This website attempts to place a lot of information where other hams can find it and I have no affiliation with any commercial company – I’m just an old-time HF ham, licensed in 1957. I also assist Peter Thornton, G6NGR, by distributing and co-writing the quarterly “Hot Iron“ newsletter for those who like to construct equipment and keep up with happenings published by other ham newsletters.
The website costs $540 for a three-year hosting. If you can spare a small donation through PayPal, that would be appreciated – just click the button to do so, and thanks very much to those who have helped. I can be reached by email at fbw4npn@gmail.com and am located in Chapel Hill (FM05lv), a town in central North Carolina, home to the great University of North Carolina, founded in 1789 and which is the nation’s oldest land-grant university.
What’s New?
11/7/2024: I found a nearly museum cosmetic condition Heathkit SB-1000 Linear Amplifier at the local dump and brought it home. Jump to this page for a needed repair, and some upgrades to be implemented before putting it in service.
A project on my workbench is to build a single-813 500 watt linear. The Heath SB-1000 will take precedence over the 813 project but I’ll eventually finish both (I hope).
10/27/2024 An update to the Field Strength Meter page has been added. Look for the FSM page, found under the “Antennas” main menu selection.
8/3/2024 A link to YO3DAC’s huge collection of RF circuit designs has been added to the “Resources” menu choice. A link to WD8DAS’ “Shop Manual” has been added to the “Construction” menu selection. A page about RF exposure and Cardiac Pacemakers has been added under “Resources.”
7/14/2024 A mosfet keying adapter, to allow use of modern keyers with older cathode-keyed equipment has been added under the RF Amplifier section of the main menu.
3/9/2024 I’m adding a Homebrew Test Equipment page, as I can find projects to put there. Lots of useful equipment can be easily constructed at home. Keep checking!
2/5/2024 The Antenna page has been updated with a description of W4NPN’s new “Delta Loop” antenna. Scroll to the bottom of the page for the description. Also, an RF Noise Bridge article and circuit link has been added.
1/23/2024 The menu choice “RF Amplifiers>much more” has been updated and a broken link repaired.
1/14/2024 Parts Sources (see Construction Resources in the menu, above): A huge list of parts and suppliers suppliers is available. The link that opens is labelled for Drake equipment but the range of parts is extensive and will fit many needs.
12/27/2023 A new page about simple instruments you can easily build to measure antenna systems. This is a link to a Ham Radio magazine article by Joe Carr, K4IPV (SK). Look also at the “Antennas” tab of this website’s menu.
11/13/2023 An extensive article about Zepp and End-Fed antennas, feedlines and much more, by W8JI, has been added to the “Antennas” menu.
10/28/2023 In the “Construction Resources” selection of the main menu, a good article written by AF6C about X-Y capacitors has been added.
10/24/2023 Additional resources such as ARRL antenna books have been added to the website’s Antenna page.
10/08/2023 A Coax explanatory and table page has been added to the Antennas>Ladderline/Coax page.
9/20/2023 G3XBM has produced a very large “scrapbook” of projects and other ham information. It contains something for everyone and you can read it here!
9/18/2023 A link to the GQRP technical page has been added (Resources>Miscellaneous Ham Related Sites). These are the gentlemen who publish SPRAT!
9/1/2023 Ray, the editor of Electric Radio Magazine, has allowed us to have a copy of WA6VVL’s article about building a crystal calibrator for your radio. Very simple and straight-forward, using a 6BZ6; it can be adapted to most tube receivers.
8/17/2023 A page about linear amplifiers has been started. It has a long way to go and will concentrate mostly on Grounded Grid designs using cheap and simple tubes like the old 813. Nothing fancy.
I retired at age 70, am now 83, with more time for radio projects even though retirement is vastly more busy than I expected, with charity work, home maintenance and family activities. My first license was a Dutch one, in 1957, when I was 16, on the Dutch island of Aruba where I was born and lived for my first seventeen years (my father was a refinery manager there for the old ESSO oil company (now EXXON)).
I had a very lucky beginning to my radio hobby there. All of the residents there listened to short wave broadcasts each night and often during the day, as there was no TV there in the 1940’s and early 1950’s and no significant newspaper. I was hooked on short wave as a child.
Once my interest in short wave was known, a local resident gave me a dead ten year old Hallicrafters SX-24. A new audio tube and some work on the bandswitch brought it back to life and boy was I proud of that radio! Another resident gave me the chassis of another SW radio from which I pulled enough parts for a power supply, oscillator and a 6V6 final amplifier which I used on 20 meters with no concern for what an SWR was or for the keying tone or the oscillator’s stability. But it worked. My best calculation was that it put out about 2 watts but I worked into Europe with that in the evening. The sunspot god was with me in those days.
My first U.S. license was obtained in 1958. I do not have a technical education, so I’ve learned my bad electronics habits and misinformation on my own.
Although sometimes inactive while at university and during part of a 26 year U.S. Navy career, I always kept a short wave receiver with me. During 1971 – 1972, I operated as KM6DY (Midway Island) and later as WA3TNJ, including some Mediterranean maritime mobile operating. I was not permitted to operate while stationed in Saudi Arabia and Greece and the Greeks confiscated my Hammarlund SP-600 receiver. After retiring from the Navy I had a 20 year career at a major healthcare system and resumed operating as W4NPN on a limited basis.
While on Midway, I built a 4-1000A linear amp from parts salvaged from an old 10KW AM beacon transmitter the navy was getting ready to dump into the ocean. The Navy let me use their sheet metal shop to build cabinets and other metal objects from aluminum I salvaged from this old xmtr. I used that linear amp for over 30 years until the overworked power transformer shorted, then I disassembled it and gave away most parts.
On Midway I used an early-model Yaesu FT-101 feeding a roof-mounted home-made 3-band vertical and a 270′ long wire antenna. These worked very well in that quiet RF environment.
So no QRO for me now; just 100 watts input from a little Yaesu 840 or 14 watts from my 6AG7-6AG7-6L6 homebrew xmtr. But I have a couple of 813 tubes and they are beckoning me.
I also have a bunch of 807’s and am thinking of rebuilding the 6L6 xmtr as a 6AG7-6AG7-2×807 xmtr, with variable drive so it can run from near zero watts to about 150 watts input. A single small xmtr like this will be enough. I expect to Cathode Modulate it (yes, I know that’s not efficient, but it sure is easy).
I don’t operate much – I like to listen to 20 and 40m CW on home brew tube and solid-state regenerative receivers or on my Drake 2A receiver, fiddle with parts and build stuff, a mixture of tube and analog solid state equipment.
I’m not very good at CW but I try…quite slow. I need to install CW read/write software on my shop PC.
I have a walk-out basement shop about 19′ x 10′ which is a comfortable size for all my junk important electronic stuff. I share it with the water heater and some plumbing. But it is marginally air-conditioned and heated, quiet and private so it’s OK; sort of a junky man-cave. Emphasis on “junky,” according to some.