CAKE session May 13 2017

On an impeccable May day morning it was delightful to be meeting with such exhilarating friends as

Ward AE6TY, Don K6GHA,Reed N1WC and John N5HPB. Ward is valiantly exploring a mountain of mathematics underlying filter behavior- why ? because it deserves climbing for the sheer satisfaction of doing so!

Have you noticed there is a renaissance of QRP activity going on? The incredible digital mode software coming from Prof Joe Taylor (K1JT) at Princeton U means we can literally span the world with a few mW on a balloon and of course QRP CW is very much alive and well. John showed us his back packing go-bag and an array of kit-built and home-brew items. Three things matter most in the QRP arena -weight, power consumption and antenna efficiency. Apparently the famous NORCal QRPclub is active again in the valley and their site has all their publications.

John continues to amaze us with his craftsmanship to produce artistic and functional 3D printed objects .I would like to apply a title to him as “CrafTist”. Unfortunately Ron’s latest QRP rig committed suicide!

3D items

On the other end of the size/weight scale we pondered over a rotary inductance with a built-in turns counter. It probably weighed close to 2 pounds. It was made by a firm in CT called Veeder and was inscribed with patent dates of 1895 and 1911. John mentioned that you need to have a TIFF viewer to see patents. This was an era dominated by high power and LF and the coil was wound on a glass cylinder with grooves for the winding. Ron will make some measurements of its inductance and report back.

Don now has his head in a cloud of big data, thinking what it might be like to have real-time access to many aspects of Ham Radio activity going on around the world. Pretty ambitious Don but go for it!

Ron mentioned a study he is conducting to quantify the effectiveness of HF antenna baluns.

Just found that the National Museum of American History site has some interesting detail on the Veeder Corp and their counting products.

73 to all and hope to see you at our bi-weekly CAKE sessions in the future

Ron W6WO