Posts by Topic: radio
An Antenna Bracket
Derry Hamilton - 02/02/2015
I was looking for an antenna bracket that would fix to a camera tripod, and allow vertical antennas on 2m/70cm, and a pair of HF whips horizontally. No such thing appeared to exist, so I designed one. The easiest way appeared to be to use Schaeffer‘s Front Panel Designer. It...
In Search of the Simplest Oscillator
Derry Hamilton - 10/02/2014
Studying chemistry, one of the lightbulb moments was the realisation that lab skills weren't about learning how to use techniques, but instead about learning how to avoid stuffing things up, and rescue things once they were stuffed up. As the saying goes: "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there's a...
Repairing a Watson FC-130
Derry Hamilton - 24/11/2011
There's a range of relatively inexpensive frequency counters, badge engineered by various companies; Watson, MFJ, Optoelectronics, etc. that appear to share a lot of common design. (I suspect that the only thing that changes is the front panel, and the switches installed.) At least, the Watson FC-130, and the Optoelectronics Scout 40 seem to share...
A Powerpole Busbar
Derry Hamilton - 19/11/2011
This is a brief howto, to create a basic PowerPole busbar, useful for connecting various bits of kit at temporary locations. It's fairly robust, but not environmentally sealed. It's also not fused, so you need to fuse the supply seperatly. Required parts: Plastic housings PCB connectors Single sided PCB Small box Potting compound The first step is to assemble...