Having a few nice vintage shortwave radios around, I decided it would be nice to actually USE the dang things once in a while 🙂  And given the almost unusably noisy performance of indoor short wire antennas, I made some loop antennas to cover approx 3 – 18 MHz to see if performance could be enhanced.
Continue reading Dual-Band X-Frame Shortwave RX Loop
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I really like the classics, the glow of tubes and smell 🙂 of transformers And having a short window of free time decided to pick up a poor ugly semi-rusted Hallicrafters S-53 for cheap. I was interested in it’s somewhat unusual 2.075 MHz IF frequency (used to enhance image rejection). I decided to try out a weird idea in regard to not really restoring, but rather quickly resurrecting an old not-so-valuable boat anchor.
Continue reading Hallicrafters S-53 Ressurection
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Here is the trace-out of my E-315 crossovers. Component values that could not be read from the component itself where measured with my Fluke BK Precision model 886 LCR meter.
I recorded above the average of the 2 readings taken from both crossovers.
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Here is the trace-out of my E-312 crossovers. Â Component values that could not be read from the component itself where measured with my Fluke BK Precision model 886 LCR meter.
I recorded above the average of the 2 readings taken from both crossovers.
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I visually traced out the circuit layed out on the circuit board and then measured with Fluke BK Precision model 886 LCR meter.
Continue reading Cerwin Vega AT-15 Xover Schematic
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Out here in beautiful rural East Texas, the noise levels on the HF bands are not too awful bad – IF you have a decent noise limiter or blanker.
We have some nasty short spike shortwave noise at a 33 mSec rep rate. It may be electric fences? our cable system?, but I have not tracked it down yet since I did not even know it existed due to modern receiver’s good noise blankers. (This explains the picket-fence spectrum of certain frequency ranges on the IF waterfall display).
Continue reading ANL Add-On for Hallicrafters SX-16
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First cut at an Excel spread sheet to analyze a small RX loop’s noise and frequency response performance.
Continue reading Small RX Loop Analysis – An Excel Sheet – Fields, Voltages, Noise Levels…
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You may have wondered why some of us keep yammering on regarding “Common Mode Current” on the coax, and why common-mode prone designs (like end-feds and JPoles) are so problematic. Here’s an example of a 915 MHz antenna for a wideband comm system prototype I am designing. I decided on a wide-band vertical dipole.
In the pix below, we see the dipole front, and the dipole rear in it’s final form (sans heat shrink) – with a single loop binocular type 61 core performing the 1:1 current BalUn / choke function (they are the same thing):
Continue reading Why We Don’t Like Unintended Common-Mode Current Flow On Our Transmission Lines
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Solar eclipse data shows interesting enhancement of my signals on 160 M (1.8 MHz) during the event. Similar data for another station is shown for 80 M band (3.5 MHz) also.
Continue reading Solar Eclipse Data Showing Propagation Enhancement on the Lower HF Bands
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