Paul Kimbrel's Musing

Well, the first in about 12 years, that is. Here it is in all it’s glory:

It’s based on the “Quaker Oats” crystal set radio. I know, know - I used a generic Quaker Oats box, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t affect the sound quality… much. All I have to say is winding a coil around an oat box is practically impossible. Especially for someone with as little patience as myself. But I managed to get it done. Of course, I can only get one station with this bugger… WJBC. And I can get it without the coil. *sigh* Oh, well. It was good practice.

When I first built the thing, I had only used the coil, a diode, a resister, and the ear piece (courtesy of the XTal Set Society - since Radio Shack doesn’t stock radio stuff anymore). I heard something, but it was extermely faint. So, I built a small OP amp circuit using an LM386 integrated curcuit. With that, I was able to amplify the signal enough to hear it (and a few other AM stations in the background). Now, if only I get get the tuning to work. But I don’t think my coil has quite enough “finesse” to pull that off. I need to read up some more on toroid coils, I think.

Oh, yea…

And did mention, I’m getting into ham radio? Yep. Hopefully by the end of the month, I’ll have my General Class license. I’m struggling a bit with the morse code requirement, but I hope to have that before test time, March 26th. You’ll probably be seeing more ham radio posts in the next few months…

And why ham radio, do you ask?

When I was kid, I got into computers as my hobby. It was fun, I learned a lot, and eventually I made a carrier out of it. Well, now I could care less about putzing with computers when I get home. But I still love electronics and would like to keep messing around with technology. Well, my dad has been a ham for longer than I’ve been alive. About a month ago we went to go visit my parents, and my dad showed me his new rig. It’s a Yaesu FT-817. He had it hooked to his computer and was showing me how he could chat digitially with other hams over the air waves. No internet. No wire. Very cool. Suddenly, I found the hobby I needed - and wanted.

Now, growing up in the home that I did, radio was always there. But I had computers to play with and never got into the radio thing. I always went to the hamfests with dad to look for computer stuff, but in recent years, the hamfests have gotten back to their roots - radio. Well, my interest started to wain… a lot in recent years. Last year, we went to the mother of all hamfests - Hamvention in Dayton, OH. It was cool and all, but I wasn’t into the radio stuff and at the end, it was one of those “that was fun, for a single visit” moments. But this year is different. Why? The one thing I never liked about going to hamfests was feeling like a foreigner. I had no call sign and no interest in radio.

Well, this year’s different. I can’t wait to go to Hamvention. And by golly, I’m going to have that call sign when I get there! If only I can get this morse code down… I suppose I ought to get back to it.