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Messages - Tube Shortwave

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16
Group W Bench / Re: TEST DRIVE
« on: August 15, 2010, 1923 UTC »
HA HAA!!  Nice post.

If it had been a liberal truck, it would have blown smoke up your rear end, AND told you that the smoke was generated in an environmentally safe, renewable manner.

It's OK for Al Gore to have a $30,000 per month utility bill at just ONE of his mansions, but you're the reason the world is dying if you don't switch to the curly-Q light bulbs in your home and reduce your $50 utility bill for the sake of the planet.  Ahh.. Liberals.... 

17
General Radio Discussion / Re: Online radio magazine
« on: August 04, 2010, 0547 UTC »
Not all of us live in populated areas.  Believe it or not, even in this day and age, many rural internet users rely on phone lines (dialup) for access.  17 MB is way too big to be practical.

18
General Radio Discussion / Re: Online radio magazine
« on: August 02, 2010, 1551 UTC »
You need a dang T-3 connection to view it.  Their file sizes are beyond merely huge.  Why do online magazines assume everyone wanting to read it has a direct connection to their servers?  Reduce files sizes, people!

Rant complete.

19
General Radio Discussion / Re: Request for high-quality recording of WWV/WWVH tsunami warning test
« on: July 24, 2010, 0448 UTC »
My recording sound a lot more 'hi-fi' than that.  Weird...  I was also tuned to 10 MHz.

Receiver here was Kenwood R5000 using pre-filter audio out to laptop computer.  Can hear the 100 Hz. time code quite nicely in my recording.  Almost missing in yours.

20
General Radio Discussion / Re: craigs list ad--too funny
« on: July 22, 2010, 1928 UTC »
It was not an actual personal ad.  It was a funny thing some guy wrote and posted on one of the CCW forums years ago.  People have reprinted it many times.  Although, it is STILL hilarious!

21
General Radio Discussion / Re: Request for high-quality recording of WWV/WWVH tsunami warning test
« on: July 22, 2010, 1925 UTC »
I recorded it.  WWVH actually started sending announcements before the top of the hour, and I got one of those too.

The 'test' was pretty lame.  Just announcements every 2-3 minutes between the usual time announcements that "this is a test".  Sounded like telephone line quality audio.  Not much better than the weather forecasts on WWV.  It was the same recording on both WWV and WWVH.

Except for an occasional phase noise, my recording is fairly 'hi-fi'.  If your friend is interested, let him/her know.

As a side note...  About 40 minutes before the 'official' start at 18:00 UTC, there was a flub on WWV.  A voice was on the air speaking with someone trying to troubleshoot something.  It was kinda funny.

73, TS

22
HF Beacons / Re: HF or Low power Beacons (incl Pirate Beacons) near Vegas / Nevada?
« on: July 21, 2010, 0431 UTC »
Did some SWLing when wife and I stayed in Sandy Valley a few years ago.  It was really quiet there.  Heard milliwatt beacons from everywhere!

By day, was at the NAB convention in Vegas, by night, camped out with the Grundig in Sandy Valley.  It was awesome!  About a 30 min drive to/from Vegas strip.

23
General Radio Discussion / Re: Night of Nights XI‏
« on: July 13, 2010, 1722 UTC »
It was VERY busy at the KPH / KSM / KFS transmitter site last night!  The KPH 6 meg RCA went BANG! a couple times.  The 1941 vintage PW-15 transmitter on 12 megs for KFS made some blue fire (it was actually my fault though) which had to be set straight before start time. It's a 15KW transmitter, all push-pull, throttled back to 5 KW as licensed, so it was happily running away making a 5KW fire, no overloads, just lots of fire. Found the problem rather quickly and fixed that easily.   The 40m ham band converted 50's vintage RCA was almost a no-go if not for some heroics for a couple hours of laying in an oily cabinet making repairs just up to 30 minutes ahead of start time.  As a backup to the 40m vintage transmitter, we had a Henry on 40m ready to go with clipleads to the open wire lines in the building.  But, the old RCA held on all night, so the Henry TX wasn't needed.

Got to my room around 2AM this morning. I'm just waking up now, and have to head back to the transmitter site to help transmitter supervisor un-do everything and put it all back for normal KSM operations today.  Will probably be back home tomorrow sometime.  Full report coming soon.

73, TS

24
Other / Re: Night of Nights XI begins tonight at 5 PM Pacific 8 PM Eastern
« on: July 12, 2010, 1502 UTC »
From the Radiomarine newsletter-

Last minute preparations are under way for Night of Nights XI.

On Saturday at the Bolinas transmitter site Transmitter Supervisor Steve Hawes
tested and tuned the transmitters while Bill Ruck and volunteer Vern Wirka
braved the poison oak to clear the transmission lines of branches. Vern has come
all the way from Nebraska to spend Night of Nights with us and help wherever he
can. Today Paul Shinn will arrive at Bolinas to reinforce the staff there.
Paul has recently completed the repair of a RCA AR-88LF receiver which we may
put in service at an operating position at the receive site for Night of Nights.

Meanwhile at the receive site I've been busy programming receivers, testing
keying and laying out log sheets at the operating positions. We hope that the
land line teletype link between the transmit and receive sites my be
commissioned in time for Night of Nights, allowing us to have a proper and
historically correct order wire.

We hope you can join us on the air or in person on 12 July (13 July GMT) for
Night of Nights XI. For full details please see our Web site at
http://www.radiomarine.org .

VY 73,

RD



=================================
Richard Dillman
Chief Operator, Coast Station KSM
Maritime Radio Historical Society

25
Other / Night of Nights XI begins tonight at 5 PM Pacific 8 PM Eastern
« on: July 12, 2010, 1456 UTC »
Check it out!  Commercial morse is NOT dead!  www.radiomarine.org and click on the Night of Nights link.  Tune it in, many freq's available.

73 DE TS

26
General Radio Discussion / Re: The California Historical Radio Society presents: "Radio Day by the Bay...
« on: July 11, 2010, 0548 UTC »
W6CF will be on the air during the event.  Likely frequencies are 14.050 (CW) and 14.325ish and 28.325ish SSB.  Probably spending most of the time on CW due to the number of people that wander through the shack talking, etc. during attempting to make QSOs.

27
HF Beacons / Re: 27mhz beacon
« on: July 10, 2010, 1535 UTC »
There's a guy in California that has been running a 27 Mhz. beacon for almost 10 years.  From the looks of his website, it gets a few hits, but they are kinda far between.  Just be patient!  That is a tough band to beacon on.  Most of its inhabitants are paranoid types that will not even know what it is.  They will assume it is someone jamming that freq.  They'll lose interest soon enough and leave you alone.

28
Equipment / Re: UDXF discussion on baluns
« on: July 08, 2010, 1435 UTC »
I see we do agree on most points. 

Choice of materials dictates the E or I characteristics.

A Roberts balun (no apostrophe) is a fairly recent design by Bill Roberts that is a modified 1/4 wave current choke.  With a 70 ohm load on output, one would see a 50 ohms load on input.  Neat way to match a dipole.  It would most certainly be built as a current balun.

29
Equipment / Re: UDXF discussion on baluns
« on: July 08, 2010, 0449 UTC »
No war needed, or requested.

For the record, I'm the guy who builds commercial AM, FM, TV, and SW antennas.  I build baluns to handle 500 KW continuous duty.  I know a thing or two about baluns too.

73.

30
Equipment / Re: UDXF discussion on baluns
« on: July 07, 2010, 0257 UTC »
That 'reference' was more like an opinion than a fact.

A voltage balun is designed to be connected to the dipole at the voltage node where high breakdown insulation is required and smaller conductors may be used.  A current balun is designed to be connected to a dipole at a current node where lots of insulation is unnecessary but larger diameter conductors are a must.

People (mostly hams) really confuse the two, and some believe there is no difference.  Usually the same kind of 'expert' that calls Heliax 'hardline'.  Everyone who knows anything about radio knows that hardline comes in sections and bolts together.  Heliax is semi-flexible coaxial cable, usually with a jacketed corrugated solid shield.  Hardline has no corrugations and connects using flanges for the outer and 'bullets' for the inner conductors.

73, TS

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