This is RADIOCOM.NET... in Marshfield, Massachusetts where the very first voice radio broadcast took place in 1906 thanks to Prof. Reginald A. Fessenden
Imagineering-Consulting DC to RF to Light projects.
Cost effective one of a kind products. E-Mail to vze43pw7 (AT) verizon.net for details...
Some local pages;
Marshfield,
Massachusetts - A Historical time line from 1600..
Marshfield Taxpayers Assn..
Reginald A. Fessenden
- Radio Pioneer - Made World's First Radio Broadcast.. W1FRV
radio society...
Fred
Seitz - biography of Reg. Fessenden
Deluge Civilization - Writings of Prof. Reginald A. Fessenden
Tesla - First AC electricity genius and more...
U.S. Naval Aviation Squadron VX6 in the Antarctic.. Operation Deep Freeze...
U.S.C.G. Communications Station - Marshfield - NMF
First Trans-Atlantic underseas cable....
Nantucket
Lightship... WVL-612...
Stonehorse Lightship - A local man's version...
Antennas, accessories, custom work...
CONSULTING, OUTSOURCING
and MANUFACTURING SHOP
Can you use some electronic/technical/RF help on a short term project but cannot justify hiring someone full time?? We have rent-a-tech services that may fit your bill... Sometimes it just requires another opinion from someone who is not in the 'middle' to see improvements and cost lowering reworks.. The local cottage industry can also help with those light manufacturing items too.. vze43pw7 @ verizon.net
Dave Riley - AA1A
Radio Free Marshfield, Massachusetts, USA
Former Ham Radio
Calls/Stations: W1AAI-W4ODR-KG4AA-KG4BL-KC4USX-K1NAP-W3PQT-W1MMA
Commercial Station Work: WBZ -
KDKA - WOWO - WPLM
Former
Shipboard assignments: KHLX-WGHK-KIGP-WLDE-WNLH-WZJE-WDZC-WCJY
KFTU-WJMV-KPFD-KSBK-KNFD-KSBG-WLDF-NTNR
KC4USX -
K1NAP Operation
Deep Freeze, U.S. Navy 1964-1967
Marshfield,
Mass. is just south of
Boston on the coast where Reginald Fessenden performed radio magic in 1906 by making the
first public
Radio Voice Broadcast . Keeping the spirit of experimenting live has
lead me to many interesting positions in life and I thank
the forefathers of our vocation/avocation for a swell work
career. Among many interests here are:
Electronic/RF Prototyping,
Consulting and Outsourcing at: RadioCom.Net
.
Merchant
Marine "Sparks"..now GMDSS instructor and maintainer..Am retired from sailing as a
Radio/Electronics Officer with Arco Marine.. It was the last of
the commercial Telegraph jobs.. Here is some info on the new GMDSS
system as well as remaining CW operations as they exist..February
1, 1999 was the official start of the GMDSS system and the end of CW.
Check this Shoreside History Memorial.. http://www.radiomarine.org/
Laser Communications.. This is one of the remaining amateur
forefronts dedicated to the art of improvement.. The basic
technology hasn't changed much in 30 years but surplus components
are now affordable.. How about
building a simple laser set-up..??.. Building laser comms using
voice, data, sub carrier and range techniques is fun and
educational... Check out the www.qsl.net
'
laser-reflector' and the very comprehensive laser home pages of
K3PGP... Here is a local effort at modulating a
solid state laser diode. This circuit controls laser current and modulation at base-band as well as sub carrier frequencies. It has been used with
a 3 milli-watt printer diode that communicates for many miles and
also a 30 milli-watt that reflects signals from clouds and 'other'
layers..
There are various ways to get from point A to point B with a computer... Some
are interested in cutting the twisted pair ethernet wires and inserting lasers,
microwave, part-15 devices, etc.. Imagination, the Last Frontier...
LowFer Band Communications..
This
baseband transverter used
with the subcarrier laser equipment has other uses. It makes an
all mode transceiver covering 0-500 khz. out of a HF amateur
transceiver by using the transverter port. This will allow the
reception of whistlers, VLF, part 15, Fema, Boulder NIST 60 khz.,
European broadcasting, aero beacons, Lowfer band, DGPS stations,
the 500 khz. cw marine band and even the new 136khz band.
Here is a jpeg image of the prototype.
If you are interested in Low band comms then check out the Longwave
Club of America and the 'lowfer reflector' on www.qsl.net
Antennas.. Once in the antenna manufacturing business, my best seller was known as the AA1A SideKick because it mounted on the top or side of a mast or tower or the side of a building, was ruggedly built and outperformed like antennas tested against it.. It was essentially two half waves in phase and is a real performer on vhf-uhf.. Since then another idea hit using this type of phasing and mounting.. I call it a Double Up-Side-Down 'J' Pole.. This is a pix of 2 stacked side by side which gives lots of gain fore and aft in 2 lobes with about 8 to 10 db in on the sides. It is like the SideKick except the half wave elements are separated by a half wave space, affording more gain.. The prototype connected to a HT and walked through the woods gets full quiet from stations down on Cape Cod about 30 miles away at ground level. This antenna remains the best performer in its class and uses brass/copper construction allowing it to stay up in New England salt air for many years..
Best Antenna here.. After
years of fooling around with various wire antennas, beams and verticals I
finally can say that the best overall performing wire antenna is the 'Loop
Skywire' by Dave, W0MHS, This was arrived at by accident here in consequence of
hearing so many good reports about the G5RV style that I decided to build a 160m
versions which would be just right for me. It was a disappointment except on 40M
where it was really designed but had much QRN compared to the vertical full wave
loop. I tried to justify keeping it up but something had to go. I tried
230 ft. ( 1/2 wave @ 160m ) of heavy wire connected to the ends of the 160/G5RV
'inverted Vee' configuration' which made for a 430ft. horizontal loop up about 70
ft. It is a little short of design length for 160 but performs just fine. The
received noise is way down just like on the other loops but performance seems to
go up by the band. Ten meters may be open but I snag the weakest I can hear
which is better than with the 80m loop, the 250 ft. end fed wire and even the
multi-band beam.. I took the 80m loop down, will remove the multi-band beam and
leave the 250ft. wire for use as a tuned parasitic... So, call it a modified
G5RV/160/W0MHS and that's where it came from thanks to innovative hams there is
always something to think over.. Am developing a few rules about antennas:
1. Never use a Marconi ( vertical ) except on a ship or at salt water.
2. Use loops if you want to have less electrostatic noise in your receiver plus
some gain.
3. Use loops or wire antennas especially over poor conducting earth like here @
02050 where silica sand is most lossey.
4. The more wire, the better. You can always attach a relay or two to get you
fed more around the loop in the case of directional issues.
5. A compound bow and arrow with 3/8th deep socket over point will let you shoot
a light weight monofilament line from a reel right over the top of any
tree and right down the other side where you can hoist your lanyard. Forget
springs, pulleys, extra line as the soft branches are the spring. Don't forget
to pull through back and forth from time to time if tree 'grows' around your
line.
Am developing a few rules about antennas:
1. Never use a vertical except on a ship or at salt water or vhf/uhf.
2. Use loops if you want to have less electrostatic noise in your receiver plus some gain.
3. Use loops or wire antennas especially over poor conducting earth like here @ 02050 where silica sand is most lossey.
4. The more wire, the better. You can always attach a relay or two to
get you fed more around the loop in the case of directional issues.
5. A compound bow and arrow with 3/8th deep socket over point will let
you shoot a light weight monofilament line from a reel right over the
top of any tree and right down the other side where you can hoist your
lanyard. Forget springs, pulleys, extra line as the soft branches are
the spring. Don't forget to pull through back and forth from time to
time if tree 'grows' around your line.
73s de Dave - AA1A -
Stealth Antennas.. Modern day apartment dwellers and home owners who are restricted by antenna laws should not give up. Heavy copper tubing well bent and tuned can compete with larger outdoor antennas. Don't loose your signals because of the law. I work European stations on HF keyboard and can say that a well tuned small indoor antenna sounds louder than some of the aluminum moonrakers. Soon I will post a pix and info on a small indoor MedFer transmit antenna with very high 'Q' and low DC losses making it a better performer than wire antenna equivalents. See www.radiocom.net
Loop Antennas.. This is another subject lying dormant for years and who knows the historical roots of this very useful antenna that Reg Fessenden invented here at Brant Rock.. If you listen to the 160m ham band right down to VLF then this QUIET antenna is for you and it takes far less space than a beverage . It can be rigged as a VERY directional E probe or a larger loop covering VLF through MF and using combinations of sense phasing make deep nulls towards the offending noise and qrm.. For instance, Beacon 'QI' in Yarmouth, NS on 206 khz. is 10db over S9 here and if nulled out with the loop/wire combination, 'disappears' into white noise and then I hear 'ORE' in Orange, Mass., otherwise no trace of 'ORE'..
Accurate Frequency
reference.. Build a Poor
Man's Cesium Clock..
What this amounts to is a loopstick or active antenna that is
tuned to the Loran 'C' pulses on 100 khz... The various PRF
rates are sub-multiples of 100 khz.. therefore if you use your
local 100 khz. reference as the sync input to your scope then you
can 'strobe' the loran signals on the trace and adjust your
reference to 'stop' the pulses from drifting across the trace
thus emulating 'your' Cesium clock at NIST.. The same idea works well on 60khz. WWVB from Boulder,
Colorado. I choose Nantucket Loran-C- as it is much
closer and probably has less phase error.. The stability usually
comes out to about 30 hz. at 10ghz..
Coherent 'BPSK' information is available on the www.qsl.net 'bpsk' reflector, and VE2IQ has the latest free download of the Coherent Communications Program...This package also makes a nice fft and audio spectrum analyzer all via your serial port.. I have been using the Coherent program for years and believe me it is nice to be able to run 20 watts underneath loud QRM/QRN and still print data even though you cannot hear the signal.. It really digs into the noise...
10 Ghz. SSB/CW..Hilltopping.. DX.. start with the WA1MBA pages for some top shelf microwave bending.. Surplus 'bricks' and other microwave surplus from the cold war is making stable cw/ssb/fm operation on this band a reality. 250 milliwatts and a 1 foot dish make a nice hilltop rig that runs into any VHF transceiver as the I.F.. This unit has made 275 mile qso's.. It is especially popular when your operating from a rare grid square..
Home Brew Spectrum Analyzer.. The Poor Man's Version is a real fun project with much learning and usefulness.. The unit sees from 10 to 700 mhz.. and outputs into your simplest of 'O' scopes.. There are many cool mods to make it do much more..... This is one of my all time fun, useful projects as well as being cost effective.. I added AFC and was able to tune/lock into comms from hf to uhf.. I leave it running so that 28 Mhz. is at the left and approx.150 Mhz is on the right hand side of the trace.. Once as I was testing this out on the 'SS Arco Alaska' in the pacific, all kinds of spikes were rising up across the entire trace.. I went and turned on the crew TV and saw Calgary, Denver, and Phoenix TV all full quiet.. The 'E' skip was wide open.. Good DX catcher/alarm..!!..
Surplus Conversions.. What a feeling it is to take an old Boat Anchor and turn it into something useful.. I recently found a very clean Navy RAK VLF-MF receiver that had one owner since WW2 and had never been issued to the fleet.. The first thing I did was dis-connect and discard the remote vacuum tube power supply... The entire receiver looks as good as new with all the tubes in place but built onto the tube socket of each stage is a FET transistor, 2 resistors and a capacitor.. Now the entire receiver runs on a 9v transistor battery and sounds GREAT..
StoneHorse LightShip WAL-501 is history and one of those Iron Ships that stood watch in Nantucket Sound until 1951...
U.S.S. Salem - The WW 2 Heavy Cruiser is alive in the Quincy, Mass. shipyard and is well represented by local hams. The ship's call sign K1USN formerly NIQY can be heard on the bands during operations. Come visit the several radio rooms aboard..
Marconi Radio Club - W1AA - Visit the foremost page of the very active Marconi radio club with their on air events and historical information..
CW - Telegraph and related organizations such as the Society of Wireless Pioneers and the Veteran Wireless Operators Association are going strong if CW is your liking.. These fine organizations are two ways to keep the interest in a lost art.. No matter what the general feelings concerning CW out in the ham community, here are two friendly venues...
73s from Dave Riley - AA1A - vze43pw7 (AT) verizon.net
