Wx Links

Misc. Technical items - Technical items authored by the owner of this web site

• New April 2005!  Simple Morse Internet Encoder - A simple 2-way Morse Code encoder for Morse Code practice over the Internet.

• Internet Test Tools  - A simple TCP application that sends text between two PCs via TCP/IP.

• Talker Repeater Controller - A concept under development ...

• WSR-88D RADAR Browser - An Experimental RADAR Browser for NWS RADAR ("NWS RADAR Browser"). Download a version for North Texas for free.

• New April 2005! Digital AM Radio has come to Dallas! - Pictures and evidence that KMKI AM 620 KHz is now transmitting a digital AM radio signal - an IBOC iBiquity HD sytstem. Digital 'IBOC hash' has been present from about the 1st half April 2005 to the present. The digital sidebands affect KTBB at 600 KHz as well as WWLS at 640 KHz from Moore Oklahoma.

• New April 2005! Sears Wayfarer Model 8227 tour - Pictures and a narrated tour of a vintage 60's AM/FM/SW & LW Sears Wayfarer Model 8227 transistorized shortwave portable.

• New December 2004! Six Meter Hybrid Ring Duplexer -  Six Meter Hybrid Ring repeater duplexer (6M Heliax HR Duplexer) exhibiting bandpass characteristics rather than just two notches and built using Heliax.

• 2004! Aerotron MPAC 80BT90 Transmitter Rejuvenation - bring back the oomph your 90 Watt 80BT90 used to have! Also a guided tour of the Aerotron MPAC Model 80BT90 Transmitter, Model 80BR1 Receiver and Model 1093 Power Supply.

• 2004! Two Meter Duplexer -  Two Meter repeater Heliax duplexer (2M Heliax Duplexer) performance results.

• Six Meter Duplexer -  Six Meter repeater duplexer (6M Duplexer) built using Heliax.

• 2004! Radio Shack HTX-100 Microphone Amplifier analysis and improvement. Not a 'hack' but an analysis and measurement of the current Mic Amplifier circuit and a recommended component change to get rid of the muffle and increase 'the highs'.

• 2004! Motorola 330W Base Station Amplifier circa 1959 - Pictures and a narrated tour of a 1959 Low-band VHF Motorola 330 Watt Base Station Amplifier using a pair of 254W tubes. This amplifier was originally a 40-50 MHz unit but with redesigning the Harmonic Filter was usable on Six Meters (52.525 MHz). A little over 15 Watts of drive would develop over 250 Watts of output power.

• 2004! GE MASTR PRO 4EP38A12 - Pictures, technical documents and a narrated tour of a GE Mastr Pro series 4EP38 Power Supply. VHF LO and HI band and UHF Receiver and Transmitter 'strips' are mounted to the 4EP38 series of AC Power Supplies to form a reliable base station or repeater-grade full duplex transceiver. Although the GE Mastr Pro is 'vintage' equipment to many, the Mastr Pro series can be as reliable at a fraction of the cost of Mastr II gear; it does take some technical knowledge and skill, however, to pull this off.

• Updated 2004! UHF GE MASTR Pro - Fix those dead GE Mastr Pro UHF transmitter strips that seem to slowly 'die' in service. See also KB4TUR's MproPage .. Tips

• AM BrickWall Filter - Attenuates the AM Broadcast band while passing all signals at 1.8 MHz and above. Intended for use by those attempting to work the 160 Meter ham band but are experiencing interference from AM Broadcasters; this filter will also attenuate AM Broadcast signals that are affecting HF receivers or Transceivers on other bands as it passes all above 1.8 MHz through the HF band up through 30 MHz - Transmit capable with a 100 W HF transceiver, 50 Ohm input and output Z.

• 1296 Duplexer - Build a simple 23 cm duplexer from an old Motorola UHF Mark-12 'Simplexer' or a 70's vintage 4-cavity Motorola UHF mobile-phone duplexer

• Updated April 2005! Here is a survey of Battery Desulfator projects.

Firstly, you may ask, "What is sulfation?"   (Battery Plate Sulfation For Us Dummies/Aviation Battery Plate Sulfation and Resultant Degradation Explained)

Sulfation occurs when a battery discharges and the lead in the plates combines with sulfuric acid to form lead sulfate crystals. When you recharge the battery, the newly formed crystals will reconstitute into lead (back on the plates) and sulfuric acid (back into the electrolyte). The crystals act like insulators, the more you discharge a battery, the less capacity it has as the crystals begin to cover the plates and deprive plate area contact with the electrolyte. After awhile, the sulfate crystals may also become somewhat 'permanent', and are hard to remove (or 'force' back into the electrolyte).

So now, what is desulfation (aka "Pulse Conditioning")? It's the 'bringing back' of a lead acid battery by putting the sulfation back into the electrolyte. Those who have been at the forefront of this technology are those who need the utmost of performance from their battery banks, e.g. anybody running 'off the grid' (from photo-voltaics alone) for instance.

• BPL (Broadband over PowerLine) - Read a quick cross selection of articles covering the history about BPL's illegitimate start at the hands and in the mind of William 'Luke' Stewart. High-level politicos including Michael Powel have all been sold a 'bill of goods' based on the lies and deception of William 'Luke' Stewart. Since his efforts to swindle the public and public officials, he has been indicted on wire fraud and money laundering charges. His original 'system', which was patented, has yet to be demonstrated to actually work

• Annotated look at FCC Part 15 Line conducted Noise Specs  - A close look at FCC Part 15 regulations as they are abused by manufacturers of power line connected, noise-generating switching or switchmode power supplies and, notably of late, the switchmode multi-output battery chargers like the Guest 3-output 3-stage "On Board Battery Charger" model number 2623 (Guest 2623 battery charger).

 
• Click here to do a Google search for noisy power supplys and noisy battery chargers on the internet --> amateur "battery charger"  rfi

 
• Here is an account citing a Guest charger as a prodigious producer of noise: Guest Story 1  A general account of noise from a charger:  Story 2

 
• Dallas TV Spectrum - A view of the Dallas, TX Television RF Spectrum, including a new Digital channel on Channel 9 and eight new Digital UHF stations

• Proof of concept - Hall of Fame - Here may be found relics invented/engineered but never sold ... mostly RF-related products - filters and the like including one analog interfaced/microprocessor-controlled device ...

• Trunk Tracker / GMSK data demodulator - Basically a Motorola Trunked radio control board designed from the ground up and based on nothing but the air-interface specs and my own observations of trunking system operation.

• Plano Trunked Radio report - Trunking report showing activity on the Plano Tx trunked radio system using a trunking system analyzer

Technical History:

Bell/AT&T Microwave System

The Bell System's Microwave Radio and Coaxial Cable Networks page describes among other things a 4 GHz TD-2 uWave Radio Transmitter-Receiver Bay as used at a typical  Microwave Relay site. Selection process, site engineering and history on the first Microwave link (8 hops) between New York City and Boston.

Typical specs for a microwave radio rack are:

• Power output: +30dBm (1 Watt),
• Antenna gain, for those odd looking cornucopia Horn Reflector (HR) antennas: 39 dBi
• Max. receiver NF (Noise Figure): 15 dB

SAGE  - The Data Processing System for Air Defense called SAGE - "Semi-Automatic Ground Envirinment"

SAGE was part of the premier cold-war era Air surveillance, ground-control and command system - the Fort Custer blockhouse and antenna field (GATR) were part of this system as was K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base (both located in Michigan).

Here is a guided tour of another base made after the fact.

Also check the www.radomes.org/museum site menu for SAGE.

Links to Cold War Era Early Warning Sites

Media Hysteria

The press - they're out for what bleeds to lead with ...
 

Ford Crown Vic Fires - The Truth

 This account of the truth includes an audio excerpt from Wheels (a production of Ed Wallace 8am-1pm on 570 KHz KLIF in Dallas, Tx) and has links to the NHTSA study and investigation of the fires involving this vehicle. It appears the news media has latched onto, once again, a matter requiring some understanding of technical matter for which they have no training nor any capacity to understand. Read my take on this media debacle