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ELECTRONICS / CONSTRUCTION
ELECTRONICS
Electronics has been my hobby since I was about 12 years old. Like all in this field, I had to begin by learning to crawl before I could walk, so to speak. -You can do this, too! (If you are interested, that is.)
If you do have an interest, or desire to learn about electronics and the construction of small devices, I would suggest that you look in your local bookseller store, for magazines such as POPULAR ELECTRONICS or something similar.
Also, check in a Radio Shack store for a selection of books dealing with electronics theory and construction of simple projects. They also sell some "learn by reading and building" sets. These have written theory, followed by instructions (on the assembly of the project just described) for hooking up the unit. These can be fun as well as highly instructional. (-Even USEFUL!)
-Some pictures of my shop... -This will give you some idea of the shop's layout. The following pictures will show you a "sweep" of the basement shop.
This (above) image shows the latest addition to my shop's "ham shack," the Flex-3000 . This is a SDR-type of a radio, something that is relatively new. SDR stands for Software Defined Radio. An SDR is an extremely good radio, made possible by the software and a computer that runs this software.
The Flex-3000 is being operated by an HP-Pavilion computer, which is mostly hidden behind the 24 inch iMac computer. (The iMac is able to run Windows 7, Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux, all at the same time as the basic Apple Computer's OS-X version 10.5.7; If you look closely, you will see XP in a small window in the Mac's display.)
The Flex-3000 radio is the dark blue box that is between the two computer screens. The black box that is on top of the Flex-3000 is an MFJ-993 automatic antenna tuner. The Flex and the IC-756 radios share the South 160 Meter loop antenna via an old-fashoned KNIFE SWITCH.
Just below the iMac is one of the "SoftRock" radios. (It is in a small BLACK box, between the two keyboards.) The SoftRock is a more basic SDR radio, as it will produce only one Watt of transmit power. It is the model/version RXTXv6.3. A second one is under way; It is in the rubble near the code key and the Heil hand mic that is on the bench's work area.
Above: Echolink computer, radio, interface. The old DELL computer is the Echolink server for the 147.96-36 repeater system that is at our home. The radio just to the left of the Dell (on the shelf) is a second Icom IC-2200 radio, which allows me to be able to communicate with the local hams with ease, when I am in the basement shop.
Above: Overall "FIRST GENERATION Ham Bench" pictures; The first one above shows the second IC-756 Pro-II, with the MFJ peak-reading power/VSWR meter and the Astron switching power supply. (The small SWR bridge above the radio is not being used.) The lower picture of this set of two is the Icom AH-4 auto-tuner, which feeds my window (ladder) line that feeds the second 160-Meter loop antenna. The IC-756 Pro-II is now getting less use, as the new Flex-3000 is the "new toy."
ELECTRONIC CONSTRUCTION
As an example of some of the stuff I enjoy tinkering with, I'd like to tell you about an ELECTRONIC COUNTER system that I designed and built. This took place several years ago (1977, to be exact...).
The unit had an 8-digit display, and an upper frequency range of 1 Ghz. It had 15 PC boards.
It was my first attempt at actually producing a product to the general public, in that it was offered as a "kit", of sorts. Included were the fifteen printed circuit boards (drilled and solder-plated for ease of construction) and a construction manual of about 50 pages. The manual offered such items as theory of operation, general use (operation) hints, PC board layouts, schematics of the PC boards and overall hookup, places to purchase the components, a drawing of a suggested mechanical layout of the chassis and case (yes, even the case was home-made, in keeping with the general "theme"), parts list and checkout procedure.
This was something that I had always thought about; Producing a product. It was fun, as I mentioned. I sold just enough units to cover my costs, no more!
-No picture at this time; Maybe at some date in the future...
COMPUTER CONSTRUCTION
I enjoy modifying and construction of Macintosh computers. When I say that I "construct" Mac computers, I mean that I use a Macintosh MOTHERBOARD and mount this in various cases, add the required items that are required to make the unit work as a complete computer. (These "required items" would consist of a power supply, a video output device, a disk drive, a hard drive, keyboard and mouse.)
Most of the systems that I have made up have some sort of "value-added" features. As an example, I often used various accelerator boards which are hooked to the motherboard. This makes the basic motherboard faster, or able to handle more memory, as an example.
One of the most challenging systems I ever made up was a PORTABLE MACINTOSH. I called this unit TOTERMAC.
