Sunday, February 7, 2010

Radio Tuned

Yesterday evening I was able to get the radio tuned with the help of Wayne, VA6AWR.  There was really only one slight glitch, the tuning wands that he had brought were the wrong size, so we had to run down to Active Electronics to get some, luckily they had the ones that fit. 

On the way back from Active we stopped in at Wayne's house and he showed me his 20m and 40m antenna as well as his NVIS antenna.  It was a pretty slick set up with his antennas.  Maybe once I move from my current location I will be able to put up some HF antennas and make some contacts. 

Hopefully, i have some time during reading week next week that I will be able to case the radio, but who knows since school is getting busy right now.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Going to Tune the Receiver

Today, I am off to go see Wayne, VA6AWR to help me tune my radio receiver.  As I do not have all of the equipment and cannot justify the expense or the space to get it at the moment I need to seek out those that have it.  One of the great things about Amateur Radio is that most people within the hobby are willing to help out where they can.  As this is a hobby that attracts those that build things it is good for me who doesn't have a lot of equipment yet, as well as I lack a lot of experience.  I have a little bit of knowledge of how the fundamentals are supposed to work, but I am willing to learn and gain new experience.  Isn't what building new things is all about.

Ben VA6KAZ

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

First Post

I love to build, and I thought that I would share my progress. 

My current project is building an amateur radio transmitter hunter.  I have done considerable research on the topic, and the most popular type in the region is 2m fm.  I do not currently have a handheld transceiver and I am on a budget as a student I needed the most economical choice. 

I decided to build a Vectronics VEC-1002K 2m fm receiver. 
http://www.vectronics.com/Product.php?productid=VEC-1002K

I needed an attenuator to mitigate the signals at close range, so I will be using the following circuit.
http://www.homingin.com/joek0ov/offatten.html

The receiver has no signal strength meter, so I found an LED circuit that I could add to the radio.  I have modified the circuit designed by N9ZIA.
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/appendixF.html#8

After that it is all built I will likely build a tape measure yagi.
http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm

I have completed the construction phase of the receiver and will be going over to VA6AWR to get his help to tune the receiver so that I can add the attenuator and signal meter circuits.  Pictures will come soon.

VA6KAZ