About Us

October 4th 04, 04:58 PM

PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

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....

I've owned three CAD plotters. Two were early-mid '90s pen plotters
and both were abominations I never want to have to deal with again. My
current plotter is an HP D-size Windoze color inkjet machine which is
very nice. All of 'em are/were sheet and/or roll fed and can't be used
to draw on flat surfaces. You're talking about using a flatbed pen
plotter. I guess there are some of those still out there but I don't
want anything to do with 'em for any purpose much less just to crank
out a few PCBs.

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.

THAT sounds like the way to go. This is good. Inkjet or laser printer?

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.

They advertise all over the electronics trade publications and on the
Web. "It just ain't the same as real hombrewing." . .

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.

Not my problem, those are your problems, I don't reinvent wheels, I do
the knob, you do the rest.

This is one of the trends that makes homebrewing unattractive.

Agreed and trying to use SMT devices to homebrew compact complex
equipment really drives a stake in it.

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

ME built a rig on a wooden base? You jest. Never in this world . . !
Aluminum or steel or forget it.

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.

SOP.

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.

Probably but it depends on whether yer talking Collins quality or
rubber-band quality mechanicals.

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.

Seems like he also had some green dot / yellow dot sorts of reddios in
addition to the CB rig. 100% Rat Shack and Moxon plug & play. Whatta
"homebrewer" . . .

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.

Yeah, I guess we had to have somebody "over there" reading the
repeater meters and locked in mortal combat with all those kamikaze
geishas in the joints in Tokyo. While I worked my way thru E school
back here on the home front. On my own dime.

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.

Nobody can "explain" irrelevance compounded by irrationality. Or
explain him for that matter.

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?

Bunch of variables are involved in this sticky wicket. But in general
at high noon a QRP ragchew on 7.020 should be no sweat. But when the
east coast big guns swing their monster yagis at EU to open the band
in the afternoon you better be above 7.050 and the "MUF" goes higher
from there as the clock ticks. MUF in this case being the *minimum*
usable freq for non-contesters.

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.....

Here we go, I'm gonna hold yer feet to the fire on this one Micollis.
I'm gonna show up at your place with a .dxf of a random cross-section
on a CD and you find **all** of it's cross-sectional properties within
120 seconds or you pop for my Newtown Square Ale House wet roast beef
sammich.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv

October 5th 04, 12:56 AM

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

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

(Brian Kelly) writes:

I've owned three CAD plotters. Two were early-mid '90s pen plotters
and both were abominations I never want to have to deal with again. My
current plotter is an HP D-size Windoze color inkjet machine which is
very nice. All of 'em are/were sheet and/or roll fed and can't be used
to draw on flat surfaces. You're talking about using a flatbed pen
plotter. I guess there are some of those still out there but I don't
want anything to do with 'em for any purpose much less just to crank
out a few PCBs.

R R R

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.

THAT sounds like the way to go. This is good. Inkjet or laser printer?

I forget. Google rec.radio.amateur.homebrew for "DIY PC boards" "inkjet" and
such words. All sorts info the past few years.

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.

They advertise all over the electronics trade publications and on the
Web. "It just ain't the same as real hombrewing." . .

Yeah, I know, but depending on yer timeframe, space, tools and tolerance for
smells and such it may be cheaper/easier/quicker to farm it out.

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.

Not my problem, those are your problems, I don't reinvent wheels, I do
the knob, you do the rest.

This is one of the trends that makes homebrewing unattractive.

Agreed and trying to use SMT devices to homebrew compact complex
equipment really drives a stake in it.

There are those who can do SMT, of course. But the stuff requires yet another
level of tooling and skills.

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

ME built a rig on a wooden base? You jest. Never in this world . . !
Aluminum or steel or forget it.

I've done it...

Point is, it was quick, inexpensive, easy and forgiving of errors

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.

SOP.

Yup but a lot more work than a piece o' wood

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.

Probably but it depends on whether yer talking Collins quality or
rubber-band quality mechanicals.

I figured that one out about 35 years ago:

WW2 surplus had lots of good parts. Among the very best are the integral
dial/reduction drives/capacitors found in ARC-5 rx and tx units, and the
LM/BC-221 freqmeters. All you need are adapters for the shaft and a new dial.

Swords into plowshares. I never bothered with Millen and National drives for
serious stuff.

The Type 7 uses a cap from a hangar-queen BC-221. 100:1 nobacklash drive,
thermally compensated, extremely rugged cast frame, etc. Better than almost
anything in typical ham gear. Cost maybe $5 for the whole chassis, which has
lots other good parts.

To get more dial spread, I made a dial drum from a piece of 6" plexiglass
tubing. Recycled, of course. Dial light/reflector assembly is inside the drum
and shines through the plexiglass. You view the lighted dial through a window
in the front panel.

To calibrate, I wound a piece of paper on the drum and marked it with the aid
of my working BC-221. Then the raw paper was redrawn via CADD, the result
inkjet printed on a scrap of Mylar drawing stock, and the whole thing put on
the dial drum. Works and I can read it in any light, with or without glasses.

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.

Seems like he also had some green dot / yellow dot sorts of reddios in
addition to the CB rig. 100% Rat Shack and Moxon plug & play. Whatta
"homebrewer" . . .

You see what some folks pulled with those licenseless HTs down in Orange
County, FL?

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.

Yeah, I guess we had to have somebody "over there" reading the
repeater meters and locked in mortal combat with all those kamikaze
geishas in the joints in Tokyo. While I worked my way thru E school
back here on the home front. On my own dime.

Been there, done that - halfway, anyhow. One big reason I went to Penn was the
nice Benjamin Franklin scholarship they gave me. Covered more than half of the
cost per year. Also NDSL loans and a near-full-time job year 'round.

Junior year was a trip - 5 engineering courses and working 35-39 hours/week. No
car, either. Thank you SEPTA....

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.

Nobody can "explain" irrelevance compounded by irrationality. Or
explain him for that matter.

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?

Bunch of variables are involved in this sticky wicket. But in general
at high noon a QRP ragchew on 7.020 should be no sweat. But when the
east coast big guns swing their monster yagis at EU to open the band
in the afternoon you better be above 7.050 and the "MUF" goes higher
from there as the clock ticks. MUF in this case being the *minimum*
usable freq for non-contesters.

R R R

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.....

Here we go, I'm gonna hold yer feet to the fire on this one Micollis.
I'm gonna show up at your place with a .dxf of a random cross-section
on a CD and you find **all** of it's cross-sectional properties within
120 seconds or you pop for my Newtown Square Ale House wet roast beef
sammich.

All I do is email the problem to you and wait for the results. Then
Microstation does a format conversion....

I didn't say I could solve the problem, just that I could get the results!

I'll buy the RB without a bet.

73 de Jim, N2EY

October 6th 04, 06:32 PM

PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

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.

They advertise all over the electronics trade publications and on the
Web. "It just ain't the same as real hombrewing." . .

Yeah, I know, but depending on yer timeframe, space, tools and tolerance for
smells and such it may be cheaper/easier/quicker to farm it out.

Time and tools I have, the space is a question though. I was raised in
a machine shop, worked in refineries, chemical plants, textile mills
and had a darkroom. Odors are no biggie.

Agreed and trying to use SMT devices to homebrew compact complex
equipment really drives a stake in it.

There are those who can do SMT, of course. But the stuff requires yet another
level of tooling and skills.

Kills it for me.

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

ME built a rig on a wooden base? You jest. Never in this world . . !
Aluminum or steel or forget it.

I've done it...

Point is, it was quick, inexpensive, easy and forgiving of errors

And when it's done it looks just like what it is, a POS.

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.

SOP.

Yup but a lot more work than a piece o' wood

I'm willing.

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

Probably but it depends on whether yer talking Collins quality or
rubber-band quality mechanicals.

I figured that one out about 35 years ago:

WW2 surplus had lots of good parts. Among the very best are the integral
dial/reduction drives/capacitors found in ARC-5 rx and tx units, and the
LM/BC-221 freqmeters. All you need are adapters for the shaft and a new dial.

Swords into plowshares. I never bothered with Millen and National drives for
serious stuff.

Then you missed the boat. As you know I'm more than just a tad
familiar with those old surplus drives. They were designed *seven
decades* ago for use in high altitude high vibration combat
environments. Usually on fixed freqs. None of which has anything to do
with ham gear particularly today's ham gear. They're miserably slow
tuning *kluges* by any realistic measure. I could build a complete DC
rcvr in the space one of those clunkers sucks up and it would have a
nice smooth tuning mechanism. Which is why you got the last of those I
had. I am not going to be the Last Dinosaur, that's your yob.

The Type 7 uses a cap from a hangar-queen BC-221. 100:1 nobacklash
drive,
thermally compensated, extremely rugged cast frame, etc. Better than almost
anything in typical ham gear. Cost maybe $5 for the whole chassis, which has
lots other good parts.

To get more dial spread, I made a dial drum from a piece of 6" plexiglass
tubing. Recycled, of course. Dial light/reflector assembly is inside the drum
and shines through the plexiglass. You view the lighted dial through a window
in the front panel.

To calibrate, I wound a piece of paper on the drum and marked it with the aid
of my working BC-221. Then the raw paper was redrawn via CADD, the result
inkjet printed on a scrap of Mylar drawing stock, and the whole thing put on
the dial drum. Works and I can read it in any light, with or without glasses.

Steam locomotives and gas lamps still work too. I'm waiting for you to
announce that you're driving back and forth to the job in a 1937 Model
72 Terraplane.

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

Seems like he also had some green dot / yellow dot sorts of reddios in
addition to the CB rig. 100% Rat Shack and Moxon plug & play. Whatta
"homebrewer" . . .

You see what some folks pulled with those licenseless HTs down in Orange
County, FL?

Nope.

Yeah, I guess we had to have somebody "over there" reading the
repeater meters and locked in mortal combat with all those kamikaze
geishas in the joints in Tokyo. While I worked my way thru E school
back here on the home front. On my own dime.

Been there, done that - halfway, anyhow. One big reason I went to Penn was the
nice Benjamin Franklin scholarship they gave me. Covered more than half of the
cost per year. Also NDSL loans and a near-full-time job year 'round.

I took a different path and not only paid the full tab as I went along
via the job, I also had a nice wad in the bank and two years worth of
engineering experience at the end of my trek. No summers off though.

Junior year was a trip - 5 engineering courses and working 35-39 hours/week.

That's ugly.

No car, either. Thank you SEPTA....

PRR MU-54s: 14 minutes flat from Aldan to 30th St.

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.....

Here we go, I'm gonna hold yer feet to the fire on this one Micollis.
I'm gonna show up at your place with a .dxf of a random cross-section
on a CD and you find **all** of it's cross-sectional properties within
120 seconds or you pop for my Newtown Square Ale House wet roast beef
sammich.

All I do is email the problem to you and wait for the results. Then
Microstation does a format conversion....

You SLIME!

I didn't say I could solve the problem, just that I could get the results!

I'll buy the RB without a bet.

.. . . you got that right . . !

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv

October 7th 04, 12:26 AM

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

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

(Brian Kelly) writes:

There are prototype board shops

...
They advertise all over the electronics trade publications and on the
Web. "It just ain't the same as real hombrewing." . .

Yeah, I know, but depending on yer timeframe, space, tools and tolerance
for
smells and such it may be cheaper/easier/quicker to farm it out.

Time and tools I have, the space is a question though. I was raised in
a machine shop, worked in refineries, chemical plants, textile mills
and had a darkroom. Odors are no biggie.

I didn't mean just *you*.

Agreed and trying to use SMT devices to homebrew compact complex
equipment really drives a stake in it.

There are those who can do SMT, of course. But the stuff requires yet
another level of tooling and skills.

Kills it for me.

SMT was designed to be easy to *manufacture* not repair or experiment with.

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

ME built a rig on a wooden base? You jest. Never in this world . . !
Aluminum or steel or forget it.

I've done it...

Point is, it was quick, inexpensive, easy and forgiving of errors

And when it's done it looks just like what it is, a POS.

Yep - Perfectly Ordered System.

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.

SOP.

Yup but a lot more work than a piece o' wood

I'm willing.

Me too. Plus if you need shielding the wooden approach is out.

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

Probably but it depends on whether yer talking Collins quality or
rubber-band quality mechanicals.

I figured that one out about 35 years ago:

WW2 surplus had lots of good parts. Among the very best are the integral
dial/reduction drives/capacitors found in ARC-5 rx and tx units, and the
LM/BC-221 freqmeters. All you need are adapters for the shaft and a new
dial.

Swords into plowshares. I never bothered with Millen and National drives
for
serious stuff.

Then you missed the boat.

No, I didn't.

As you know I'm more than just a tad
familiar with those old surplus drives. They were designed *seven
decades* ago for use in high altitude high vibration combat
environments.

Which makes them perfect for ham rigs.

Usually on fixed freqs. None of which has anything to do
with ham gear particularly today's ham gear. They're miserably slow
tuning *kluges* by any realistic measure.

I *like* slow tuning. How fast did you set the dial on the '847 for FD? 5 kHz
per turn?

Lookit all the "modern" HF rigs - they typically default to a tuning rate of
5-10 kHz/turn. I was doing that in my homebrew rigs 35 years ago.

The best Millen and National could do was a weenie 10:1. Miller came up with
that goofy 6:1/36:1 planetary that cost the earth and felt like mush.

A good BC-221, ARC-5 or LM cap will do the job better and for a lot less money
and grief. Real gear drive, low torque, nice dial, etc.

Was the S-line a "kluge"? Tuning rate was 20 kHz/turn, IIRC, and took the ham
bands in 200 kHz chunks. Covering 80/40/20/15 took 10 bandswitch positions and
10 xtals. Plus going across certain points on the same band (say, 3590 to 3610
or 7195 to 7205) took a bandswitch move and running the dial almost end to end.

I'll take my surplus, thank you very much.

I could build a complete DC
rcvr in the space one of those clunkers sucks up and it would have a
nice smooth tuning mechanism.

Be my guest. You can put it on a website, just like you-know-who hasn't.

Which is why you got the last of those I
had. I am not going to be the Last Dinosaur, that's your yob.

Oddly enough, ARC-5 prices keep going up but BC-221/LM prices are down.

OBTW - check out the prices on new rotary optical encoders of decent quality,
if you're thinking about a synthesized design.

Remember that you'll probably need one with a lot of slots/steps on the encoder
disk. For example, if you want to have a tuning rate of 10 kHz turn and want
the steps to be 100 Hz, you need a 100 slot/step-per-rev encoder. If you want
faster tuning rate without sacrificing resolution, you need *more* slots/steps.

How many junker BC-221s can I buy for the price of one good encoder?

The Type 7 uses a cap from a hangar-queen BC-221. 100:1 nobacklash
drive,
thermally compensated, extremely rugged cast frame, etc. Better than almost
anything in typical ham gear. Cost maybe $5 for the whole chassis, which
has
lots other good parts.

To get more dial spread, I made a dial drum from a piece of 6" plexiglass
tubing. Recycled, of course. Dial light/reflector assembly is inside the
drum
and shines through the plexiglass. You view the lighted dial through a
window
in the front panel.

To calibrate, I wound a piece of paper on the drum and marked it with the
aid
of my working BC-221. Then the raw paper was redrawn via CADD, the result
inkjet printed on a scrap of Mylar drawing stock, and the whole thing put
on
the dial drum. Works and I can read it in any light, with or without
glasses.

Steam locomotives and gas lamps still work too. I'm waiting for you to
announce that you're driving back and forth to the job in a 1937 Model
72 Terraplane.

What kind of light bulbs do most people use? Good ol' incandescents,
fundamentally the same as Tom Edison had more than 125 years ago. Biggest
changes were the use of inert gas rather than vacuum in the bulb, and tungsten
filaments. Both circa 1900.

Internal combustion engines, home construction, lots of others.

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

Seems like he also had some green dot / yellow dot sorts of reddios in
addition to the CB rig. 100% Rat Shack and Moxon plug & play. Whatta
"homebrewer" . . .

You see what some folks pulled with those licenseless HTs down in Orange
County, FL?

Nope.

Coupla kids stole school HTs (dunno if they were green dot or yellow dot or
FRS/GMRS) and then said they were gonna blow up the school, shoot teachers,
etc. Both were over Len's 14 years of age limit. Both are in really deep stuff.

Sure, transmitting radios don't need licenses or training in proper use....

Yeah, I guess we had to have somebody "over there" reading the
repeater meters and locked in mortal combat with all those kamikaze
geishas in the joints in Tokyo. While I worked my way thru E school
back here on the home front. On my own dime.

Been there, done that - halfway, anyhow. One big reason I went to Penn was
the
nice Benjamin Franklin scholarship they gave me. Covered more than half of
the
cost per year. Also NDSL loans and a near-full-time job year 'round.

I took a different path and not only paid the full tab as I went along
via the job, I also had a nice wad in the bank and two years worth of
engineering experience at the end of my trek. No summers off though.

Me neither - summer and "breaks" were the time to pile on as many hours as
possible. No OT but even straight time was worth it.

Junior year was a trip - 5 engineering courses and working 35-39
hours/week.

That's ugly.

No car, either. Thank you SEPTA....

PRR MU-54s: 14 minutes flat from Aldan to 30th St.

but...but...they're OLD technology!

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.....

Here we go, I'm gonna hold yer feet to the fire on this one Micollis.
I'm gonna show up at your place with a .dxf of a random cross-section
on a CD and you find **all** of it's cross-sectional properties within
120 seconds or you pop for my Newtown Square Ale House wet roast beef
sammich.

All I do is email the problem to you and wait for the results. Then
Microstation does a format conversion....

You SLIME!

Serious spankage, huh?

I didn't say I could solve the problem, just that I could get the results!

I'll buy the RB without a bet.

. . . you got that right . . !

What's the beverage of choice with those sammiches?

73 de Jim, N2EY

......still missing the old Drexel Ale House in the Bond Shopping Center.......

October 7th 04, 11:58 PM

PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

(N2EY) wrote in message
...

ME built a rig on a wooden base? You jest. Never in this world . . !
Aluminum or steel or forget it.

I've done it...

Point is, it was quick, inexpensive, easy and forgiving of errors

And when it's done it looks just like what it is, a POS.

Yep - Perfectly Ordered System.

.. . . puleeeeze . . . !

As you know I'm more than just a tad
familiar with those old surplus drives. They were designed *seven
decades* ago for use in high altitude high vibration combat
environments.

Which makes them perfect for ham rigs.

Where's the correlation? You operate the Southgate 7 at 25,000 feet
while pulling Gs and getting shot at do ya?

Usually on fixed freqs. None of which has anything to do
with ham gear particularly today's ham gear. They're miserably slow
tuning *kluges* by any realistic measure.

I *like* slow tuning. How fast did you set the dial on the '847 for FD? 5 kHz
per turn?

Since you're the Chief RRAP Tuning Rates guru and you didn't have a
problem with it one way or another during FD you should know right off
what it was. So you tell me. Hmmm? (here comes my second beef sammich
.. . )

Lookit all the "modern" HF rigs - they typically default to a tuning rate of
5-10 kHz/turn. I was doing that in my homebrew rigs 35 years ago.

.. . . . and . . . ?

The best Millen and National could do was a weenie 10:1. Miller came up with
that goofy 6:1/36:1 planetary that cost the earth and felt like mush.

I still have a couple very nice smooth reduction drives out that era
which would great for tuning a little DC rcvr. I wouldn't use 'em for
anything more than a small-bore app like that.

The Heath harmonic gear drives were really slick too.

A good BC-221, ARC-5 or LM cap will do the job better and for a lot less money
and grief. Real gear drive, low torque, nice dial, etc.

Was the S-line a "kluge"? Tuning rate was 20 kHz/turn, IIRC,

Is that a complaint or a compliment?

and took the ham
bands in 200 kHz chunks. Covering 80/40/20/15 took 10 bandswitch positions and
10 xtals. Plus going across certain points on the same band (say, 3590 to 3610
or 7195 to 7205) took a bandswitch move and running the dial almost end to end.

Real Hams have a cure for that. One xtal covers the usual 3.5-3.7
segment for CW contests and other xtal covers the 3.7-3.9 segment for
the phone contests. For the 40 phone contests ya listen with the
75S-3B and transmit with a 32S-3 equipped with a 7.1-7.3 xtal. Then
Drake came out with rigs which tuned 500 wide Khz segemnts per xtal
which completely eliminated the problem.

I'll take my surplus, thank you very much.

Did I ever thank you for getting all my surplus junk outta my life?

Oddly enough, ARC-5 prices keep going up but BC-221/LM prices are down.

Freq meters ain't radios.

OBTW - check out the prices on new rotary optical encoders of decent quality,
if you're thinking about a synthesized design.

Remember that you'll probably need one with a lot of slots/steps on the encoder
disk. For example, if you want to have a tuning rate of 10 kHz turn and want
the steps to be 100 Hz, you need a 100 slot/step-per-rev encoder. If you want
faster tuning rate without sacrificing resolution, you need *more* slots/steps.

I'd simply call yer buddies at Elecraft and pay the $69.13 for a K2
encoder then swipe the circuitry it uses out of their schematics and
have 10 Hz resolution. If I was anal enough I'd pick up an FT-847
shaft encoder instead and get 100 times better resolution than ya gat
out of the K2 display . . "Do not reinvent wheels".

How many junker BC-221s can I buy for the price of one good encoder?

At five bucks a pop you could get 13 of 'em. Imagine: 13 BC-221s all
to yourself James! Orgastic! Could you stand it?

You see what some folks pulled with those licenseless HTs down in Orange
County, FL?

Nope.

Coupla kids stole school HTs (dunno if they were green dot or yellow dot or
FRS/GMRS) and then said they were gonna blow up the school, shoot teachers,
etc. Both were over Len's 14 years of age limit. Both are in really deep stuff.

Sure, transmitting radios don't need licenses or training in proper use....

I'll pass on this one. Might stir up Sweetums again.

Junior year was a trip - 5 engineering courses and working 35-39
hours/week.

That's ugly.

No car, either. Thank you SEPTA....

PRR MU-54s: 14 minutes flat from Aldan to 30th St.

but...but...they're OLD technology!

Rattlers. Not that I had any choice in the matter. I assume that by
now you've caught up with the fact that the PRR went belly up at least
partially as a result of it's antiquated capital investements. Like a
gazillion MU-54s.

Here we go, I'm gonna hold yer feet to the fire on this one Micollis.
I'm gonna show up at your place with a .dxf of a random cross-section
on a CD and you find **all** of it's cross-sectional properties within
120 seconds or you pop for my Newtown Square Ale House wet roast beef
sammich.

All I do is email the problem to you and wait for the results. Then
Microstation does a format conversion....

You SLIME!

Serious spankage, huh?

I didn't say I could solve the problem, just that I could get the results!

I'll buy the RB without a bet.

. . . you got that right . . !

What's the beverage of choice with those sammiches?

Manhattens up with rocks on the side of course.

73 de Jim, N2EY

.....still missing the old Drexel Ale House in the Bond Shopping Center.......

SOB! Major culinary disaster. Mike's on 420 in Springfield near the
trolley station is still in the biz and they're pretty decent.

w3rv

October 8th 04, 04:20 AM

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

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

(Brian Kelly) writes:

(N2EY) wrote in message
...

As you know I'm more than just a tad
familiar with those old surplus drives. They were designed *seven
decades* ago for use in high altitude high vibration combat
environments.

Which makes them perfect for ham rigs.

Where's the correlation? You operate the Southgate 7 at 25,000 feet
while pulling Gs and getting shot at do ya?

They're solid, all-gears, and no slip and no backlash. Lube 'em up right and
they're very low torque, too.

Usually on fixed freqs. None of which has anything to do
with ham gear particularly today's ham gear. They're miserably slow
tuning *kluges* by any realistic measure.

I *like* slow tuning. How fast did you set the dial on the '847 for FD? 5
kHz per turn?

Since you're the Chief RRAP Tuning Rates guru and you didn't have a
problem with it one way or another during FD you should know right off
what it was. So you tell me. Hmmm? (here comes my second beef sammich
. . )

10 kHz per turn.

Lookit all the "modern" HF rigs - they typically default to a tuning rate
of
5-10 kHz/turn. I was doing that in my homebrew rigs 35 years ago.

. . . . and . . . ?

I wuz decades ahead of the curve. Nowadays, almost *every* rig allows you to do
5-10 kHz/turn. 35 years ago, only the Southgate Type 3 and a very few by other
manufacturers did.

The best Millen and National could do was a weenie 10:1. Miller came up
with
that goofy 6:1/36:1 planetary that cost the earth and felt like mush.

I still have a couple very nice smooth reduction drives out that era
which would great for tuning a little DC rcvr. I wouldn't use 'em for
anything more than a small-bore app like that.

Nor would I.

The Heath harmonic gear drives were really slick too.

What were they used in? You don't mean the SB series or the HW-100 or 101.

A good BC-221, ARC-5 or LM cap will do the job better and for a lot less
money and grief. Real gear drive, low torque, nice dial, etc.

Was the S-line a "kluge"? Tuning rate was 20 kHz/turn, IIRC,

Is that a complaint or a compliment?

A little of both

and took the ham
bands in 200 kHz chunks. Covering 80/40/20/15 took 10 bandswitch positions
and
10 xtals. Plus going across certain points on the same band (say, 3590 to
3610
or 7195 to 7205) took a bandswitch move and running the dial almost end to
end.

Real Hams have a cure for that. One xtal covers the usual 3.5-3.7
segment for CW contests and other xtal covers the 3.7-3.9 segment for
the phone contests. For the 40 phone contests ya listen with the
75S-3B and transmit with a 32S-3 equipped with a 7.1-7.3 xtal.

Right. You spend big bucks for an S-line, and the first step is to spend even
more to replace three of the stock xtals. Of course they weren't expensive
compared to the S line itself.

Then
Drake came out with rigs which tuned 500 wide Khz segemnts per xtal
which completely eliminated the problem.

Drake and Heath and everybody else...

I'll take my surplus, thank you very much.

Did I ever thank you for getting all my surplus junk outta my life?

Not yet...

Oddly enough, ARC-5 prices keep going up but BC-221/LM prices are down.

Freq meters ain't radios.

True.

OBTW - check out the prices on new rotary optical encoders of decent
quality, if you're thinking about a synthesized design.

Remember that you'll probably need one with a lot of slots/steps on the
encoder
disk. For example, if you want to have a tuning rate of 10 kHz turn and
want
the steps to be 100 Hz, you need a 100 slot/step-per-rev encoder. If you
want
faster tuning rate without sacrificing resolution, you need *more*
slots/steps.

I'd simply call yer buddies at Elecraft and pay the $69.13 for a K2
encoder then swipe the circuitry it uses out of their schematics and
have 10 Hz resolution.

You also have to write the code for the controller.

If I was anal enough I'd pick up an FT-847
shaft encoder instead and get 100 times better resolution than ya gat
out of the K2 display . . "Do not reinvent wheels".

Gotta do more than the encoder.

How many junker BC-221s can I buy for the price of one good encoder?

At five bucks a pop you could get 13 of 'em. Imagine: 13 BC-221s all
to yourself James! Orgastic! Could you stand it?

Heck, I'll build a whole receiver for that. With a little help from the stock
room...

You see what some folks pulled with those licenseless HTs down in Orange
County, FL?

Nope.

Coupla kids stole school HTs (dunno if they were green dot or yellow dot or
FRS/GMRS) and then said they were gonna blow up the school, shoot teachers,
etc. Both were over Len's 14 years of age limit. Both are in really deep
stuff.

Sure, transmitting radios don't need licenses or training in proper use....

I'll pass on this one. Might stir up Sweetums again.

So?

Junior year was a trip - 5 engineering courses and working 35-39
hours/week.

That's ugly.

No car, either. Thank you SEPTA....

PRR MU-54s: 14 minutes flat from Aldan to 30th St.

but...but...they're OLD technology!

Rattlers. Not that I had any choice in the matter.

They were pretty much gone by the 1970s.

I assume that by
now you've caught up with the fact that the PRR went belly up at least
partially as a result of it's antiquated capital investements. Like a
gazillion MU-54s.

Not really.

PRR was victim of three things:

1) Overregulation by the Feds. Fixed by the Staggers Act of 1980.

2) The interstate highway system

3) A merger with the N&W was refused, but a merger with the New York Central
happened. N&W and PRR were similar operations serving different markets; such a
merger would probably have succeeded. PRR/NYC were competitors who could not
have been much more different; their merger was a complete mess from the getgo.

Oddly enough, most of what used to be the PRR is now part of the Norfolk
Southern, which is the direct descendant of the N&W. And most of what used to
be the NYC is now part of CSX.

Here we go, I'm gonna hold yer feet to the fire on this one Micollis.
I'm gonna show up at your place with a .dxf of a random cross-section
on a CD and you find **all** of it's cross-sectional properties within
120 seconds or you pop for my Newtown Square Ale House wet roast beef
sammich.

All I do is email the problem to you and wait for the results. Then
Microstation does a format conversion....

You SLIME!

Serious spankage, huh?

I didn't say I could solve the problem, just that I could get the
results!

I'll buy the RB without a bet.

. . . you got that right . . !

What's the beverage of choice with those sammiches?

Manhattens up with rocks on the side of course.

I'm droolin...

73 de Jim, N2EY

.....still missing the old Drexel Ale House in the Bond Shopping
Center.......

SOB! Major culinary disaster. Mike's on 420 in Springfield near the
trolley station is still in the biz and they're pretty decent.

I know the place. We gotta go...

73 de Jim, N2EY

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