TINY MORSE KEY

     In years past, J. H. Bunnell (the firm that developed the standard form of straight key used in North America) has occasionally done production runs of the miniature telegraph key they first manufactured as a souvenir for the 1905 reunion of the Old Time Telegraphers' Association; at some point, Bunnell even made a tiny sounder as well.  No mere watch-fob, both items work.

     Bunnell is not the only maker of very small, "Triumph"-pattern telegraph keys.  KA6IRL made "QRP J-38" keys for several years and when one showed up at a well-known auction site, I was the winning bidder.

     Here it is between two full-sized keys.  Just the thing for when you only want a short QSO or smalltalk!

1:1 BALUN: NO LANGUAGE BARRIER FOR RADIO HAMS

A nice tutorial on building a 1:1 ferrite-core balun for amateur radio HF use by a Spanish ham, with all the information you need to build one yourself presented visually, like Roy Doty's "Wordless Workshop" series:

     (Bonus: includes the metal version of a cold 807!) In case pictures don't quite work for you, EA7IQZ kindly provides an English bill of materials in comments at YouTube.  His drawing -- which still-frames quite readably -- is especially good.  Oh, and the 2 mm enameled copper wire?  Close enough to #12 AWG (2.053 mm) that you can use one for the other.

     Variations and cautions: different ferrite formulations will have different saturation points and frequency coverage; I'd expect salvaged AM radio ferrite to be okay for 160 through 40  meters and maybe getting lossy around 20 meters. Power-handling should be okay up to a couple hundred Watts. You can (and should) test this before you glue up the housing by running some RF power through it into a dummy load for a few minutes, shutting it off and checking for heat, repeating the process at different frequencies (see below also) and power levels.  It is possible that with a really crummy ferrite rod, it might break or smolder, which would be exciting, but considering the most expensive part of the project is the PVC pipe and eyebolts, not a big loss.

     You can build air-core versions (I have one, somewhere, in a box with a nice toroidal balun, but I still haven't found them!), by scaling up the diameter and number of turns, but it's a matter of making a good estimate followed by cut and try.  If you own an antenna bridge, it's easy to build them, terminate the balanced side with a 50 Ohm resistor, and use the antenna bridge to check frequency coverage.  Power handling will be limited by wire size, insulation and coil form material -- PVC pipe is slightly lossy, polystyrene much less so.

SOLDERING COPPER

    Shown below is a soldering copper.  Good ones are increasingly rare; what has survived the sieve of time tends to be wobbly-topped, or chewed-up by harsh flux, or just beat-up.  This one is none of those things. It has a nice copper tip, solidly attached to the steel  haft.  Stamping on the tip reads "THE ELECTRIC MATERIALS CO. NORTH EAST, PA."  (Still around, with over 90 years in the business.) Plus a very large "2" which is probably tip weight in pounds.

   In use, you heat 'em up good and hot in the fire and the tip stays hot long enough to make a few connections.  Set it back down with the tip in the heat, wire up some more components, and by the time you're ready to solder again, it's ready, too.

     Proper use is something of an art -- keeping the tip hot but not too hot and not so sooty you cool it down wiping it clean is the kind of thing that can be learned only by the doing.  But zillions of electricians and radio-minded people did, once upon a time.  (According to their FAQ, The Electric Materials Co. will still make you soldering coppers (PDF!), though they have a $200 minimum order, which would be more than "several" even at current copper prices plus other materials and manufacturing costs and their profit.)

     My lodger and friend Tam found this one at an antique shop in New Hampshire and brought it home as a gift.  Good choice!

THE NATIONAL COMPANY'S SRR RECEIVER

     The acronym stands for "Super Regenerative Receiver" and I think it was their first foray into the old amateur radio 5 meter band, before the sophisticated 1-10 "Ultra High frequency" receiver was much more than a gleam in James Millen's eye.

     It's a tiny thing, 7¾" x 7¾" x 7" and 5 meters is where it tops out; with a minor reshuffling of coil connections, it covers the lower ham bands, from 10 meters down to 160 meters.

     As a "rushbox" super-regen without an RF amplifier to isolate the detector from the antenna, it's not a good citizen on any of them; in operation, it radiates a broad swath of noise, inherent in the superregeneration process.*

     And I own one.  There it was, at the Indiana Historical Radio Society's Spring swapmeet, standing out on a seller's table to anyone with an eye for old National equipment, at a remarkably low price.  I made an offer and somehow ended up with a nice homebrew absorption wavemeter in the bargain.

     Have a look inside the receiver:

     The coil and socket are standard 4-pin "tube base" configuration, unusual for a National product; they usually preferred their own designs.  But that will make it simpler to wind new coils.  The one in the socket probably isn't for this receiver -- not just the "Hammarlund" name on it, it lacks the cathode tap found on all SRR coils.  I may have coil-winding data.  I'm certainly going to give it a try!

     Rough schematic:

        It uses a version of National's "S-101" interstage coupler that I had not seen before.  The S-101 is a weak point in the design, as the internal audio choke (inductor) has a very high impedance, meaning many turns of small-gauge wire, which tends to perish in the potting compound.    Checking that will be the first order of business.
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* I believe it was Howard Hughes' 1938 around-the-world flight that found radio communication nearly wiped out by interference from people trying to listen in with simple superregenerative receivers.  This is why the later 1-10 had an RF amp, to keep that detector from getting in the way!

NEW TUBE TRANSMITTER KIT

     Yes, there's a new one: Chinese kit-maker YouKits offers their TT1A two-tube transmitter kit for US$129, less power transformer, HV rectifier and filter (though they supply all the info to build the B+ supply).

     It's a nice-looking little kit, with a tube lineup that appears to be close to 6C4 - 6AQ5.  The instruction manual is very clear, which solves the main concern of internationally-marketed kits.  Have no fear, YouKits has found someone bilingual in Ham.

     They also offer more-modern kits and an impressive antenna analyzer that is also sold in the U.S. by Ten-Tec.

THE CLOTHES/DISH WASHER

     It really existed; in fact, it was part of the appliance package for the higher-end models of all-metal Lustron homes: the Thor Automagic Clothing and Dish Washer!

     Even though you changed out the entire wash basket to swap from washing clothing to washing dishes, a lot of people just couldn't feel comfortable about cleaning dungarees and dinner plates in the same machine.  It wasn't a success.

     Sadly, under new ownership the company tried a comeback early in this century with a slick ventless all-in-the-same-drum washer/dryer and that doesn't appear to have worked, either.  The company website is gone and their last official Tweet was in 2010.

SOMETHING FOR YOUR VICTROLA EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT ONE

     Where do you go to find carefully transferred-to-digital Edison Blue Amberol cylinders?  Ragtime, jazz, brass bands and way more?

     One of my coworkers pointed out an attractive option: Archeophone Records.  Well worth checking out!

     (I'm still needing to move iTunes from my old computer to my new computer, which is gonna require digging out the spare monitor and keyboard and making them find each other over my home network before even starting.)