The HX Files 029

Hello and welcome to Xtract 029 of the HX files.

In this issue of the HX files I would like to take a brake from the construction of a couple of items I have currently on the work bench. A couple of parts are needed to complete both of them and I am hoping to get those parts needed at the rally in Germany in June. Not wanting to remove any parts from other projects (like I have done before) as these parts would mean a total dismantling of the projects and this time that was not on.

And now, time for something completely different.

 So in this issue of Echo Ireland I would like to write about some of my eclectic mix of “collectables”. Some of these items were bought because of their “rarity” and some because they are just plain weird; I will leave it up to you to decide which is which.

The first items are a couple of ceramic insulators from (I am told) an aeroplane, these would be placed either end of the plane and the aircraft wire aerial would pass through it. In photo 1 bellow,you can see that each has a couple of aluminium rings that attach it to the craft from both sides of the aircraft's skin.

Number 17 set

 In photo 2 above, you can see one of the radios in the collection, it is a Second World War radio called a “wireless set number 17”, there were two versions manufactured, the one I have is the MK2, the MK2’s operating frequency is from 44 MHz to 61 MHz. Some info for you power hungry hams out there, it could produce around 300 watts, nah only joking, actually its power output is more like +/- 250 MW, and with either one of its complement of aerials a distance of some 10 plus miles could be “guaranteed” and that was more than enough as you did not want the wrong people ear wigging. Its main use was to communicate from the ground support units of Barrage balloons and Anti-Aircraft locations to HQ, and it replaced signalling lamps( that would be used in the daylight as well as the night, and you did not want the enemy pilots seeing the beam of the lamp at night). As there was a war on, and metal was used for other things, the radio’s cabinet was not made from metal but from wood, the manufacture used as much wood as they could in its construction, I wonder if they tried to make the valves from wood and found that they wooden work. Some details for those of you with no grey hair, it was a ready to go rig and was powered by two 60v dry batteries in series and a 2v 16 ah accumulator. The No 17 used two valves, one each of an AR6 and AR18 type valve. It was mentioned in a radio conversion book that told you how to modify some of the ex-military radios that were available to the radio amateurs, that you should leave the “No 17” set alone, as it would cause interference to other radios close by even when it was in the receive position. The weight of the radio is around 10kg, and its measurements (in inches are), 14½ W,16 H, and 10 D,  it was made on a budget and when the bombs were dropping you did not want to be carrying a big radio as you would used your hands to keep your hat and trousers on whilst running for shelter. As mentioned earlier, before the “No 17 set” there was the signalling lamp like the one in photo 3 below.

 The case contains the lamp, which had a removable red filter for daytime use, also in the case was a stand made from some small lengths of tubing that would screw together and then be stuck into the ground. Also in the other compartment of the case would be the battery, and a spares kit including a spare bulb.  No space was wasted, as the Morse key is mounted on the inside of one lid and the instructions for its care and use on the other, also the lamp itself has a couple of features, one is at the bottom, it is a small screw that when loosened the lamb could then be easily tilted and lined up to the senders target, and on the lamps top is a sighting tube. Not a telescopic sight but simply a tube with a round hole at the sender/receivers end and a plus (+) shaped hole at the target end , you might be able to make it out in the photo. In photo 4 below,

 you can see some microphones, the bottom left one is a WW2 era throat microphone, it was used in noisy environments like airplanes, top left is also a microphone and not a ray gun from Flash Gordon, top right is a head set from a Marconi marine base radio I think it is was called a triple diversity transceiver, and the microphone on the bottom right is from another Army radio.

And finally

That is it for this issue of Echo Ireland; in a forth coming newsletter I must mention some of the other military radios and Morse code keys and other bits and pieces in the collection. Perhaps you could send in an article yourself about some of your own collections of the weird and wonderful.

73.

Pat.

Hello and welcome to the HX Files 028, and to 2014.

As there was no newsletter before Christmas, I hope you had a happy Christmas and have a happy and prosperous new year.

What to do next.
 Over Christmas, I was looking at some of the bits and bobs, (well its better than looking at Bobs bits) in the projects pending department (the sheds).  The items that were bought over the last few rallies, and indeed some stuff that was given to me for parts, needed to be sorted out. Space was becoming a problem and finding the part or parts needed with nothing falling on me, and getting out alive was getting harder. Those of you with space can decide on whether to dismantle the donor item as some of the parts needed are often safer to store in their original housing rather than taken apart. With the parts removed a trip was made to the recycling center with the unwanted and unusable items, and with the hope I did NOT see anything I could use.
Protection
The HX stores normally wait until a good coat of protection (dust) has appeared on a particular item that has been in the shed  for a while, and that it will no longer be used for what the manufacture intended it to be, and then the parts removed. It was on this particular rummage that the monitor featured was unearthed; it is an old security monitor measuring around 15 inches cubed. This cube was bought at a rally years ago, and was used for a while and then retired. With the parts bin in mind, it was noticed that the housing of the monitor was made from panels that were screwed and riveted to a frame, the plan was to remove them and add the sheets to the metal pile.

View inside of the monitor

 On removing  the back of the monitor I saw that there was some space in it, see photo 1 on the left, and then an idea came to mind, (and no it did not hurt much) it was decided to see if firstly it still worked, it did, (it would not have been my first project that had to be modified or scrapped when the main part had gone faulty during storage) so it was left on overnight with a DVD playing some film to see if the picture and sound stayed working, all was good the next day and so I started on the project.



Parts and fitting
 There was not enough space in the one area to accommodate the TX/RX in a single unit, so a separate transmitter and receiver boards would be used instead in the monitor, see photo 2 below left.

The ATV units installed in the monitor

The individual TX/RX boards were enclosed in separate metal boxes (used from other projects) some patch leads, switches and a relay were  added to the mix, also a small amp was fitted to the transmitter, the metal box would act as a heat sink. I wanted to keep everything inside the cube, fitting the parts to the inside of the cube involved the drilling of its case, but I did not want screw or bolt heads sticking out of the unit as they could snag and mark other equipment around it. The metal on the case was thick enough to allow the use of some tapered screws for a flush fitting, with all the screws, nuts and bolts in stock I had none of the flush fitting type in stock, so a trip to the local hardware store was on the cards and the items needed purchased. After some moving around to see what would fit best in the space available some marking out was done and then the drilling carried out. The drilling was a bit awkward, as the case of the monitor was not only bolted to the chassis but it was also pop riveted and it would have been difficult to take everything apart without damaging other parts of the unit, the monitor was turned upside down for some of the drilling to keep the waste from dropping onto the other parts and some sticky tape to mop up the waste. The back panel was easy to remove by removing a few screws, it is a sturdy piece of metal and I would be mounting an “N” type socket into it. Power for the ATV equipment would be from either a 12v power supply or car battery, the monitor would be powered by mains if at home or an invertor if it is being used portable.
 A word of caution
I would have to take care, as in use at home it would mean there would be mains power in use and it could be fatal if any adjustments were to be made whilst the unit was in use. Fitting of the parts was not too bad having done a dry fit first, but once you start adding the various cables and leads you would start running out of space all to quickly. The first plan was to place as many of the controls on the back, but the thoughts of hands reaching around the back of the unit that would be ran off 240v made me decide to have a remote switching box, (see photo 3 below),

The control box

 that would lay on top of the unit and then a removable cable used to connect the unit to the switching box.

View of the control box before the wiring  is fitted

 Photo 4 on the left shows the control box without the wiring, the bar in the center holds a fuse holder and a connection strip, it should be noted that this bar is shown up side down just for the picture, the decision to use two microphone sockets instead of a six pin one was taken due to the fact that the dc cable was nearly as thick as the audio/video leads and I wanted to give myself a bit of room to work with. Using the 2 pin dc connector was not without some trouble, as those old experimenters out there (author included) may remember the old 2 pin Yaesu dc leads, and the fact that there were 3 types that had different distances between the pins and the grief to get ones to pair up to make a spare dc lead. RF output of the unit is just under 10 watts and it will certainly be more than enough for what is needed.

With the fittings on the back panel,see photo 5 on the left, the leads were longer than they needed to be, as they would have to be long enough to allow the back panel to be removed and to be out of the way to carry out any adjustments.
In use
 I have used the unit several times and having great fun with it. But nearly dropping it on more than one occasion out portable, a couple of sturdy handles will be fitted to it in the near future when I get ones sturdy enough.
That is it for this issue,
 I hope to see you at the Society’s AGM in Galway.
May your signals be P 5.
73 Pat.

Hello and welcome to the HX Files 027.

In this issue I would like to talk about a small work station that was made from a computer bench and some other bits of wood and metal that where lying around.

 As mentioned in previous issues of Echo Ireland, I have no actual workshop and the projects would be made and assembled in and around my house, and in most cases there would be a lot of time lost gathering the parts and tools needed for the job and then putting them away so I can use the room again (normally my bedroom or kitchen). With this bench, the job (the mess) can be left as it is on the bench and pushed into the spare room, out of the way until the next time, and the project can be easily be restarted with the minimum of a delay. As with every job you have to know when to stop adding thing to the project as the bench would become awkward to move around. Having used it a few times I would bring most of the parts and tools needed for the job from their various locations and l would have them to hand on the bench

The project started with a bench bought out of Argus some time ago, but when I went from a tower type PC to a laptop the bench was in the way, as is the way in my home any flat surface can and will have piles of clothes or something on it and the stuff will always fall off it, but with its metal frame and wheels I was reluctant to throw it out, so it was dissembled and put into the shed as it might come in handy sometime.

Many moons later

When the bench was rediscovered in the back of the shed (over a year later), I decided to reassemble it and make a small work table/bench out of it, The first thing done to the bench was to cut a piece of wood to cover  the original top, this piece would not have to be perfect, as when it was screwed to the top of the bench it would act as a sacrificial worktop surface that could be marked and drilled into, and be replaced when it got to rough for use.

The storage bins added

 The sliding shelf under the bench top 

(seen in photo 1 on the left) was originally for the keyboard and as a result is close to the bench top, and its mounting brackets are part of the metal framework and could not be moved. I decided to use it to hold a parts tray and some tools being used at the time for a project, but as the trays being used would not fit on the shelf, the only thing was to fit the trays into the shelf, (as there was plenty of room under it). So with having a sick jig saw the only choice I had was to drill a series of large holes using a hole cutter to remove as much of the timber first, and then with a small saw and some files, squared of the edges so the trays fitted. One of them has a lip on it so it would hold it’s self in place, the other one was held in with the addition of a couple of angle brackets screwed to the shelf and box. On the bottom of the trolley some wood was added to all the sides to increase the capacity of it and to stop anything falling off. There is also a large gap between the sliding tray and base shelf so another fixed shelf can be made to hold some more tools and parts for the project being worked on (but not at the moment) also added was a rail on each side that some cables and leads could be draped over them and always be to hand.

A 2 watt transmitter under test

With all the metalwork done, a back board was made (photo 2 above) and also fitted to the top of the backboard was another shelf; this shelf had some edging fitted to it to stop items falling off it.

Not wanting to use one of the large and heavy power supplies I had, a PSU was used that came from one of a few tower computers, and then it was attached to the back of the bench, along with a double mains socket.

 I got the computers from a friend who recycles them, the computers where from a local college that were replacing their stock and I was given some of them, (5) after their hard drives and some other parts had been removed by him. The power supply from the pc has outputs of 3, 5, and 12 volts and it will be used to power the project being worked on and even using some of the 12 volt led’s lights to illuminate the work area from above and from the side, as well as having the use of a mains flexi lamp. 

The dismantled cases from the computers can be seen on the bottom of photo 3 on the left, that metal will be ready when I borrow the guillotine from a friend to cut the metal down to more manageable sizes once I first flatten the folds in the panels, also seen in the photo 3 with the metal are some cereal boxes that will be used to make some templates with. 

In photo 3 on the left, you can see on the left and right sides of the back board I mounted some dc sockets on a couple of blanking plates, these sockets are attached to the various outputs of the power supply 

The frequency counter in use

  In photo 4 on the right, and photo 2 above,

 you can see a project having its frequency being measured.

 The frequency measuring unit is the one I won in the famous Cork Rally raffle, (you would be, a Langer, not to buy a ticket for the raffle).

That’s it for this issue folks, May all your signals be P5.

73 Pat.

The unit with the top panel to be wired