Happy Groundhog Day from OneTubeRadio.com!
If your car’s transmission is giving you problems today, perhaps it’s as explained in Gasoline Alley this day a hundred years ago. The image here is taken from the February 2, 1923, issue of the Casper (Wyoming) Daily Tribune.
Eighty five years ago, they didn’t know it wasn’t going to catch on, but it looked like the next big thing was going to be facsimile. The January 1938 issue of Radio Retailing carried a feature discussing the state of the art. It acknowledged that television was right around the corner (and it was, with only a world war serving to delay it), but the magazine incorrectly predicted that facsimile equipment might find its way into American homes before television.
The idea seemed reasonable, since a number of stations were already licensed to send fax transmissions, as shown by the list at the right. In the Upper Midwest, both WHO Des Moines and KSTP Kansas City held licenses to broadcast with the new mode, on their standard broadcast frequencies.
The magazine acknowledged that standards had to be fixed before facsimile service became common. And testing needed to be done to see how well it worked in outlying areas. And it still wasn’t know if the receivers would be standalone units, or if a printer would plug into the loudspeaker output of a standard broadcast radio.
Shown above is a pioneer of facsimile transmission, W.G.H. Finch of Finch Telecommunications, Inc. Other contenders for a market share were R.C.A., Radio Pictures, and Fultograph. Facsimile service was seen as a way in which radio stations could take on the competition of newspapers. But when the War ended, television took off a lot faster than many people imagined, and radio facsimile service is relegated to a footnote in the history of radio.
This weekend was Winter Field Day, an event in which amateur radio operators set up at a remote location and see how many contacts they can make. Two years ago, many hams stayed home in the mistaken belief that being in a field somehow causes COVID. To dispel that notion, I set up at a state park campground, where I operated while socially distancing myself hundreds of feet from other persons.
Last year, I operated a little bit from home, albeit with battery power, and doing my best to work only portable stations. But the name of the event is Field Day, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do it anywhere but out in the field. Santa Claus recently gave me a new QRP (low power) radio, the QCX Mini for 40 meters, and this was a good opportunity to put it to work.
Review of QCX Mini
I’ve had the QCX Mini, a product of QRP Labs, a few weeks now, and I’m absolutely amazed at how well this radio works. It weighs less than half a pound, and can easily be held in the palm of your hand. It’s available for multiple bands, but I chose 40 meters, which is almost always open to somewhere, day or night. Winter Field Day is, in addition to being a fun activity, an exercise in emergency preparedness, and this tiny rig is one that you could carry with you anywhere. You just need to plug it into a key, headphones, power supply, and antenna. It’s an excellent CW transceiver, and in many ways, it’s comparable with even the best stations.
The receiver is possibly a little less sensitive than a full-size receiver at home, but it’s more than adequate for QRP use. My best DX with it so far was Austria, I was able to pull in the other station’s signal, and he was able to hear me. Additional sensitivity wouldn’t really add much.
It is, however, extremely selective, and has a narrow filter which is ideal for CW. The downside is that the filter is an analog filter permanently wired in, so it’s really not possible to copy AM or SSB signals. You can hear them, and make them out to some extent, but not very well. For example, the receiver is able to tune to both 5 and 10 MHz, and I can hear the beeps from WWV, but can’t really copy the voice messages.
In addition to the transmitter and receiver, the little radio has a built-in keyer, and even a code reader. The code reader doesn’t work quite as well as the one between my ears, but it actually does come in handy. Occasionally, I might miss a letter, but there it is, right on the screen. And if I forget a call sign before writing it down, it’s there on the screen for a few seconds until it scrolls away.
I haven’t tried it out yet, but the QCX Mini also contains a WSPR beacon that might be fun to play with. You can read the QST review of the radio at this link.
If someone wants to get into amateur radio very cheaply, and they’re willing to learn Morse Code, the QCX Mini would be a very inexpensive way to start. Completely assembled, it sells for about $120. Of course, knowledge of Morse code is necessary, but the code reader makes the learning curve a bit easier. As long as the station you’re working is sending reasonably good code, the built-in reader will help you catch all or most of what you might have missed. Even if you’re a little unsure of your abilities at first, you can get on the air right away, and build your speed up on the air, rather than having to worry about “practicing.”
In kit form, the radio is only $55, although you probably want to spend an additional $20 for the case. (But it would work fine with the printed circuit boards exposed.) If you get the models for 80, 40, or 15 meters, only a technician class license is required, and that can be done with a weekend of study (perhaps using the study guide I authored).
Winter Field Day Summary
The contest incentivizes operating away from home, so I decided to trek a bit further than my own back yard. I toyed with the idea of just sitting in a folding chair outside, but the temperature was only 5 degrees Fahrenheit, so I opted to sit inside the car for a little protection from the elements. I found an almost-empty parking lot at Como Park in St. Paul, MN, and decided to operate for a couple of hours from there.
The 40 meter band is best during nighttime hours, but I wanted to avoid sitting in the dark as much as possible. So I arrived at about 4:00 PM local time, and stayed until a little after 6:00. Most of my time there was in daylight, but with very good band conditions.
My antenna was an inverted-vee dipole. The center was held up with my trusty golf ball retriever shoved into a snowbank next to the car, and the ends were tied to the ground. Normally, I just pick up a stick off the ground and use that as a stake, but when I got there, I realized that all of the sticks were buried under two feet of snow. A search of my car found a water bottle, which I pushed into the snow to serve as an anchor at one end, and my windshield scraper, to which I tied the other end. The antenna, made of cheap speaker wire, was up in about 10 minutes. Since I was in my car, I just plugged the radio into the lighter socket. But I would normally run it with my fish-finder battery. In fact, the radio will work just find on as little as a 9-volt battery, although I’m guessing one battery would last less than an hour or so. A better compromise for small size but reasonable battery life would be 8 AA batteries or 8 D cells.
As soon as I turned on the radio, it sprang to life, and I made a total of 34 contacts over the course of two hours. You can see from my log below, the radio does get out. The log image below was made shortly after the contest and confirmations continue to trickle in, but other states worked included Texas, Louisiana, New York, and Pennsylvania, as well as Ontario, Canada. Surprisingly, I worked nothing to the west, but there are a couple of explanations. Forty meters is primarily a nighttime band, and it was still daylight to the west of me. Also, the antenna had an east-west orientation, meaning that it would get out the best to the north and south, which explains the good signal into Texas and Louisiana.
If you see your call sign here, thanks for the contact. And if you don’t see your call sign here (or if you don’t have a call sign yet), I look forward to seeing you on the air next year! Maybe by then I’ll try out QRP Labs’ QDX digital transceiver. Starting for just $69, it’s a multi-band digital transceiver. It plugs into your computer, and you can immediately start bouncing your signals off the ionosphere into other states and countries. If you get the entry-level technician license, you can use it immediately on 10 meters. While that band is very hot right now, that’s not always the case. Therefore, I would recommend also taking the test for the slightly more difficult general class license. But you’re in luck, as I’m also the author of a study guide for that test.
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Sixty years ago this month, the British Radio Constructor carried the plans for this interesting project, suitable for monitoring missile launches. Or, if you were lucky and happened to be tuned in at the right time, you could hear the signature RF signals of a nuclear blast going off!
The project itself was quite simple. It consisted of a loop antenna, feeding to a one-transistor ELF detector and one stage of audio amplification.
A hundred years ago, radio was rapidly becoming a familiar part of the home, whether it was in the city or on the farm. The cover of the January 1923 issue of Wireless Age, above, shows an idyllic scene of radio by the hearth.
But radio was more than just a pastime for the urban upper class. It was rapidly making it’s way to the farm, and it was bringing rural people closer to the city. The magazine contained a feature describing how radio was rapidly becoming a necessity on the farm. Farmers could receive up-to-the-minute market reports, and the main complaint from farmers was that they were being read too fast to write down. And weather warnings could make a huge difference in the safety and profitability of farm life. But in addition to the purely practical, radio was changing rural life by allowing residents to hear news, concerts, and lectures. Shown here are Mrs. Albertina Schockweiler, her daughter and grandson, as the pull in a program on their farm in Osseo, Minnesota.
A hundred years ago today, the January 27, 1923, issue of the Omaha Bee carried this ad for the Oakford Music Co., 419 S. 16th, Omaha. The store announced that it was branching out into the radio business in a big way, complete with a special radio room. The new department was to be headed by radio expert and former aviator Lt. L.E. Stewart.
Bottom Line: Better than Nothing, The Price is Right, and Free Roadside Assistance.
The two biggest pieces of gear are the jumper cables, and a tow strap. The jumper cables look good, but it’s hard to tell how thick the conductors are under the thick insulation. Chances are, they’re much smaller than they appear. But if you have a dead battery, and someone willing to give you a jump start, they’ll probably work, although you might need to let your battery charge for a little while.
The tow strap is 12 feet long, and says that it has a 1500 pound working load. If your car is hopelessly mired in mud, that’s probably not good enough. But if it’s slightly stuck in snow, maybe applying 1500 pounds might get it out. Again, it’s better than nothing. (But I would make sure that nobody is standing near it when in use. If it snaps under 1500 pounds of load, I bet it would sting if it snapped you.)
The set also includes a little first aid kit (no more than a few bandages), a headlamp, complete with AAA batteries, a thin but serviceable blanket, a set of cloth work gloves, and a cheap rain poncho. It comes in a fairly durable looking carrying case, which sports a reflectorized triangle to mark your car in case of emergency.
Possibly the best value, though, is an automatic membership in a roadside assistance plan, named, like the product itself, Justincase. It purports to be a AAA-style assistance plan. After sending in the card that came with the kit, you can call a toll-free number, and they’ll come out and provide roadside assistance at no cost. A card is included, which you are directed to send in care of Vehicle Administrative Services of Dallas, TX. If you want to read the fine print of the details of the plan, click the image at left for a full-size image.
The card asks for your name and address, as well as the vehicle description and VIN. It doesn’t ask for credit card numbers or anything, so it doesn’t look too risky. We already have AAA, but it won’t hurt to have a second number available to call in an emergency. Again, I have some doubts, but the price is right. And it looks like it’s better than nothing.
Update: I sent in the card to sign up for the roadside assistance, but after a few months, I never heard anything back. I wasn’t really counting on it, but I wouldn’t buy this kit for that reason.
Of course, while better than nothing is, well, better than nothing, if you’re going to be out and about in your car, you should have more supplies at the ready. See our earlier post for a suggested kit for food and heat. But it won’t hurt to supplement those supplies with the Justin Case Car Emergency Kit
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Seventy-five years ago this month, the January 1948 issue of QST showed this one-tube one-watt transmitter using a 1S4 tube. A flashlight battery supplied the filament voltage, and 30-90 volts of B+ was required. Coil data was shown for 80 meters, but the circuit could easily be used on other bands.
A balanced antenna could be connected to L2, or that coil could be dispensed with and the antenna connected to the point marked X, worked against ground. From Connecticut, the set made 22 contacts with 10 states over the course of 10 hours. It was sent to the magazine by Ernest Lindsey, W4BIW.
Fifty years ago, this British woman probably had the smallest radio receiver on her block, and she constructed it herself, thanks to the plans contained in the January 1973 issue of Popular Wireless. The set owed it’s diminutive size to then-revolutionary ZN414 integrated circuit, manufactured by Ferranti, which contained all of the circuitry for a tuned radio frequency (TRF) AM receiver onto a single chip. The chip’s specs covered long wave up to about 5 MHz, but in a prototype made by the magazine, the chip was able to cover the 49 meter shortwave band. The version shown in the magazine covered the medium wave band, but could be easily moved to different frequency ranges. For strong stations, the set sometimes tuned broadly, but when two stations were close together, it would separate them, even if one was strong.
The small set had good sensitivity, and tuned in Radio Luxembourg loud and clear. Audio was through a crystal earphone. The case for the radio was a snuff container, which the author reported could be purchased for 9 pence (including the snuff). The author added that “if you haven’t tried snuff, this is your chance,” and that he was partial to the occasional pinch.
The ZN414, like most things, is available on eBay. But it’s replacement, the TA7642, is readily available for those seeking to duplicate this project.
Shown here in Popular Mechanics a hundred years ago this month, January 1923, is an automobile caravan promoting the 1925 Atlantic-Pacific Highways and Electrical Exposition, to be held in Portland, Oregon. The caravan toured Eastern Oregon to promote interest in the exposition. It included Army radio operators who demonstrated the apparatus, and for many rural citizens, it was the first time that they had seen or heard a radio.
Perhaps some of them went on to acquire the set shown below, which was also featured in the same issue of the magazine. The portable set, intended for use by non-technical radio fans, The entire set, including batteries, measured only 7 by 9 by 11 inches. According to the magazine, the set was tested near Galveston, Texas, where it solidly pulled in concerts from Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas, and Missouri, despite what were described as troublesome radio conditions endemic to Texas. Even more distant stations were also received at times.
