Wednesday, May 22, 2013

FM loop

Not much time for shack work but today was a local holiday so decided to build something.

Well, continuing, the circuit bellow is not exactly a loop but an FM tx and FM rx connected without antenna....

I had to test true FM modulation (without multiplication and on "low" frequencies) using an crystal or coil and test FM detection using an NE602, so latched up two simple circuits and connected them back to back.



Took me some time to find in the "junk yard" a suitable 10.7Mhz IF transformer/coil. Most I found were for 455Khz but luckily in an old car radio there were two (the green and the orange in the picture). I could use the green coil also for FM tx but in this first test I used a 10.7 crystal for the FM carrier, I wanted a more stable source.

Transmit part is from SM0VPO: http://www.sm0vpo.com/tx/fm-tx1.htm
I just used the modulation part until the first BC547 (I used an 2n2222) and then a simple buffer before injecting the signal on the NE602 part.
The receiving end is from KF5OBS: http://jaunty-electronics.com/blog/2012/08/no-tune-ne602-ne612-fm-demodulator/
I scaled the circuit (more or less) to 10.7, removed the input amp and placed a simple trim-pot attenuator, input from the bufer output on the tx part.
Audio amp is one general purpose class AB with discrete components. A simple LM386 would to the same job, just had this one at hand.

Audio is still not perfect on both TX and RX but quit understandable. More tweaking is needed specially in the TX part. Anyhow this is just a concept, I will test other simple circuits that could be handy for adding FM to the "Speaky".



Meanwhile I "prepared" 2 more band modules for the "Speaky" but still have to wait for some T37-2 toroids to arrive for the bandpass and oscillator parts... see bellow on the assembled module the wood toroid for the VFO part.

Have a nice day!

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Thermal paste

What to do on a Sunday afternoon and your computer gets a little on the hot side?....and you just find out that the thermal past between cpu and dissipator is worn out..?

First you test with aluminum foil:

...and fails miserably...

..then you remember something about chemistry and "Fluor" supposedly is a nice conductor but toothpaste has a tendency to dry out...no problem: just add some silicon based gel or a petroleum derivative like the following product to remove cloth stains...

Mix on a 50/50 proportion, or 70/30 or...whatever......put on the CPU (careful for not to spill on the sides) then assemble everything again:

first the dissipator

then the fan


Now test it!:


 ..before the toothpast and supergel mix it was 2600RPM and around 70ºC

I'v been running over a week on this mix but eventualy one of this days will place a proper thermal past.... next experiment is to find a catalytic converter for the car to run on water! :)


Have a nice week!

Sunday, April 28, 2013

New coil for the antenna tuner

It was a "profitable" Saturday yesterday, build the new coil for the (re)new antenna tuner:



I had this form with some kind of steel wire wrapped around and since it was not solder-able I removed the old one and now placed normal 1.5mm2 section household wire. Unfortunately I had no more wire around so it was not till the end of the form, anyhow I suspect the inductance will be more than enough for the intended purpose. Don't "trust" the MFJ reading at the measure frequency frequency since there's lot of inter winding capacitance. My rough calculation for the coil will be around 50uH.

Here's the donator coil wire (the old one):

Had to strip the insulator which is always a pain...
...and still had time to make an oscillator just for fun...



And to place the AM demod part for the Speaky in a new board, pictures and schematic later on the blog.


Have a nice Sunday!

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Happy Birthday IARU


WORLD AMATEUR RADIO DAY



IARU Birthday: (18 April 1925)

Happy birthday!

Filter shape

Just the filter shape from an ongoing project...



Scale is not linear and I don't like the re-trace so probably will change schematics a little. Will post more when happy with design.

Monday, April 15, 2013

SAW generator

Not much RF here, except it's part of a project involving RF.

A simple SAWtooth wave generator:

Schematic is from VK2ZAY and the current source my contribution. Incidentally I didn't tested the original design so don't know which is better...probably not mine!


(VK2ZAY schematic edited by me)

Now the output of the schematic:

Wave form with an 10uF capacitor:
...there goes the linearity... oh well...

here with 4.7uF capacitor and final configuration for now:

DC out is 2 to 7V approx (Vcc 9V).

The last wave feeding the oscilloscope horizontal circuit

Here the assembly:


Alan has other designs using discrete components I might test.


Have a nice week!





Thursday, April 11, 2013

Speaky AM

Not rocket science here. Just "grabbed" the 8Mhz pre-filtered and buffered output add-on of the Speaky and made a simple 8Mhz AM "receiver" with an IF of 455Khz. Mixer VFO runs at 8.455 since at 7.545 would put if receiving on the 40m (7.090Mhz) band also.



It's just a simple tuned input for an NE602 mixed with 8.455Mhz going thru an 455Khz filter feeding the AM demodulator part of an TCA440, then audio goes to the famous LM386.
Since it's a ongoing experiment will not place schematic for now, but works nice on this simple setup....I can still copy clearly some SSB transmissions, so I'm sure there's little carrier suppression on some rigs...

The main PCB and the TCA440 part were a re-use of one of my VHF air band receivers...another project that had a short live before donating parts...

Have a nice week and weekend!