The AM Forum

For those of you that like to tinker, Ponder this.

http://www.mymorninglight.org/ham/insaneBTN.htm

interesting?   yes....INSANE?   not   The guy is very excited....

The use of the clip leads brings a warm and fuzzy feeling  :)

Nice !

Regards,

Steve

I like it, but it would be difficult to find a matching necktie.

OH, and I wonder how this non-standard wristwatch would be received by security details among the buildings in Washington where I travel.

I'd better reconsider.  Maybe if only black clip leads were used, or green, that would signal ground potential, no threat.

---

(http://www.mymorninglight.org/ham/BTNAMsm.JPG)

Some people have far too much time on their hands!  ::)

73,  Jack, W9GT

Don't you mean, "...on their wrist"?

I'm glad Y'all liked my "Insane BTN!" You should also check out my balloon microphone. That will eventually "morph" into an optical ribbon mic. It's a work in progress.

Someone here said something abou t"too much time on one's hands"... well, that is actually not the case. I only get to tinker with this stuff now and then. I wish I had hours a day, every day.

The watch-beeper AM transmitter was a lark, thrown together in about 20 minutes, documented, then tossed aside... where it's been ever since. More important things always have a way of muscling-in on our hobby, don't they? ;)

73 guys!

Hi Willie,

Nice to see you here. I'm looking forward to the optical ribbon mic project. Post it here when you get around to it. Welcome!

Mike

Here it is:

http://www.mymorninglight.org/ham/opticribbon.htm

:)

Willie,

You have come to the right place. No one here will hurt you, or think bad thoughts of you . You can be helped... Just look into this and you'll start to feel ok.....

 :)

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Pretty nice waveform/envelope on the watch TX.

Fun stuff Willie. The ribbon mic sounds interesting.

 :o  Believe me, NOBODY was more BLOWN AWAY than me, when that thing actually WORKED!!  :o

After only a few minutes of tinkering, it was giving me BEAUTIFUL audio & a very clean waveform. Surprising, to say the least! :) The idea came to me when I saw a small RF component riding on the audio (when I was testing the thing as an audible beeper.) That's where I got the idea to use a small coil, and FORCE it to run at RF. It did, and the rest is history!

All I need would be about 40db of POWER amplification, and we'd have something. ;)

Yes, the ribbon mic (the actual aluminum ribbon unit) DOES sound interesting... in fact, it sounds downright *amazing*! :) It's just tricky to get it far enough away from AC magnetic fields... sigh.   :P

I think this is to demonstrate how a typical Ham station is configured. Clip leads are the way to go to get that project on the air.
Fred

The essential elements of ANY Ham station:

Rig(s)!
Power! (Gotta run the stuff!)
Antenna(s)!
Parts!
Clip-Leads!
TIME! (There's never enough of THAT, is there?!)

Maybe if I boost the power to the wristwatch cover transmitter, I can open a time vortex? ;)

Fantastic !  How can we not be very impressed? What a delightful idea.

-with a little more work perhaps it could broacast the correct time.  Maybe one of those little voice gen chips 'n stuff.
3's -Rick

LOL! :)

I tried tinkering with the thing again, but lo and behold... it wouldn't oscillate- AT ALL! The transistor was good, so I'm guessing that the crystal has croaked. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted! ;) The next digital watch that dies will become the next micro AM transmitter. ;)

For real giggles and laughs, I should try using my first (alpha) homebrew ribbon mic to drive it!

If you thought the watch was insane, check THIS out:

http://www.mymorninglight.org/ham/ribbon.htm

I heard Stu, AB2EZ talking on the air about his homebrew ribbon mic... and I was inspired! I whipped that contraption together in just ONE HOUR! (It looks like it, too!)

Who was the guy on Mission Impossible that could unscrew the control panel of an elevator (between floors!) and turn it into a shortwave transceiver using nothing but clip leads..
Now I believe it could actually be done.

LOL! That sounds more like MacGuyver than Mission Impossible! ;)

Well, another watch has croaked!! "Stay Tuned" because I really DO plan to connect one of my homebrew ribbon mics to it, and fire it up!

If I can get it really stable and producing a harmonic on or near 3880, I will, indeed, make the ATTEMPT to amplify that signal to at least a few watts, with the "B.O.B. JR" transmitter...

http://www.mymorninglight.org/ham/BOBJr.htm

...and try using it on the air.

THAT would be FUN!!! :)

Barney Collier, the owner of Collier Electronics. The AA in the the photo.      klc

As a young feller I worked in a steel framework office building at Digital Equipment Corp. One day, a guy who knew about my geeky radio hobby casually wisecracked in front of our boss that "Joe could make a radio out of paper clips and a used styrofoam coffee cup if he had to". Like an idiot, I said "Sure I could". Of course the boss thought it was a novel idea for the next staff meeting, and suggested I should put together a demo of the alleged radio. Later as I thought about the challenge, I decided I could make sort of a modified "razor blade (foxhole) radio" using bent paper clips and pencil lead, and a styrofoam cup as a coil form. I figured using old telephone wire and the base of a stapler (for the "razor blade") would be within the spirit of the rules. The thing that stymied me was the steel framed building. No signal would get through unless I had an outside antenna. And since this was a modern, sealed-glass building, there would be no open windows to dangle wires from. Lucky for me the boss forgot all about the "challenge", and no one ever mentioned it, so I was off the proverbial hook.

I remember running a wire out behind a building I worked at over 20 years ago... to pick up a 250 watt AM station on the other side of Long Island! (I'm in CT) I built a simple TRF amplifier which drove a coil next to a standard AM radio. It worked ok-ish. Without it, I couldnt' hear that station at all. With it, it was audible, but any static or electrical noise was also being amplified. Still, it was great to be able to listen to it in that place. :)

Using a photo-transistor as a receiving element of your optical ribbon mic might improve your fidelity.  If I recall, photo cells are not as responsive.

It's a cool idea.  I may give it a try myself.

if I feed audio into an illuminated LED, I can easily hear full fidelity on the other end, when using a piece of a silicon solar cell. It would seem, however, that the solar cell bits I'm experimenting with are somewhat noisy... even when illuminated by a DC-powered incandescent lamp, they make a fair amount of noise!

I think I may have a phototransistor in my junk box. Thanks for the suggestion! I'll have to see how that works out, next time I get a few hours to tinker. :)

The other thing I'm still trying to nail down, is a REALLY, REALLY THIN piece of silver mylar. So far, the thinnest I've found is the wrapper for Pop Tarts. The physical characteristics of the mylar seems to be the biggest fidelity limiter. The mylar baloon actually didn't sound too bad!

Perhaps a mylar balloon is what I will need for a source of the super-thin stuff.

For Heavens sake don't tell Willie about the bunsen burner flame microphone. He could burn down his house!

Never seen so many smileys - man I feel warm inside..

I worked you sometime this winter because I remember the balloon microphone; at least before it exploded on the frequency.

Mike WU2D

I've heard of using a flame as both a microphone and a speaker. No thanks. Not going to go there. ;)

I like smileys... but that warmth you're feeling? ...how's the seal on that microwave oven? Maybe you're sitting too close to those 4-1000a's?

The mic didn't explode... that balloon is still quite intact, actually. ;)

I just need to try a phototransistor instead of the chip of solar cell. Lowering the noise floor would be a good start. I can work on getting better frequency response from the mylar after I nail that.