|
 Well I'll be darned, old Mac the master
radio repairman taught me something else new this month. Along
with giving sidekick Barney a lesson on business ethics and how honest dealing can
pay dividends as societal conditions change, he also put on his Sherlock Holmes
cap and deduced a surprising cause for circuit failure based on the physical location
of a lady's radio; read on to learn the details. As usual, the exact scenarios of
the stories do not apply to today's environment and/or equipment, but the troubleshooting
logic certainly does...
 The old
pushbutton radio tuners were an ingenuous bit of electromechanical
wizardry. For those too young to have experienced them, operation was simple - turn
the radio tuning knob to your broadcast station, pull out the lever/button, and
then push it all the way back in. Done. The next time you pushed that button, the
mechanism would slew the tuning dial to that position, taking the tuning elements
(usually just a variable capacitor) with it. For most modern electronic radios,
you program the station button by pushing and holding it for a few seconds until
a beep is heard. My father never quite got the hang of tuning the pushbutton radio
in his old Rambler (vacuum tubes) or even his 1972 Chevy pickup...
 In the mid- to late- 20th century,
300-ohm twin-lead cable served as the dominant transmission line for connecting
television antennas to receivers. This Popular Electronics magazine article
explains that the "300-ohm" rating represents the characteristic impedance of the
line, which remains constant regardless of length when properly terminated. When
matched at both the antenna and the TV, the cable functions as an "untuned" line,
ensuring maximum signal transfer. If the termination does not match the cable's
impedance, the line becomes "tuned," causing the input impedance to fluctuate wildly...
 Metal-encased vacuum tubes were such a big
deal when they arrived on the scene in the mid 1930s that two successive issues
of Radio-Craft devoted the majority of print space to them. Metal tubes,
as admitted by editor and author Hugo Gernsback, did not perform as well electrically
as glass tubes yet, but that was attributed to the infancy of the technology. Overwhelming
positives, including ruggedness, lower cost of production, longevity and other aspects
would ensure that metal tubes "are here to stay." They never did even come close
to replacing glass tubes. One of the most interesting statements in the article
has nothing to do with metal tubes, but Mr. Gernsback's understanding...
 "At MWC26 in Barcelona, SpaceX introduced
a new phase of its
direct-to-device
(D2D) satellite strategy, renaming the offering Starlink Mobile and outlining
plans to align it more closely with terrestrial 5G networks. The service will run
on the company's second-generation low Earth orbit satellites and is positioned
as complementary to ground-based infrastructure. Michael Nicolls, SVP at SpaceX,
said in a presentation at the event that the upgraded satellites represent a significant
technical step beyond the LTE-compatible messaging, voice, and video services supported
by the first-generation constellation - broadband capabilities to unmodified cell
phones..."
 Here is a brief synopsis on the main difference
between
glass and metal vacuum tubes - the metal case tubes generally
exhibit higher interelectrode capacitances. Unless successfully addressed, that
limits usefulness in high frequency circuits. One of the major advantageous features
of metal tubes is the built-in EMI/RFI shielding both for keeping desirable fields
inside the tubes and keeping undesirable fields from entering...
 This article, in addition to reporting on
early
push-push power amplifier configurations, demonstrates what a
mess AC and DC power distribution systems were in the early days of electric service.
Standardization and regulation was at a minimum, and the plethora of potential hazards
to life and property makes you wonder how more people were not killed, maimed, or
had houses and businesses burned down. You hear a lot about medical issues that
came from lead-based paint on window sills, but the electrical wiring and connected
equipment were a mess. Back to the push-push amplifiers, though. According to the
author, the primary difference from the more familiar push-pull amplifier is that
the configuration removes bias from...
 Crane Aerospace & Electronics' products
and services are organized into six integrated solutions: Cabin Systems, Electrical
Power Solutions, Fluid Management Solutions, Landing Systems, Microwave Solutions,
and Sensing Components & Systems. Our Microwave Solution designs and manufactures
high-performance
RF, IF and millimeter-wave components, subsystems and systems for commercial
aviation, defense, and space including linear & log amplifiers, fixed &
variable attenuators, circulators & isolators, power combiners & dividers,
couplers, mixers, switches & matrices, oscillators & synthesizers.
 Teenage technophiles Carl Anderson and Jerry
Bishop were up to their old tricks again in this "The
Tele-Tattletale" episode of John Frye's monthly adventure in Popular Electronics
magazine. The boys were bitten by the Space Race bug that was in full swing at the
time (1958). Jerry cleverly built himself a telemetering device to mimic some of
the functions being employed on missiles and, soon to be, manned spacecraft (1961).
His setup involved a lot of different technologies and homemade electromechanical
sensors and electronic paraphernalia - all stuff that can be bought for peanuts
on Amazon for use with Arduino configurations. At first I thought maybe Mr. Frye
had slipped in his writing, because in the beginning Jerry had the remote sensor
unit inside a metal freezer...
 In 1936, a high school graduate could expect
to earn about $15 per week, or about 38¢ per hour (40-hour week), in the
nascent
radio business. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Inflation
Calculator, that is the equivalent of around $348 per week in 2026, which is not
much to live on these days. Today, many McDonalds burger flippers are being paid
$15 per hour ($600/40-hour week). That equates to a little over $26 per week in
1936 - nearly twice as much as an electronics technician who likely had military
and/or technical school training. This 1936 Radio-Craft magazine article discusses
the benefits of formal education in regard to potential earnings...
 "NTT DOCOMO, a Japan-based mobile network
operator providing telecommunications services including mobile voice, data, 5G,
and digital solutions for consumers and enterprises and Keio University Haptics
Research Center have conducted a demonstration of high-precision
remote robot operation over commercial 5G. By combining Configured Grant, a
low-latency network slicing technology, with Keio's Real Haptics® technology, force
feedback and tactile sensations were transmitted stably. The demonstration marks
the first instance of Configured Grant being used to enable practical robot teleoperation
over commercial 5G..."
 Radio-Craft magazine ran a series
of feature articles on "Men Who Made Radio." The January 1930 edition honored Canadian
engineer
Reginald A. Fessenden, who is credited for making the first
wireless voice transmission. Mr. Fessended worked with both Thomas Edison and
George Westinghouse, eventually inventing the rectifying electrolytic detector,
which was the successor of the coherer and the precursor of the crystal and the
tube detectors. His interest in communications extended beyond radio to include
sonic devices like sonar, a field in which he also gained significant renown...
 What was considered in 1937 to be a breakthrough
feat for a full-size airplane is today accomplished regularly in model airplanes.
What took hundreds of pounds of generators, radio gear, sensors, and actuators to
perform the first-ever
fully automatic landing is now done with a few ounces of microminiaturized
GPS receiver, processor, MEMS sensors, servos, and a LiPo battery. The HobbyZone
Sportsman S+RTF (see video at bottom) is an example. Most modern commercial aircraft
are capable of landing themselves in an emergency situation. Just today there was
a news report of an American Airlines pilot that died in flight and the copilot
took over to land the airplane...
 Conceptual dilemmas in electronics (and
other fields) often arise from foundational misunderstandings that can be resolved
through rigorous analysis. This Popular Electronics magazine article addresses
three primary paradoxes that frequently confuse beginners. First, the "plus-and-minus"
debate regarding current direction is clarified as a semantic convention: while
electrons physically flow from negative to positive, the historical definition of
current often assumes the opposite direction, provided one remains consistent. Second,
the capacitor-charging paradox, which seems to contradict the near-light-speed transmission...
 Here are the schematics, chassis layout,
and service info for the
Howard Explorer Model W Deluxe 19 Tube All-Wave Superheterodyne
radio. The Radio Service Data Sheets that were published in Radio-Craft
magazine usually seem to have more information included than those published in
other magazines, at least in the same era (1940-ish). It might have to do with how
much material is provided by the manufacturer rather than a decision by the magazine
editors. Believe it or not, there are still people searching for such data...
 "SpaceX satellite policy lead Udrivolf Pica
told participants in the International Telecommunication Union Space Connect webcast
about the next-generation Starlink direct-to-device (D2D) cellular service for smartphones.
The revelation of the new service follows SpaceX's October 2025 U.S. trademark filing
for "STARLINK MOBILE" and comes as Elon Musk has recently hinted at Starlink mobile
ambitions. 'We are aiming at peak speeds of
150 Mbps per user,' Pica said, adding, 'So something incredible if you think
about the link budgets from space to the mobile phone..."
 On a fairly regular occasion someone will
write to one of the QST magazine columnists or post on a forum asking about information
on a particular antenna configuration he recalled seeing printed many moons ago,
but can no longer find anything on it. Fortunately, the columnists are guys who
have been in the Ham game for a many decades and not only remember what the writer
references, but knows where to dig out the original info. Even with the plethora
of resources available on the Web, some things still cannot be found because nobody
yet has posted it. That is one of my prime...
 Hiram Percy Maxim is well-known by amateur
radio operators as the founder of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). He died
in 1936 and was buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown, Maryland. A few years
ago while visiting relatives in Hagerstown, I went to the cemetery, took some photos,
got the exact GPS coordinates, and posted a short article on it (see
Hiram Percy Maxim's Gravesite in Hagerstown, Maryland). If
not for my documentation, there would be no way to know that the large grave marker
shown in this 1940 QST magazine article does not belong to the esteemed
Mr. Maxim, but to the matron of his wife's family...
 Here are a couple
high tech comics for your enjoyment from the pages of the July
1961 edition of Electronics World magazine. I'm guessing the joke in the
page 72 comic is that unknown parts were/are generically referred to as "Brand
X," so hopefully that would bring in customers who couldn't identify components
(which the repairman probably could). It could also be an unintended warning that
if "Brand X" (knockoff part) is sold there, then there is a good chance inferior
parts will be used in the repair. The page 94 comic is yet another play
on the huge popularity of home hi-fidelity (hi-fi) sound systems of the day. Amplifiers
still used vacuum tubes so building speaker driver circuits that could handle hundreds
of watts was easy to do...
 Fifth in the "Men Who Have Made Radio" series,
Heinrich Hertz is honored here for giving mankind what author Hugo Gernsback appropriately
termed "a sixth sense." Having earned his doctorate with a thesis on "the distribution
of electricity over the surface of moving conductors," Hertz proved through his
experiments the existence of electromagnetic waves - the aforementioned sixth sense.
During his short 37 years on Earth,
Heinrich Hertz accomplished an impressive amount of fundamental
research and discovery. He was remembered fondly as a kind man who placed advancing
the frontiers of science ahead of fighting for credit...
 Werbel Microwave began as a consulting firm,
specializing in RF components design, with the ability to rapidly spin low volume
prototypes. The
WMRD09-7.2-S is a 9-way resistive splitter that covers from DC to 7.2 GHz
with ultra-wide bandwidth. This unique design accomplishes extremely flat frequency
response in a small radial package. Our unique design approach provides higher than
expected isolation between outputs at far ports than would be achieved in a typical
star topology. It has applications in markets such as CATV, T&M, and military
radio...
 While watching the Avengers: Age of
Ultron movie, at some point when one of the computer voices was speaking, a
memory of the "This
Is DigiTalker" voice suddenly came to mind. Back in the mid-1980s while working
at Westinghouse in Annapolis, Maryland, a couple of the engineers brought a DigiTalker
prototype experimentation board into the super-classified area where I worked. According
to National Semiconductor's datasheet, it was introduced sometime around 1980. The
programmable digital voice IC was a big deal in that unlike other devices that had
a fixed set of...
 Innovative Power Products has been designing
and manufacturing RF and Microwave passive components since 2005. We use the latest
design tools available to build our baluns, 90-degree couplers, directional couplers,
combiners/dividers, single-ended transformers, resistors, terminations, and custom
products. Applications in military, medical, industrial, and commercial markets
are serviced around the world. Products listed on the website link to detailed mechanical
drawings, electrical specifications, and performance data. If you cannot find a
product that meets your requirements on our website, contact us to speak with one
of our experienced design engineers about your project.
|
 • ARRL -
3 Questions Removed from NCVEC Question Pool
• Manufacturing
Expands Amid Surging Prices
• 6G
Spectrum Sharing Shows Promise
• FCC Expands
Unlicensed Use of 6 GHz Band
• Active
Smartphone Installed Base up 2% in 2025
• FDA Clarifies
Wearable Device Rules
 The
RF Cafe Homepage Archive
is a comprehensive collection of every item appearing daily on this website since
2008 - and many from earlier years. Many thousands of pages of unique content have
been added since then.
 Concern over electrical shock is a good attitude
to adopt for just about any item that plugs into an outlet. Much has been done to
mitigate the opportunity for personal injury since this Mac's Service Shop article
entitled "Electric
Shock" appeared in a 1965 issue of Electronics World magazine. At the
time, there were still older radios and televisions that had an internal metal chassis
which could be at the line voltage (usually 110-120 V) depending on which way
the power cord was plugged into the wall. Polarizing wall receptacle slots (neutral
on left is taller, hot on right is smaller) helped to assure that a lamp socket,
for instance would have the outside area of the screw-in socket was at neutral and
not hot, thus minimizing the chance of receiving a shock. Adding a safety ground
to power cords that bonded to user accessible metal parts was a good first step,
but at least in the early days many receptacles did not have the third hole to accept
the ground prong. The only option for people determined to use the device was to
cut off the ground prong or use an adapter. The better option was to assure no metal
components were external to the product, and even adopting a "double insulated"
practice where at least two layers of insulation stood between the user and the
potentially...
 Whereas this "Choosing
the Right Antenna" from a 1958 issue of Radio & TV News magazine
article concerns television antennas, the information applies generally for any
application. Folded dipoles, conicals, Yagis, log periodic, and other types were
used by homeowners sometimes desperate to receive a good signal from a far away
broadcast station or from a location buried in obstacles (terrain, buildings, water
bodies, automobiles, towers, etc.) blocking and reflecting otherwise strong signals,
thus causing fading and multipath degradation. You might think the advent of cable
and satellite TV, along with Internet access, might have removed the need for rooftop
type over-the-air antennas, but it is not so. There are still plenty of people located
in rural areas that struggle to get a good signal, as evidenced by RF Cafe
visitor Dave Jones, (N1UAV) stacked 9- & 17-element yagi TV antenna project...
 At Parvoo University, amid relentless
November rain, H-3 dormmates Carl and Jerry pursue H-2's prank: a stolen bronze
trophy plaque hurled into a half-mile muddy stretch of river. Cold, turbid
waters bar preclude dives for a search; non-magnetic bronze defies current-day
metal detectors. Jerry repurposes his cousin's boat depth-finder as an
enhanced sonar, exploiting echo signatures. A motor
rotates a neon tube across a depth-calibrated dial; at zero, contacts trigger a
200-kc ultrasonic pulse from the transducer in transmit (speaker) mode, flashing
initial glow. Bottom echo reflects to transducer in receive (microphone) mode,
amplifying...
 As with most things of consumer, commercial,
and industrial nature, the battery - more correctly "cell" - science has come a
long way in a relatively short time. Alessandro Volta invented the eponymous
voltaic pile in 1799; it consisted of zinc and copper electrodes
immersed in a sulfuric acid electrolyte, thereby being a wet cell. The first dry
cell was the zinc-carbon type invented by Guiseppe Zamboni (not the guy who invented
the ice rink resurfacer) in 1812. Rechargeable dry cells of the NiCad variety hit
the scene in 1899. Then, it wasn't until 1991 - a century later - that Sony commercialized
the Li-Ion cell (and varieties thereof) that now dominates...
 These three
electronics-themed comics appeared in circa 1952 and 1953 Radio &
Television News magazine. For some reason the early 50s were a little comic
challenged, that is to say only one or two usually appeared in each edition. I really
like the one with the guy hanging from the antenna! He needs the rotator to turn
him back over the roof. You probably have to have lived in the vacuum tube TV era
to appreciate the humor in the comic with the homeowners rolling out the red carpet
for the repairman. It's hard to make out the artists' names, but they have appeared
on other comics of the era. If you enjoy comics like this, there is a growing list
of other comics at the bottom of the page you can check out...
 It is hard to imagine a time when there wasn't
a vast network of highways connecting not just the interior of the continental U.S.,
but also interconnecting all of the countries in North America. Just as pioneers
in covered wagons and on horseback forged the routes that became the Oregon Trail
in the early 19th century, so did teams of explorers, cartographers and engineers
do the heavy lifting in the early 20th century in establishing the first defined
roads for expediting the transportation of goods and persons all up and down the
continent's west coast. Radio operators were among the crews of the
International Pacific Highway (IPH) project. Heavy, bulky, and
fragile tube-based radio equipment was transported in vehicles equally bereft of
adequate facilities in the form of power and shock absorbing suspensions. This story
from a 1931 edition of the ARRL's QST magazine tells of harrowing experiences in
the jungles and mountains of South America...
 It has been a long time since I've had a
citizens band (CB) radio in my car. Back in the 1970s when the
CB craze was at its peak, with songs like C.W. McCall's "Convoy"* topping Casey
Kasem's American Top 40 (AT40) charts, my high school compadres were all installing
23-channel CBs (standard at the time) in their cars and pickups. I joined in with
a Radio Shack unit (don't recall the model number). In those days the FCC required
operators to register and mail a check for a few bucks - same with radio control
(R/C) systems for model airplanes also operating in the same 26-27 MHz radio
band - in return for a "Citizens Radio Station License" document to carry in your
wallet. Most CB channels were spaced at 10 kHz, but the R/C frequencies were
in-between some CB channels spaced at 20 kHz. For instance, my 3-channel OS
Digitron R/C system was at 27.195 MHz, which resided between CB channels 19
(27.185 MHz) and 20 (27.205 MHz). Some electronically savvy CBers would
illegally modify their radios to include operation on those in-between frequencies
(e.g. Ch 19A at 27.195 MHz), thereby creating a scenario where merely keying
up the transmitter could "shoot down" a model airplane if close enough...
 This rather extensive article from a 1947
issue of QST magazine describes the method used by author Philip Erhorn
to experimentally (i.e. empirically) determine
optimum spacing for the parasitic elements of his antenna. Unless you have electromagnetic
field simulation software available for designing antennas, the procedure typically
involves beginning with published formulas for element length and spacing, then
resorting to a cut-and-test method of finding a combination that works best for
your installation and goals. Almost certainly no two Hams end up with identical
configurations because differences in terrain, physical obstacles, antenna height,
soil conductivity, test methods and available equipment, and ability to interpret
results affect outcomes. Even with software like "EZNEC" (free as of January 2022)
and more sophisticated professional programs like NI/AWR's "Analyst" and Keysight
Technologies' "Momentum," significant variations can occur one an antenna is deployed
in an operational environment...
 Images, harmonics of the intermediate frequency
(IF), harmonics of the local oscillator (LO), multiple station IF mixing, inductive
and capacitive coupling, other types of noise can find a way into circuits if sufficient
shielding and judicious component placement is not implemented. It is as true today
as it was in 1941 when this article appeared in Radio-Craft magazine. An
interesting interference generator discussed is that of heterodyned signals generated
external to the receiver by means of random nonlinear junctions reacting to multiple
high power broadcasting stations in a local area, as was fairly common when AM stations
were the norm. Rusty bolted joints in buildings, towers, even automobiles can be
the source of such phenomena. Even today it is not uncommon for bolted and riveted
junctions on antennas and RF connectors to generate what are now termed
passive intermodulation (PIM) spectral products...
 Nearly everyone has seen photos and/or videos
of the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapons tests at the Bikini Atoll from shortly
after the end of World War II. Upon the ships were penned various species of
animals - goats, pigs, rats, guinea pigs, etc. - along with radiation and mechanical
measurement equipment. The goal was to determine exposure levels to nuclear and
electromagnetic radiation, as well as to severed physical forces. That was for both
the ship and its "crew." A Fat Man type fission bomb was detonated underwater (90-foot
depth), as opposed to the air drop type. Many sources provide details of the entire
operation, including the findings. Given the extreme complexity and risks involved
in using bombs, laboratory facilities were constructed to simulate exposure from
bombs. This "Death-Ray
Chamber Tests Atom Effects" story from a 1953 issue of Popular Mechanics
magazine describes one method used by the Naval Medical Research Institute...
 When
metal-encased vacuum tubes came on the electronics scene in the 1930s, they
were billed as the innovation that was going to radically change the radio world.
The built-in Faraday shield properties of the tubes did in fact stop the effects
of cross-coupling between adjacent tubes and permit more densely packed circuits,
but they also caused some other problems as well. Capacitance between tube elements
and the shield caused electron flow control issues and affected operational frequency.
Packing tubes closer together also meant the rat's nest of resistors, capacitors,
inductors, and wires on the underside of the chassis that were installed in a point-to-point
manner rather than neatly on printed circuit boards (which largely did not exist
at the time) were closer together and therefore created new problems due to proximity.
Still, metal tubes served a very useful purpose when employed wisely and continued
in use along with unshielded tubes...
 The
thyratron is not necessarily a familiar type of vacuum tube to most RF and microwave
electronics practitioners unless they happen to be involved in radar, imaging (x-ray),
particle accelerators, etc.† It is basically a high speed, high current switch used
in pulse forming networks for firing magnetrons (via a high-voltage transformer).
Both the S-band airport surveillance radar and the X-band precision approach radar
I worked on in the USAF employed thyratrons. The X-band radar had been modified
by the time I came on the scene to use a solid state thyratron (one of the earliest
adaptations), but the S-band radar still used its original vacuum tube thyratron.
While I don't recall for certain, I believe the thyratron in the thumbnail image
is the one it used. The accompanying ruler...
 Here is the final installation of a 22 part
series entitled "The
Saga of the Vacuum Tube," by Gerald Tyne, that appeared in Radio News magazine
in 1946. Part 1 was printed in March 1943. The collective contents, which covered
the development of the vacuum tube from its conception to the end of World War I,
could have been published as a stand-alone book. Author Gerald F. J. Tyne
presented the series to trace the development which took place up to the end of
World War I along a particular branch of the network of roads which led to the modern
radio tube. He traced the evolution from studies of the interactions between heat
and electricity as pursued by the early philosophers and by the physicists who followed
them (Lee de Forest, et al). These limitations have been adopted in an attempt
to report the work done in the years where there is a dearth of readily available
published material...
 These
electronics-themed comics from vintage issues of electronics magazines were usually
funny even without being privy to the particulars of the topic to which it alludes. A
couple guys shipwrecked on a floating hunk of wooden hull is usually the basis for a
laughable comic. However, in this case the zip code mention was particularly significant
in 1965 since the U.S. Post Office had only recently, in 1963, implemented the nationwide
5-digit zip code system, so it was in the news and in the forefront of people's minds.
High fidelity stereo systems were also all the rage in the mid 1960's, as evidenced by
all the print space allocated to it in Popular Electronics and other
magazines. I took the liberty of colorizing them for you...
 Mac McGregor, owner of
Mac's Radio Service Shop, can always be counted on to provide his apprentice
technician, Barney, with a lesson from his own life-long attendance at the School
of Hard Knocks. Barney is your stereotypical young buck whose level of seriousness
needs occasional alignment, just as do the radio and television sets he services.
In this episode, I can't find where Mac actually solved the intermittent electrical
condition believed to be causing the problem - weird. The "Mac's Radio Service Shop"
series ran in Radio & Television News magazine for many years prior
to a similar electronics story series called "Carl & Jerry" that appeared in
Popular Electronics. Both were created by consummate storyteller John T. Frye...
 Radio astronomy has been the motivation for
much research work in the design of low noise, high sensitivity receivers, but also
in determining the characteristics of the Earth's upper atmosphere. Before sounding
rockets could be launched to verify theoretical proposals, observed versus predicted
behavior in radio signals being reflected off the moon and planets needed to be
explained and, if necessary, corrected. One notable example of atmospheric perturbation
is the rotation of polarization caused by electrons in the ionosphere (the Faraday
effect). Parametric and cryogenically cooled receiver front end technology has been
primarily driven by the needs of radio astronomy. The International Geophysical
Year (IGY), launching (literally) a coordinated multinational effort to more fully
understand the upper atmosphere's effects on communications, began the same year
this story appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine. While it is true that radio astronomy
has the advantage of not needing to wait for clear, dark skies to be useful the
way observation in visible wavelengths...
 Anyone out there old enough to remember when
you were a kid and managed to be able to stay up late enough, maybe on a Saturday
night, to be able to watch the television station sign off the air at night? Here
in the U.S., the custom was to announce the end of the programming day, play the
National Anthem, and then put up the station logo while broadcasting a single tone.
The
tone and test patterns were actually used by TV technicians for calibrating
instruments for use in servicing sets. In 1951 when this TV Station List appeared
in Radio-Electronics magazine, black and white (B&W) was still the
standard, so these images are what you would have seen then. I'm not quite that
old (born in 1958), but I do recognize the stations we could receive at my parent's
home in Mayo, Maryland. Being located between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, a
pretty good selection of both VHF and UHF...
 Here is a handy-dandy baker's dozen of
"kinks,"
otherwise known as
tricks of the trade, shortcuts, or clever ideas, that could prove useful while
working in the lab at work or in your shop at home. They appeared in a 1935
issue of Hugo Gernsback's Short Wave Craft magazine. One suggestion is to place a
sheet of tracing paper over your schematic while wiring a circuit and draw each
connection as it is completed, rather than mark up the original drawing. That was
definitely good for a time when making a spare copy of a magazine page or assembly
instruction from a kit was not as simple a matter as it is today. Whether it be
a schematic or a set of plans for a model airplane, I always make a copy to work
and draw notes on rather than defacing the original... |
