Topics

46

The RF Workbench / Technical Tips from Mark W. Persons Arc Gap for AM Antenna Systems?

« on: April 09, 2025, 1734 UTC »

http://www.mwpersons.com/tech-tips/AM/arc-gap.htm   and     http://www.mwpersons.com/tech-tips/AM/08-06-14-am-rf-junction-box.htm     Neat INFO to know. I have a 400V arc cartridge on my Part 15 AM1620. Keep in mind that this will not take a direct-hit from lightning. However, those really close strikes, the spikes from those can be arc-shunted to ground, protecting circuitry after that.  Again, good to know. (THANKS, Boomer for FWR that!)

47

Propagation / TIS the season for 40M Greyline Propagation? April... Hello Australia!

« on: April 09, 2025, 1727 UTC »

A friend of mine, on a 2M Net, reminded me that 40M is really hot right now, with Greyline Propagation from North America to Australia & New Zealand. My best contact was in April 1994, when a friend of mine asked me to bring over to his house on Jerusalem Hill, Elmira, NY, my Icom IC-745. (I still have that rig.) Early evening, while QSO'ing with a local friend on 40M, a VK6 station, in Esperance, Western Horn of Australia, called me, after hearing me on just 50W and my friend's 40M Dipole. That later made for receiving a great QSL card. So, you never know.  https://www.dxmaps.com/spots/mapg.php?Lan=E&Frec=50&ML=M&Map=W2LN&HF=N&DXC=ING2&GL=S

48

Huh? / Medium Wave Transmitter Joe on 1485 kHz, in Germany?

« on: April 08, 2025, 1817 UTC »

https://am-radio-stations.de/en/medium-wave-transmitter-joe/     Now, this is an interesting MW station that Boomer FWR to me. Enjoy.

49

Amateur Radio / Ham Community Frets in “Delete, Delete” Comments? RW rip.

« on: April 08, 2025, 1656 UTC »

https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/headlines/delete-delete-delete-comments-aplenty
My take??? Consolidation of two licenses? I know that's been kicked-around for a while. And, a technical competency is still good to know, VSWR's, various bands, propagation, antenna construction, harmonic suppression and filtering of spurs, etc. Two license classes would be useful for ARRL Field Day. Last time I've done that, I was the only Extra Class there, and everyone else was either Tech, or Generals. I, was their operating loop-hole for that evening. When I was a Code-less Tech, my loop-hole was to bring my HF rigs to a friend with a higher license class. There are more non-licensed ways to operate today, CB, MURS, GMRS, various Part 15, and even some of the IMS Bands. However, (And you'll never see this.), I'd like to see an Amateur Broadcasting Band open-up, using existing Amateur Radio call signs. Kind of like what they did for Amateur Television, (ATV), albeit that's not considered broadcasting. So, mixed feelings here.   

50

Equipment / Califone and those BSR Record Players seem to still have interest for archiving.

« on: April 07, 2025, 1720 UTC »

https://archive.org/details/califone-1130-k-schematic-library-commercial-record-player   
Some time ago, JG Tiger acquired a Califone 1130K commercial record player. My guess was in a trade. Anyway, I immediately knew what is was, since I've seen, and used, such a player in school, or the library, back in the 70's and early 80's. After that, cassettes pretty much took over. So, I benched-it to clean up 40-some years of grime and use. The unit still plays great, and sound pretty decent as well. Even plays stereo records, and has a hi-fi amp to do so. However, the big reason to have this was for 78RPM archiving, which it does very nicely. This unit has four speed, 78, 45, 33 1/2, and even 16, RPM. (Remember those? I know that there was a rarer speed of 8 RPM, meant only for long play voice dictation.) 16 RPM was used for narration of books and long slide shows. This unit has an internal schematic, so I've posted that on the preceding Archive .ORG link. Not the lowest noise and the best in fidelity, but it's not bad. Recording can be tapped from the headphones jack. (I would not recommend from the 5W speaker jacks, unless you build resistive attenuaters.) The Bass & Treble work well as a 1/2-ass EQ, so you may have to experiment for settings of choice here. The drive is via an AC induction motor, using wheels and a multi-cut diameter shaft, as a speed transmission. (Very much like the BSR units, but a bit more heavy-duty here.) So, if you see one of these units, not totally trashed, and the price is right, I would not pass it up. Oh BTW, not a bad thing to have for radio 78 RPM airing. That PAUSE is very CUE friendly and quick, if your station is doing Vinylthon.

51

Propagation / This latest after-storms & floods cool-snap maybe last-call for Low Band DX'ing!

« on: April 07, 2025, 1652 UTC »

After disconnecting everything radio-wise for almost a month, I did hook-up & kick-on the HF rig Sunday afternoon, then evening, to find that the bands below 10MHz were not that trashed-up in lightning crashes, unlike earlier last week. 40M AM was totally listenable on 7280 - 95kHz, with lots on ops booming-in. 3885kHz AM wasn't that noisy either, but hardly anyone on. In fact, there wasn't that much traffic on 75 - 80M last night. Some activity on 160M SSB. So, while we have this cool-snap in the East, might be a good time to take advantage of that, before T-storms return.

52

Huh? / Wild Steve, of XERK and WOLF-FM, has passed on, albeit in 2023.

« on: April 05, 2025, 1538 UTC »

I've just heard about this, today!   https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/george-hopp-obituary?id=53330173     Somewhere, I still have a XERK show on cassette kicking around. I also have a couple shows, recorded off-air, of WOLF-FM in the mid-1990's. He was quite the character over the phone, and even QSO'ed with him on CB skip in 1992. Oh yeah!!! He's also the one who got me using the MiniDisc format, which revolutionized my production and on-air quality. Wow... He'll be missed. 

UPDATE: Boomer, linked me to what's existing of Wild Steve's site.    https://www.wolffm.com/?page_id=13

 

53

Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Ye Poor Man's EAS getting more look-at's lately? Apparently...

« on: April 04, 2025, 1543 UTC »

One project that I've wanted to do for a long time, in 42 years of doing the Part 15 thang, (Since March 1983.), is to have some sort of an affordable Emergency Alert System, (EAS). Granted, Part 15'ers are not required to have an EAS, compared to their licensed counterparts. Sometime, just before the COVID-19 buddafiasco, it was brought to my attention that someone on https://www.part15.org/ blogged that someone in the FCC griped about Part 15 stations not having an EAS. Still, can't afford even a used unit, so how about building one?    https://archive.org/details/yepoormanseasrev2.1/Ye%20Poor%20Man%27s%20EAS%2C%20Diagram%2C%20rev%202.1%2C%203-8-2020/    Took a while to get that together, but using an affordable Weather Radio, and a circuit using a relayed RC Time Constance, a prototype was slapped together and put in-line to my AM station in January 2020. And, it's been rocking flawlessly since. Does it look impressive? Um, no... The relayed RC Time Constance is on a pine board, the Weather Radio is wall-mounted, and I had to make an external VHF High Band Antenna, with a TV RF preamp, to make it all work. But, it does... Are there other ways to do this? Certainly, but this used an inexpensive Midland Weather Radio and parts that I had on-hand. Lately, it's been going off gangbusters with this crazy T-storms, tornadoes, and all this flooding here in West Virginia. It, hasn't failed in 5 years of test operation. (I don't think that's a bad record.) One big advantage? No software updates, like you have to do with commercial EAS units routinely. Not just Weather Alerts, but Ambre Alerts, Environmental Disaster Warnings, (And, that's happened in the WV Chemical Valley.), and the newer alert for missing seniors. Also, weekly NWS testing and even test-drills have toned-out. Operation and circuit description is described on that Archive link. One thing that Part 15'ers have a bit of freedom to do, if you can't afford it, build it.  BTW, while you're there, check-out what else is on my Archive page. Found something you like, just download and use.   https://archive.org/details/@thadood   

54

Software / USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO REMOVE NOISE? WV Splatter rip.

« on: March 26, 2025, 1643 UTC »

The following was ripped from The West Virginia Splatter 4/2025 e-Newsletter:

"USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO REMOVE NOISE
I have recently seen two presentations by David Wiley, WV8O, on the FREE RM Noise software
program. It uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to remove noise from SSB voice or CW radio signals.
The AI is trained using noise recordings which are often unique to each setup and location. This
software program requires a computer and an internet connection so it may not be useful in POTA or
mobile operations.
Individuals who install the software are asked to record their radio for a half hour and submit those
recordings to help train the software. The client program sends the radio’s noisy reception to the AI
servers, and the servers remove the noise in real-time and return the audio back to the client for
listening. The turn-around was so short I couldn't tell that there was any delay.
In both demonstrations the noise reduction was dramatic! In one, the transmission came through the
filtering understandable even though the original signal was all static to my ear. If you have a noisy
reception at your location this software may be the answer to your prayers."

https://ournetplace.com/rm-noise/

https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product/15763

So, have any of you tried RM Noise software?

55

Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Any Part 15'ers doing Vinylthon 2025? Heads-up INFO.

« on: March 14, 2025, 1831 UTC »

Got heads-up from our local LPFM station, WTSQ-LP 88.1FM, https://radio-locator.com/info/WTSQ-FL?loc=38.48830%2C-81.80511&locn=25159%20%28Poca%2C%20WV%29  that they're doing this year's Vinython, April 12 - 13.  https://www.vinylthon.com/product-page/vinylthon-2025-zine-10th-anniversary  This, will be the 3rd year that my stations will simulcast it over Part 15 AM. Believe me, some of what gets played sounds very nostalgic on Wide-Band AM Radio. Here, I have my choice of linking in to WTSQ-LP, either direct FM, (Since they've done their antenna move 3 years ago.), or via the stream URL. And, they dig me doing so, since it fills-in a dead spot for them here. So, any other stations planning to participate in this, either by linking-in to a station doing Vinylthon, or will any of you roll-your-own on-air Vinylthon? Either way, it's fun! Quick list of stations doing Vinylthon here,  (Scroll down.),  https://www.vinylthon.com/stations 

56

Equipment / RW rip: Orban Celebrates 50th Anniversary of the Optimod 8000!

« on: March 13, 2025, 1708 UTC »

https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/show-news/nab-show/orban-celebrates-50th-anniversary-of-the-optimod-8000    I'd still take one, if ever found in decent condition. Everyone that I've come across looks like it's been through a war zone.

57

Huh? / ATSC 3.0: The future of broadcast TV spent another year stuck in neutral?

« on: March 11, 2025, 1839 UTC »

Ya know, it's things like this that I'm glad that I no longer work in broadcast television. C2C AM covered this subject last night, and there's various articles out there that talk about ATSC 3.0 coming. Well, here's one of them.  https://www.pcworld.com/article/2592581/atsc-3-0-another-year-stuck-in-neutral.html    One effect that is not mentioned is that the little-guy will be forced-out once again. One of the easiest, and affordable ways, to get into licensed broadcasting was LPTV. Many stations were on-air with old FCC certified, CATV gear. The big expenses were the antenna, the Heiliax cable, and paying for tower space. Even, cheaper than trying to start an LPFM station. ATSC 1.0 came and shut-out many analog LPTV stations, eventually. (Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, makes one wonder if that was part of the plan.) Well, I see that ATSC 3.0 will do that even further. Just my $0.02 worth here.

58

Huh? / More RW rips. New pirate radio book, a N.S. Sherlock noise study, and radio hist

« on: March 10, 2025, 1752 UTC »

THANKS Boomer!!!!!   https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/psychological-thriller-about-radio-pirates-hits-the-shelves    and    https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/nrsc-studies-rf-noise-on-various-roadway-types  and finally,         https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/roots-of-radio/a-structure-is-gone-its-memories-remain     Enjoy. 

UPDATE 5/29/2025: Well, here's a few more.   https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/headlines/groups-ponder-ris-reductions-in-stations      and      https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/headlines/rolling-updates-take-some-noaa-weather-radio-stations-offline   Hmmmmmmmm... Might just keep adding to this.  (OH!!!  THANKS, Boomer!)

59

Equipment / German-made 20M - 10M 'Brick-like' HT that's multi-mode? COOL!!!!

« on: February 28, 2025, 1801 UTC »

Found this under https://www.eham.net/reviews/      ,      https://zfx-de.translate.goog/jpx-20/index.htm?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de    I want one! Looks better than my Cherokee AH-100 ever was.

60

Equipment / Titus SDR update? Maybe???

« on: February 27, 2025, 2007 UTC »

Geez... Forgot all about this thing, since the last 2016 update. https://titusradio.com/  So, does this even exist, yet?