for.

Where the disconnect occurs is in situations like this:

Len says there was no use of Morse Code at ADA. Or anywhere in US Army
"point-to-point" radio comms back in 1952 or whenever. All done by RTTY...or
RATT, as they called it then. All of which is almost certainly true.

Where the disconnect occurs is that Len seems to think that the Army's non-use
of Morse then and there means that hams should not use or have a test for Morse
here and now. The connection is never explained.

Sponge. Bleh!

all at once raise the apparent noise floor of their *modern*
transceivers, in part due to phase-noisy oscillators in the
contest-haters equipment.

"If ya can't take the heat go up the band!"

Point is, they *could* coexist with better equipment.

There is no way that any guy/gal even with the world's quietist rcvr
and offscale BDRs and IMD3s is gonna "coexist" and ragchew with
anybody on 7.020 at sundown and beyond during the two big CW DX
contests, just isn't possible in any even remotely practical scenario.
Try it the last weekend of November. Move up the band or go to 30M.
'Way up the band . . .

How far up does the contest go? How about 7.070?

btw - the way I'd solve the problem would be to email you for the
solution.

. . . boink . . POINT!

"Wouldn't it be easier for *me* if *you* did it?"
. . . .

Like I said - don't reinvent the wheel....

You do your things, I add my things and we get the job done.

Exactly!

But
Sweetums can do it ALL . . . of course his history proves otherwise.

Actually, we have no idea what he can do on his own. He doesn't mention any
projects he does in his home shop. Nor does he have a web page showing them.

My highschool friend could do all kinds of projects - in theory.

I run a LISP
rountine in Autocad to come up with the cross-sectional properties

. . . .

Nice! But I prefer Microstation...

Lemmee know when you get yer home installation of Microstation to spit
out the plane and torsional moments of inertia of a tower section.

I can get that result in about 120 seconds.....

73 de Jim, N2EY

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