Jul 28
While taking a look at the latest Solder Smoke Blog posts, I ran into This Post where Bill mentions how much he loves using a wood board- so much so that he might not even put the radio in a case! This got me thinking: What do I have around my shack that I could …
Jan 20
Things have been pretty hectic here at Chez Geek, but I’ve made some time this month to work on a new project. Now that the QCX Mini 20 is all fixed up, and I’m making inroads in learning CW, it’s time for a dedicated “spare” antenna. My station has been single-antenna since I restarted radio …
Oct 20
Earlier this year I wrote about a modification/hack to the the QRP Labs QCX called uSDX that turns a normal CW only QCX into a SSB capable radio. It uses the Atmega 328p chip as an SDR, and uses a high end technology call EER to modulate SSB out of an amplifier made for CW. …
May 13
In the previous three installments, we tore down two old CB’s and an even older tube based CB linear amplifier. Those teardowns were a lot of fun and a great way to look at the way things used to be done before frequency synthesis took over. In this final CB teardown, we’re going to look …
May 01
Welcome to the second installment of “Salvaging old CB’s for QRP Parts”! In part 1 of this series, we described how we found a bin of CB radios and accessories at an estate sale some time back. The first radio we salvaged for parts was a Pace CB 145. The radio was disassembled to see …
Mar 24
It’s complete, and it’s for sale! Details in the video below Last year I introduced Project Brownie: The quest to imagine what a spy radio, made with technology that wouldn’t emerge for another half century, would have looked like in the 1960’s. To do this, I”d need some parts, some creativity, and some tools. A …
Oct 22
I recently became aware that there are companies selling Double Side Band radios for use on digital HF frequencies (FT8 specifically) on 40m, 30m, and 20m. In this post we’re going to take a look at what these rigs are, what they were originally designed for, and then you can decide whether these should be …
Aug 23
Wikipedia says that a dead drop is “a method of espionage tradecraft used to pass items or information between two individuals (e.g., a case officer and an agent, or two agents) using a secret location, thus not requiring them to meet directly and thereby maintaining operational security.“ How is it that every web server is …
Aug 19
Last year I posted about a small hobby welder that I’d picked up for only $15. In That Post I showed how nasty and gnarly it was, and a bit about what needed to be done to make it a working welder. Now, hold that thought! In another post I also wrote about how I …
Jul 30
Imagine programming your thrift store point and shoot camera to do things no other inexpensive camera can do. Take time lapses, star trail photos, and far more. I’m not talking about raspberry pi’s or arduinos. Instead, I thought it would be neat to show you all my favorite camera in the world. It’s not a …
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