The Internonium

Nearly every eBay and many eHam.com, qrz.com and qth.com have listings that a particular piece of equipment that is up for sale is from the estate of a fellow ham who is now a silent key. Really? And they never smoked, only used it for 3 hours over the 50 years of his or her ham career, and put into their closet wrapped in 3 feet of bubble wrap in a vacuum sealed container. Really? If this is true, where are all those signals coming from that I hear? Do they all somehow or another will the signals into the aether? And how is it that I hear the same people on the nets and ragchewing every day?

Really people? How about a little truth in advertising.

Now, I'm a geek. I freely admit it. Naturally, shows like Myth Busters is something I like, and I Tivo it every week so I can watch it on Saturday morning. Well, not this week. In this episode, "Duct Tape Hour 2," Adam, Jamie and the gang proceed to do some really ridiculous things with duct tape, such as a duct tape bridge. I was so bored that I stopped watching after 15 minutes and deleted it.

Please, find a myth to bust and stop trying to invent your own.

I haven't had much time to play lately, but I took a little time out tonight to play with my Wonder Radio. Reason being that I got my hands on a Flex Radio USB adapter and wanted to put it through its paces.

I hooked everything back up again (I had moved it out of the way to play with my TS-940 and PowerSDR-IF) and found that the adapter works well. I then decided to do a comparison of the Wonder Radio and the TS-940. Although it seems that the TS-940 has the edge, the Wonder Radio performed nearly as well.

• Sensitivity seems close, at least no discernible difference with on the air. The limiting factor here is atmospheric noise. I did attenuate an off the air signal by about 75 dB and it was barely discernible on the Wonder Radio while much louder on the 940. My guess is that the 940 has several dB more sensitivity than the Wonder Radio.


• Dynamic range seems nearly the same. I found a very weak signal next to someone tuning up at about S9+20 db, and both were able to copy the weak signal well. Subjectively, the 940 sounded better.


• Amazingly, the analog filters of the 940 and the digital filters of the Wonder Radio seem to filter adjacent signals about the same. For those of you who are not familiar with the TS-940, it moves two of the IF center frequencies up and down to yield an adjustable upper and lower filter skirts for sideband. You can narrow the passband considerably in this way. It also has a variable bandwidth adjustment for CW.

All things considered, the SDR-1000 based Wonder Radio really performs well considering the much lower parts count and price. This was a very pleasant surprise. I may try to put it on the bench and run some tests on it to determine its specifications.

Stay tuned.

No, this is not Radio Shack's new image, but my little comfortable corner in my family room. The main rig is a TS-940SAT feeding an AL80A amplifier. The tuner is an old Munch tuner that works very well. This feeds a ground mounted 6BTV direct and a 135' doublet off the tuner. You'll note that I'm running PowerSDR/IF with the 940, which is a really nice combo. The microphone is a MC-80.

The backup rig is my original TS-140S that I purchased new in 1987. There are a few hand helds there and a Radio Shack FM rig as well. The computer is an Atom 330 miniITX system in the desk. You can see it in the lower right hand portion of the photo.

Like I said, not the neatest shack but it's mine.

Well, seems that my host provider sent me email about a credit card error. Only problem is that they sent it to the email address on the system they host. Well, it was broken, somehow, and I never got their email. One day, I went to create a new entry and found the system down.

A lot of back and forth, but we're back. Let's hope it stays that way.

As I write this article today, the sunspot number is at 63, and propagation is very good. Earlier today, I was on 17 meters and there were stations from Europe, Russia and other areas booming in. According to the most recent ARRL propagation newsletter, ARLP006 Propagation de K7RA, the high sunspot number for the week was 71 on February 8, and the average for the week was 43.3. Additionally, sunspot 1046 produced a strong M8.3 Solar flare on Friday morning which is now the largest flare of Cycle 24. This resulted in R2 Radio Blackout.

By comparison to last year where many, many days with no sunspots made working DX even more challenging than ever, this is a welcome change. You can find the latest space weather forcast at the NOAA / Space Weather Prediction Center.

Clint Bradford, K6LCS, will be presenting his 'Working Amateur Satellites With Your HT' multimedia session at the February 19, 2010 meeting of the K6AA United Radio Amateur Club in San Pedro. All are welcome to attend.

"Tentatively, we'll have a workable pass of AO-51 at 5:17PM that evening," Clint reports. If you would like to show up early, Clint will be working the satellite from the meeting's parking lot. The meeting starts at 7PM.

Friday, February 19, 2010
K6AA URAC meeting starts at 7PM
Los Angeles Maritime Museum
Berth 84 • Foot of 6th Street • San Pedro, CA 90731

Attendees should download Clint's four-page tutorial and radio programming matrix before the meeting from ...
http://www.work-sat.com

And Clint welcomes pre-presentation questions - call him at 909-241-7666, or send email to clint@clintbradford.com

Atlas has new LIRR GP38-2 coming down the line. Check out HO Trainman GP-38-2 Locomotive

Welcome to The Internonium. This is a site where you will find articles about hobbies that we enjoy during our leisure time.

At first, the articles on these pages will be news, information and how to articles about various topics such as Amateur Radio, Model Railroading, Digital Photography, Gadgets and other interesting diversions. In some cases, we'll cross over between the various topics as we'll look at such activities as using Digital Photography in Model Railroading, or using a new gadget in the shack. Over time, the areas of interest will grow as new authors join in to expand the topics into new and different hobbies. Who knows, maybe you'll even find a new hobby to enjoy.

So sit back, relax, and visit us often because we will be publishing new articles daily.