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Messages - Charlie_Dont_Surf

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376
Frequent announcements by UK-accented female "You are tuned to The White Crow" over a bed of technodance.
SIO 454 on an SDR in Ohio.

2344 - "You have tuned to White Crow. QSL to Parris Island, Tangerine Dream, Canary Islands. Hope you have enjoyed our first show. This is The Crow."

2351 - Close down

377
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: WDOG 6900 LSB. 2318 7 Dec. 2022
« on: December 07, 2022, 2340 UTC »
Completely Mostly obliterated in the northern Midwest by the wideband data transmission that is in that area every few days. Find another freq < 6855 or > 6925, my friend.

378
You wouldn't need a VFO. Just wait for it to drift to the frequency you want. Problem solved.  :)

379
The RF Workbench / Re: Heathkit DX-40 tube transmitter
« on: December 07, 2022, 0000 UTC »
Yes, certainly will transmit outside the ham bands. The Heathkit DX-40 & DX-60, the Johnson Ranger I & II, Viking I & II and similar boatanchorage were the main tools of the trade decades ago.

A lot of the time people were using crystals to get to those frequencies as the VFO would not cover it. There was a healthy trade in used out-of-band crystals but companies like JAN Crystals (now out of business) would make new ones for you for little money.

In the 1980s, the US activity was in 7300-7450, more or less, with some in 48 meters too. I know of people that used these rigs at frequencies in the tropical bands, for example 3200-3400 KHz. This gives you some idea of how out of band they could be used.

A few things to note:

1) If the DX-40 has been sitting around unused for decades, be weary of the big electrolytic capacitors. Consider replacing the big electrolytic capacitors before even applying power for the first time.

2) I'm too lazy to search but I'm sure that there are webpages of recommended modifications for a DX-40 for better audio.

3) As Beerus Maximus mentioned, audio modulation may be problematic. MP3 players and computers these days are low impedance outputs, often < 100 Ohms and the DX-40 wants something much higher.


One possible alternative is an output transformer "turned around" so that the low impedance side connects to the MP3 source and the high impedance side connects to the DX-40. Output transformers from tube guitar amps is one source.

These guys make new ones: https://www.hammfg.com/electronics/transformers/classic/1750?referer=1101

You won't need a big, power handling transformer for this. EDIT: Which means that these might be a better option: https://www.hammfg.com/electronics/transformers/audio, especially the studio or broadcast quality transformers, for obvious reasons.




380
:shrug: It doesn't seem to matter much until you get over 4 MHz, then things get hairy, and efficiency tends to nose-dive. 

+-RH



 "Quite curious, Captain."

The behavior above 4 MHz is what I would expect almost everywhere there was actual significant overlap.

381
This is the most popular transmitter design used by these stations (I think this is it anyway).



Maybe this explain why a lot of the stations on MW drift all over the place and sound pretty rough (putting it charitably).  :)

382
Also, dead time control is nice but not necessary for push-pull operation.  I've had PA's running at 80 meters or so with no dead time control circuitry.  I even built a 2 mosfet 500W MW PA that is running in commercial service with just a 7486 setup as a phase splitter...no drive loss protection though  :-\

Let's put it this way: maybe you are not explicitly controlling it and providing adjustability to it, but one way or another you are probably not cross-conducting much or at all.  How that happens - or rather doesn't happen - only you can say. Otherwise, if something - anything - was not there making it not cross-conduct, either by dumb luck or intentionally prevention, you might have somewhat different results.

383
Charlie, thats a really professional write up.  Thanks for sharing it. 

Thank you. I'm glad that you got something out of it.

384
Ok I looked at the peak drain V and noticed it wasn't as high as class E

That's what I see in simulation and in reality too. CMCD peak drain voltage excursion is less than Class E. In my simplistic back-of-the napkin look, CMCD excursion theoretically shouldn't be a lot more than Vdd but in reality I'm seeing something in the range of 2 to 2.5xVdd, depending upon the tank circuit Q, loading and all that jazz.


I've taken the little beast to my local university where they'll give it their critique. Will be fun for them I think and make a change from LMBA & Doherty at 40+GHz! There's some learned folk there, one quite well know in amplifier design circles. Hopefully they can help me improve it further.

I going to make an educated guess that you're referring to Dr. Steve Cripps at Cardiff U. I took a couple short courses from him a very long time ago. He's a world-renown expert in PA design.

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/364356-cripps-steve


Oh, just to add, I've never seen the need for any duty cycle adjustment and rather crudely just use a dual inverter at the input, inverting once to drive one driver, then inverting again to drive the other. Using a sine wave at the input adjusting it's level from 3V to 5V give a 40-47% adjustment.

Because CMOS/TTL propagation delay for an inverter is ~3-40 nanoseconds, depending upon the family chosen. A 7 MHz signal has a period of ~140 nanoseconds and a half cycle is ~70 ns. With what you have described, you have probably at least 10 nsec propagation delay on one phase (including the FET driver) and so an additional ~5-15 nsec on the other phase, aside from the 180 degree delay. Ten nsec out of 70 nsec is a significant portion of the waveform and apparently enough for you and the settling time of your CMCD circuit. So in this case, leaving it to chance (which totally doesn't surprise me, coming from you) works, but then you probably haven't looked at the rise and fall times on the gates and drains thoroughly over all conditions, multiple DUTs anyway. I like to have options with the ability to adjust for safety margins and maximize the possible conduction angle, hence a non-overlapping clock generator with some adjustability.

So while your crude circuit isn't adjustable, it's still a dual-phase clock generator at least for some range of frequencies but it definitely doesn't lock out/prevent overlapping.

A non-overlapping clock generator isn' t big deal. At it's simplest level, it's a pair of NOR or NAND gates and an inverter in front.




Taken from: http://individual.utoronto.ca/schreier/lectures/3-6.pdf

Edit: Ha. Just realized I know the professor at U Toronto that made these slides. So that's two people I (vaguely) know referred to in one post.

385
Listening on an SDR in Ohio.

2317 - Interruption mid-song,  "That's enough of that shit". Long dead-air pause then SSTV image with Thunderchicken logo.




2320 - Whitesnake, "Still of the Night".
2339 - Easypal image but not easy to interpret. It might have been The Thunderchicken logo. "Ah cool. (I) got that working."

2355 - SSTV:


2357 - Close down. Said he's not going to go down in frequency.

386
Off at 0219 UTC.

387
We used to feed my daughter Gerbers, but her name wasn't Lulu. A Gerbers jar is a handy thing to keep FT-243's in though.

If it makes you feel any better, I can put an image of a baby's face on the next one.




388
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID 6932 AM 0016 UTC 3 DEC 2022
« on: December 03, 2022, 0134 UTC »
yup 2w of carrier , you didn't hear it did ya

Clearly you need to build one of these: https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,89881.msg333260.html#new  :D   ;)

In all seriousness, you've done pretty well for 2 Watts. Chapeau.

389
North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID 6932 AM 0016 UTC 3 DEC 2022
« on: December 03, 2022, 0100 UTC »
2kw carrier power
2 krummy watts  ;)

For reals? It's OK if you don't want to say. I'm just curious.

390
Group W Bench / Re: WFAT 6925 USB 2142 UTC 2 DEC 2022
« on: December 02, 2022, 2220 UTC »
Excellent signal. Slowed-down voice ID: WFAT. "love that one" & into same song again

Guess the op was a fan of the original WFAT

They also used to say, "FAT is where you're AT."  :D

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