Palms West Amateur Radio Club
Serving the Western Communities of Palm Beach County Florida
Random Ham Stuff
Well gosh. About a month ago, it was feeling as if every builder in the homebrew community had built the SolderSmoke Direct Conversion Receiver, apart from me. That’s a slight exaggeration, but I’d had a nagging feeling in the back of my head for quite a long time that I really ought to build it […] [...]
After finishing the two-transistor “Jingy 40” regen, I was looking for a little transmitter to use with it. I cycled through a few different designs, before deciding to “play it safe” and build another GM3OXX OXO transmitter. Why not just use the one I already had? Well, in the meantime, I had developed a “thing” […] [...]
I’m not a collector of vintage headsets. 2 years ago, I purchased a high impedance Western Electric headset for listening to crystal sets. I also bought a set of “Baldies”. Both of these were in good, though not pristine condition, so I felt OK with using them for everyday listening. Although I used the Western […] [...]
Back in 2010, I became interested in legal micropower broadcasting under the FCC Part 15 regulations, and assembled an SSTRAN AMT3000 kit transmitter for the AM broadcast band. I had limited success with an outdoor installation, but it worked well for “broadcasting” around the house. I later graduated to an outdoor installation with a Hamilton […] [...]
Or “The One-Transistor Regen That Turned Into A Two-Transistor Regen” with thanks to G3XBM and N0WVA. (Note – if reading this post on a computer, you can click on any of the images for a slightly larger version.) About 10 years ago, Doug N0WVA told me about an impressive little regen he had built with […] [...]
No new construction projects here, I’m afraid, and none planned for the foreseeable future, though I have made some exciting and worthy acquisitions. A couple of years ago, I was looking for a vintage high impedance headset to use with crystal sets. For regular use, I found a set of Baldwins (the famed “Baldies”) and […] [...]
Recently, I built a simple little TRF receiver for the AM broadcast band using a TA7642, a modern equivalent for a chip that was quite popular with electronics homebrewers in the 70’s and 80’s. The ZN414 was a device made by the British semiconductor company Ferranti. Housed in a metal TO-18 can with three leads, […] [...]
In the previous post, I described my recent build of a very simple little TRF receiver for the AM broadcast band. It happened as the result of a month or two spent with much more complex projects, namely a scratch-build of the receiver section of a Norcal 2N2/20, and a kit build of a complete […] [...]
My last project, a Norcal 2N2/20 kit build, which also involved a partial scratch-build of the same circuit, rather took it out of me. As a result, I’ve been revisiting some of the circuits I built in my pre-teen years. Giving myself permission to play around with simple circuits is really fun, as well as […] [...]
Note – this is a rather long and wordy post, with a lot of pictures. Perhaps surprisingly, after 16 years, there are still some unbuilt Norcal 2N2/XX kits floating around in the wild. If you have one, or are hoping to aqcuire one, and are interested in suggested and recommended minor mods and parts substitutions, […] [...]