[SSDN] Homebrew Variable Capacitors -- VU2NIL's Antenna Tuner (and other projects from Basanta)

[SSDN via rec.radio.amateur.moderated Admin]

SolderSmoke Daily News

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Homebrew Variable Capacitors -- VU2NIL's Antenna Tuner (and other projects
from Basanta)

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 07:26 AM PDT
http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/07/homebrew-variable-capacitors-vu2nils.html



OM Basanta VU2NIL built a very nice antenna tuner using homebrew variable
capacitors (above). After seeing this, I feel unworthy -- I used
FACTORY-MADE variable capacitors. I feel like such an appliance operator.
I hang my head in shame.
Details on Basanta's tuner are here:
https://www.qsl.net/vu2nil/projects/20210/20210.html
More project from him here: https://www.qsl.net/vu2nil/
And more here (his blog): https://vu2nil.blogspot.com/
Basanta has obviously made great contributions to the radio art. Thanks
Basanta. And thanks to Alain F4IET for alerting me to Basanta's work.


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A Double Sideband Transmitter from France -- F4IET's "Master Robert"

Posted: 03 Jul 2022 08:37 AM PDT
http://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2022/07/a-double-sideband-transmitter-from.html



The Radio Gods seem to be steering us toward Double Sideband. A few days
ago I got an e-mail from Alain F4IET. We had him on the SolderSmoke blog
two years ago, talking about his French backyard pandemic Field Day. His
recent e-mail reminded me of his very fine homebrew DSB transmitter, which
is his only rig and with which he has worked the world.
The rig is named for the fellow -- Robert F6EUZ -- who is Alain's teacher
from the local radio club.
Alain's rig was shown to the world in the G-QRP club's Winter 2020 issue of
SPRAT (SPRAT 185). Once again, let me note: If you are not subscribing to
SPRAT, you are just WRONG. Join G-QRP and start receiving SPRAT:
http://www.gqrp.com/join.htm
Alain gives some nice shout-outs to Pete N6QW, Charlie ZL2CTM, and Basanta
VU2NIL, all of whom provided advice and counsel on this project. So think
about it: the Master Robert rig was built in France under the guidance of
a French Elmer, with advice from hams in the U.S., New Zealand, and India,
and was featured in journal of the British QRP club. That, my friends is
the International Brotherhood at its best.
As I read about Alain's rig, I found myself thinking about the Direct
Conversion receiver projects underway around the world. The Vienna
Wireless Society's Maker Group, is, for example, building a simple DC
receiver. It would be relatively easy to pair up a rig like the Master
Robert with a DC receiver (the VFO could be the only stage common to both
transmit and receive) to make a simple phone transceiver. That kind of rig
was my first phone transceiver. Alain reports that he is currently working
on a second version of the Master Robert. It will be a
transmitter-receiver (TRX) and will be used in SOTA operations.
Alain's description of his transmitter is a lot of fun:
http://www.f4iet.fr/mdwiki/#!master_robert.mdI especially liked his comment
about how the other phone stations never knew he was on DSB:
http://www.f4iet.fr/mdwiki/#!dsb.md I had similar experiences out in the
Azores with my DSB rigs.
Here is Alain's main page: http://www.f4iet.fr/mdwiki/#!index.md
Alain's QRZ.com page: https://www.qrz.com/db/F4IET
Here is the Master Robert schematic from GQRP:
http://www.gqrp.com/Maestro_Robert_Cct.pdf Here is a link to the 76 DSB
posts on the SolderSmoke blog (keep scrolling down!):
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/search/label/DSB