There's no modulation transformer in this amateur's homebrew rig.

[wa1knx]

I would have loved to have something to do with the nuclear power,
fusion/fission industry. Loved physics in earlier years. there are so
many questions, and clues out there how things work. as a kid, I wondered if there was nothing else in
the universe, why is there inertia? Earnest Mach put forth that is
the the total gravity Guv field rather than a property of space itself. Mr Einsteins General  Relativity
shows matter piled up does increase inertia, though small but
showed mr machs idea is on track. what causes the casimer effect? why is the universe expanding?
if the universe is open (not curved in on itself) then we have
a inertial vacuum outside of the univers Guv current mass and its easier to just move-away then respond to a weak gravity trying pull us
all back in. why diamagnetics, ie  why to some materials repulse both
magnetic poles? look at me go fun subject.. anyway hats off to the
young HS  scientist! and be thankfull for novas and super novas, as we
are made of the guts of dead stars - that is all elements over Iron

[AF9J]

Good morning everybody,

Thanks for all of the kind words.  I will say this, from what I've seen so far this forum is pretty much free of trolls, unlike a certain other forum.  I'd love to work you all on AM, BUT, I'm having technical issues.  I live in an apartment (on the 2nd floor,  grounding sucks, but I can take advantage of the height for antennas).  I have a high noise floor, partially from those nice mini flourescents used around my building to save energy (and no they aren't the coily ones you can buy at the store, they are like small trombone slides), and partially from those nice 250 kV lines about 100 yards east of my building.  I use the rain gutter (with a 50 foot counterpoise, and MFJ artificial ground), on my side of the building, which is made of aluminum (it may be only one or 2 pieces from what I've seen), is up 3 stories (the roof in other words), and is 125-150 feet long. So, in my case running even 100 watts of carrier may be asking for trouble (I'd probably get into the phones and the speakers of my neighbors).  So, I'm stuck with an FT-897D at 20 to 25W of carrier that's a hassle to set up. I do have another choice.  I have a Swan 270B Cygnet, that I sort of got stuck with 8 months ago.  It will do SSB with carrier (in other words AME). It will do maybe 30 to 40W of carrier (although from what Swan nut Bob, KI0KN tells me, it's easier on the sweep tube final, to keep the carrier down to say 25-30W). As it is, I'm looking into another rig to replace my 897D (I'm tired of the receiver shortcomings, I'm sick of going into umpteen menus to do anything, and DSP is lame, but I'll miss the VHF & UHF weak signal capabilities).  But that's going to have to wait. I went through some hard times a few years ago, that left me with bills I'm still paying off.  So, I'll have to scrape together some money before I can get rid of the 897D.

Another thought I had last year (due to a lack of space, which makes a Transceiver more attractive to me), was an old Gonset G-76 (but  it lacks 160m capability, and I like 160).

As for the nuke stuff - yeah, there's some fascinating stuff in that field.  BTW Dean, the latest cosmology, basically states that the universe won't have a big crunch, but will basically decay in 10 to the 1000 power years, into just a black, cold place.  You want weird, get into Quantum Mechanics.  I had to take a college course in it.  What some mind burning math! Well, I'd better get going, work beckons.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[WA1GFZ]

A nuke a very deadly thing is also a beautiful machine.....like a very large fire cracker

[W2XR]

I too have always been very interested in nuclear energy and physics, even as a young JN.

If you want to read a really interesting book on the history of the U.S. thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb, read "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhoades. Rhoades also wrote a fascinating book on the history of the Manhattan Project that I read as well. Although both books are essentially non-technical, they provide a great overview as to the subject matter.

The first H-bomb, code-named "Mike", was detonated in the South Pacific on the island of Elugalab in late 1952. The actual yield far exceeded the projected yield, and absolutely terrified the physicists and engineers responsible for monitoring the test when the reaction literally ran away with itself. The actual yield was measured at about 50 megatons, whereas the projected yield was estimated to be in the range of 10-15 megatons. To date, the biggest thermonuclear device ever detonated was 100 megatons.

Mike was not a deliverable weapon; rather it was an engineering demonstration and feasibility test of the physics and technology. It was a massive cryogenically-cooled, multi-story device with enormous Dewar flasks, compressors, etc.

As Ellen/AF9J correctly pointed out earlier, lithium deuteride is used in thermonuclear weapons, and it is lithium deuteride that made possible the orders of magnitude reduction in the size,weight, and complexity  of the Mike device to ultimately, a deliverable weapon.

73,

Bruce

[AF9J]

Hi Bruce,

Ummm, actually that's only partially true.  The first real thermonuke was the Ivy Mike in 1952.  This used cryogenics to contain the dueterium in a liquid form, and mainly served to prove the fusion weapon concept.  It was not usable as a weapon system.  It yield was 10 Megatons. The first really usable system (which was similar to what Andrei Sakaharov developed independantly for the Soviet nuke program) was Castle Bravo.  It was tested in 1954, and was the first sytem to use lithium deuteride.  Its yield (which is the largest to date for a US nuke) was 15 megatons.  Castle Bravo was a bit of an unpleasant surpise for the testers.  Its yield was only predicted to be about 4 to 8 megatons.  It wasn't until after the test, that physicists realized that the Lithium-3 they used in the Lithium Deuteride, played an important role.  Because it was so much more powerful than expected, and because the weather patterns were not understood as well as they are today, there were some people who were exposed to much higher than expected levels of fallout radiation.

The largest nuke ever tested was the Tsar (Emperor in English) bomb by the Soviets in October 1961.  It's yield was 50 megatons, and the design was capable of 100 megtons (due to concerns about excess fallout, some of the fueling was exchanged with lead, which halved its yield).  As it was, it went off at 13,000 feet.  The fireball not only reached all the way down to the ground, but up to the height of the Bear bomber that dropped it (about 40,000 feet - the plane was out of the way by that time, so it was undamaged).  The flash could be seen over 600 miles away, and some houses were wrecked a few hundred miles away.  The ground below the bomb blast (it was tested over Novaya Zemlya, in the Artic) looked like a skating rink of fused glass, and the atmospheric disturbance caused by the blast circled the earth 3 times.  When Andrei Sakharov was asked in the 90s, why on earth he ever made such a huge bomb (due to the damage it caused it was not even practical for military use), he stated that it was built, because Khruschev wanted to prove that the Soviets could do it.

Here's the website I got the info off of if you're interested in the history of it all.  Just click on the flag for each country, to read the history of their nuke program:

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/

In all honesty, I couldn't live with myself, if I built something that was a weapon capable of killing millions of people.

Ellen - AF9J

The first H-bomb, code-named "Mike", was detonated in the South Pacific on the island of Elugalab in late 1952. The actual yield far exceeded the projected yield, and absolutely terrified the physicists and engineers responsible for monitoring the test when the reaction literally ran away with itself. The actual yield was measured at about 50 megatons, whereas the projected yield was estimated to be in the range of 10-15 megatons. To date, the biggest thermonuclear device ever detonated was 100 megatons.

Mike was not a deliverable weapon; rather it was an engineering demonstration and feasibility test of the physics and technology. It was a massive cryogenically-cooled, multi-story device with enormous Dewar flasks, compressors, etc.

As Ellen/AF9J correctly pointed out earlier, lithium deuteride is used in thermonuclear weapons, and it is lithium deuteride that made possible the orders of magnitude reduction in the size,weight, and complexity  of the Mike device to ultimately, a deliverable weapon.

73,

Bruce

[WA1GFZ]

Man my Dad was lucky. After Korea they wanted him to stay in the Navy and go to the South Pacific. I wonder how many of those guys died early when the yield was higher than expected.
Search the web on effects of nuclear weapons good reading. I remember the last underground test in '82. I was in the air a few hours after LV shook.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Here ya go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_fallout_exposure.png

Gives an entirely new meaning to the 'red state/blue state' expression.

[WA1GFZ]

http://www.princeton.edu/~globsec/publications/effects/effects.shtml

[W2XR]

Hi Ellen,

Thanks for the clarification regarding the Mike test!

I just accessed the link you were kind enough to provide; lots of good archival stuff on the history of fission and fusion weapons.

Further to Frank/GFZs comment about servicemen stationed in the South Pacific; I recall reading a number of years ago that there was a western filmed in the Nevada/Utah desert area back in the early to mid-1950s during the time when the US was still conducting above-ground nuclear weapons testing in Nevada. Over time, a very high percentage of the cast and supporting crew for the film died from leukemia and other cancers at a rate that far exceeded what was considered to be normal. It has been assumed that they died from the results of exposure to the fallout from the testing. A number of famous actors & actresses were in this film, although I can't remember their names or the name of the film.

73,

Bruce

[KB2WIG]

J. Wayne was one i think.... I THINK the movies was "the Searchers", but I dont know fer sur....

I have also been told that the USAF pulled out of some of the nuke tests in the 40's 'caus the lack of safety precautions. One of the stories was the controll for the bomb was in the 80 m band.....  FWIW,          klc

[WA1GFZ]

The underground tests were set off by fiber optics driven by a lasar. No radio stuff there. These guys were all about safety I have never seen a more professional gang. These guys were smarter than using RF.
I see no reason to use RF since it was a sequenced shape charge.
Ensien Bickford made the fiber optics box. I was there for a meeting once and they brought it in and showed it off.
The underground tests were done in caves so they could test the effects of radiation. They would blow the physics package let the radiation go down the cave then blow doors shut to limit the blast.
Imagine the poor sap who had to go in and get the test article. Hopefully it was a robot.

[The Slab Bacon]

This stuff all intrigues me. I only wish I knew more about it. Not just the historical stuff, but the nuts and bolts mechanics of it as well.
It is kind of like "the forbidden fruit". Evil, deadly, but totally high tech and fascinating as well. This is one of the few topics of discussion here that I know little about except for the historical / political facetts. I have great respect for those who actually know "how it works".

I took a quick lookie over some of the links mentioned in this thread and was fascinated. I only wish I had more time here at work to thoroughly read them.

I can talk intelligently (and in most cases with much experience) about just about anything from airplanes to cars to engines to building radio stuff to cooking, but youse guys got me with this one.
Anything involving nuclear technology is beyond my realm of education, but this just "sucked me in". Keep up the good work!!

                                              The Slab Bacon

[W2XR]

Frank/GFZ & Frank/AHE,

Wow, there's a name I have'nt heard of in years; Ensign-Bickford. Yup, they make a lot of fiber optic interface equipment for EP (explosion-proof/hazardous environments) using 200u and up multimode fiber, for this and similar applications, such as the mining industry, refineries, etc.

When there is no possibility of a second chance, use fiber for truly mission-critical applications.

The company I work for still provides similar type fiberoptic transmission equipment to the Nevada Test Site, but ours is all singlemode, and it represents a tiny portion of our overall business.

Frank/AHE: Yup, this is indeed fascinating stuff, and really does appeal to any of us with an interest in science and technology. I really know very little about this field myself, but the technology, physics, history, social and political impact of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons has always been of considerable interest to me as well.

I'm glad that we have a true expert in this field with us now in the form of Ellen/AF9J!

73,

Bruce

[WA1GFZ]

Yes, inside the atom is a cool place that few of us understand
since all of us are kids at heart and some remember duck and cover
a very cool subject.

[W2XR]

J. Wayne was one i think.... I THINK the movies was "the Searchers", but I dont know fer sur....

I have also been told that the USAF pulled out of some of the nuke tests in the 40's 'caus the lack of safety precautions. One of the stories was the controll for the bomb was in the 80 m band.....  FWIW,          klc

If I'm not mistaken, the early tests were triggered by tone-encoded signals in the 450 Mhz. band using Motorola equipment specifically designed for the task, at least for the tests in the Pacific Atoll back in the early 1950s. I read this in the book "Dark Sun" that I described earlier, about the US & Soviet development effort of thermonuclear weapons.

73,

Bruce

[wa1knx]

oh I do remember the duck and cover exercises as a kid. its
worth getting to trinity site, open twice a year. I still have
my handful of trinitite in a bottle, still hot to my cd geiger counter
I have. Also see the titan missle museum here in tucson. los alamos
has a a good museum. I think there was a show, atomic cafe ??
with bomb pix.  I almost put in for vms engineer work there, they
were looking for 60 engineers there a cpl years ago, some new
weapon. anyway, plutonium is like 40000 times the energy density
of tnt, which is thousands of time more dense than gun powder.
yes, I read we are going to drift into cold lifeless mass in the eons
ahead. some how, like einsteins removal of a prefered regions
of space with relativity, I think theres always been something, and always will be. They keep making bigger telescopes and the universe
keeps getting bigger, who knows.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Yep, lots of safety involved as they dropped fallout on most of the country.

[KB2WIG]

"Yep, lots of safety involved as they dropped fallout on most of the country. "


Well, the Gov DID make it safe for Kodak film....    klc

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

Someone supposedly produced a glowing report (heh heh) about how there were no readings of radioactive fallout east of the Mississippi.  But it turned out that this was because there were no sensors east of the Mississippi.  Ah, politics.

[WA1GFZ]

I still remember my Mother telling us to not eat snow during the above ground tests. I remember asking my Dad if we could build a fall out shelter....he just laughed.

[wa1knx]

I remember my mom telling me not to eat yellow snow,, is
that yellow cake?,,

[The Slab Bacon]

Yes, inside the atom is a cool place that few of us understand
since all of us are kids at heart and some remember duck and cover
a very cool subject.

Boy Frank,
              You bring back some memories with this one!! I still remember "civil defense" drills in school back in the 60s. Go to the lowest part of the building,get down on the floor, "put your head between your legs and kiss your a$$ goodby"!!

                                              The Slab Bacon
     

[The Slab Bacon]

I still remember my Mother telling us to not eat snow during the above ground tests. I remember asking my Dad if we could build a fall out shelter....he just laughed.

I remember that as well!! Wow!! I also remember many people back in the 50s and 60s had "bomb shelters" in their basements!

[K3ZS]

During grade school in the early 50's, we had regular atomic bomb attack drills.  Get this, each student received a personal asbestos pad to sit on to keep our butts warm when we sat on the cold floors of the school hallway.

[AF9J]

Gee, you mean like the old Frank Zappa song? LOL (sorry, it's the musician in me [used to play lead guitar semi-pro, in heavy rock bands])!!!

I know what you're talking about with regards to the actors who died of cancer because of fallout from nuke tests. I saw an "In Search Of" episode about it, when I was a kid in the 70s (remember that show?, Leonard Nimoy used to host it). The movie was filmed in Utah in 1955, and was called "The Conqueror" (a cheesy B-rate movie about Ghenghis Khan).  The filming took 13 weeks.  There were no nuke tests during the filming, but in 1953, there were 11 atomic bomb tests in Nevada, and a lot of the fallout from those tests funneled into one of the canyons where "The Conqueror" was filmed. So, the actors and film crew probably breathed in a fair amount of the still radioactive fallout. 

By the 80s, 91 of the 220 people who were involved with the film, got cancer.  46 of them died from it (including John Wayne, and actress Susan Hayward).  Under normal circumstances no more than 30 of the 220 people should have gotten cancer.  Also, 30 years after the filming, half the residents of the nearby town of St. George, had gotten cancer.  The funny thing is, at the time of the filming, everybody knew there was radioactive fallout at the filming location (there's even a photo of John Wayne using a Geiger counter during the filming), but thought it was no big deal!  Go figure! But then again, back then, nobody ever considered long-term health effects.

If you're interested, here's the link, to where I got the info from:

 http://dorseyland.blogsome.com/2005/12/25/nuking-john-wayne/

73,
Ellen - AF9J
Off from work today, yeah!

I remember my mom telling me not to eat yellow snow,, is
that yellow cake?,,