Plasma!

Does anyone still use CRTs?
I'm amazed at the transformation of CRT to Plasma and LED technology. Now you can mount a huge 42" plus plasma tv on your wall in High Definition, flat as a panacake!
CRTs are dead and buried, but how I remember these beasts, 25Kv on the final anode and i've had many a belt from this when changing a CRT in a television. Setting up the static and dynamic convergence, purity, scan coils ... gosh, what memories.

I was moved by the programme on TV called J.L.B. (John Logie Baird) This man was a genious, he actually used CRTs for true 3D television and nobody listened, particularly the BBC.

The CRT was a milestone in analogue technology and should never be forgotten!

23cm night!

I must admit that this project was my most frustrating ever!

The DF6QK 23cm transverter gave me highs and lows. I remember working a station in Switzerland during an opening with milliwatts of power.

Other times it just refused to tune and spent hours tweeking becoming more and more frustrated!

I built it in modular form so that I could unplug modules to test and set up. I also added a 2w PA to the system which worked well when the rest behaved.

Tonight dragged the transverter from the loft and connected the transverter to my Yaesu FT-817 in the hope of hearing local stations taking part in the 23cm contest.I heard nothing, maybe its the antenna (just the discone) but more likely the alignment of the converter part of the tranverter (1296Mhz - 28Mhz)

It was worth a try! (I still can't work out how I built this beast!)

Memories!

Here are a couple of photos I found of my shack back in the 1970's and 80's. (Click to enlarge)

The top photo shows the Hallicrafters SX24 receiver with my 2m transmitter next to it, then my 160m / 80m transverter, above is my pride and joy 70cm tranverter with it's QQVO-320 valves. I used this tranverter for transmitting television pictures! You can also see the rather crude ATU.

The lower photo was taken in the early 1980's with my FT101E (I still have it!) rotator control box, 2m transverter in the dicast box and my all band VHF receiver that I built (and still have!)

Above is my VHF Frequency counter, power meter an Z-Match.

The amazing thing about these these photos is that I am sat here in modern shack in the same room looking at the same walls!

Condomodium

Today was beautiful, almost fooled today into thinking that Spring has arrived!

Wall to wall sunshine, what a change after this horrible Winter that we are having this year.

Went for a walk around Bolton today and saw something strange...the Town Hall Clock in a condom!

What is going on behind the shrouds I wonder?

This nice weather got me thinking again about putting up some new antennas. The fittings on the side of the house are still there. Still thinking about it...

The Tuesday night contests add so much interest to the bands, loads of activity. Amateur Radio seems to be having a bit of a revival at the moment, I have certainly found more activity and more stations about now on most bands. I have even ejoyed reading RadCom again after all these years!

Scary stuff!
Now, Tony Blair had a vision ten years ago, it was that we should have a National Grid for Learning! This was a bit like President Kennedy saying that America will go to the Moon before the end of the decade back in the 60's.
Here we are 10 years after Tony Blair's vision and look how we have moved on in the on-line, digital world of the internet and mobile technology! The guy got it right and invested money into the technology so that schools could harness it.
As we now approach a General Election I am bothered...
Who has the vision now to move on the technology?
David riding his bike or Gordon twiddling his thumbs?
It needs someone now to pick up the NGfL and move it on, otherwise our children are going to lose out and return to the BBC computer days.
What are your policies David and Gordon?
We need to know!

Frozen Digital Britain!

What an amazing image!

Snow from above! (Click to enlarge)

We are now in the grip of the coldest Winter ever. The whole country covered in snow, here around 10" of frozen snow on the ground and roads terrible!

Tonight temperature down to -10 and still falling. The toilet has just frozen up and i'm flushing salt down it to keep it clear! Icicles like I have not seen since the 1960's hang outside my house and there is no end to the freeze!

Gosh...this brings back memories of the 1960's when Mum took us to school all wrapped up in balaclavas, snow piled against the front door and icicles hanging from the gutters. (Mum used to break some off to suck on the way to school!)

Schools never closed then, we would make slides and throw snowballs in the school yard and have great fun. Now all the schools are closed (including mine) and when we are open the kids are not allowed to play out in the snow!

I don't know ... Health and Safety gone mad!!!

Brass Monkey Weather!

The term "Brass Monkeys" is an accepted phrase used in the English language to indicate that the ambient air temperature (or weather) is cold. This use stems from a longer phrase "It is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". This generally perceived as a humorous reference to some unfortunate Brass Monkey who loses his testicles if the weather is too cold. Another derived phrase (but irrelevant to our story) is "it's cold enough to freeze your balls off".

The origin and true meaning of this phrase is actually totally unrelated to any form of animal or its testicles. Back in time to the period of the Napoleonic War, the great gunships of this time carried many cannons on various gun decks. As an efficient method of storage and delivery of cannon balls to the cannon for firing, a "Monkey" (this term is used to define a table and/ or a rail) made of brass was used to hold the balls. In very cold temperatures the brass would contract or even break thus allowing the cannon balls to roll off the Monkey onto the gun deck. Hence the sailors would say "it is cold enough to freeze the balls off a Brass Monkey".

http://www.brassmonkeys.co.uk/history/default.html

Now brass has interesting properties, made from Copper and Tin, it is a good conductor of electricity and is hard wearing. Some of my VHF / UHF projects in the past required tuned lines, so I used brass for some of the thinner gauge lines because you could buy it at a hobby shop quite cheap.