Any Hams here?

The ARRL site indicates its been a banner couple years as well.

Thanks for the info btw. Not a lot of hams in my neck of the woods, though there are some. I just need to find them.

Gunner

No ham flea markets like we have?

jsw

Probably one or two down in the LA area..but thats 150 miles away.

Ill check into it and maybe stay over on a Saturday if I ever get some money.

Out here in the West...we are a bit more spread out than on the East Coast........just a bit more...

Thanks

Gunner

Remember the local 'react' or disaster group are Hams. They set up when earthquakes take out cell towers and break land lines and microwave lines.

Ham club and react teams are common here in Texas.

Mart> >

I'd try one in an etching tank. Dissolve the copper off.

Plate it onto something you want copper plated.

Mart> >

I used to use a high power carbon pile in the labs.

Big and larger than 4 lunch boxes. The carbon is compressed or released to change the resistance.

I think 50 ohm would be a bit hard to come by. Ours was 1 ohm.

Mart> >

The unclad ones work good to make a water purification unit. Basically you use two of them held a set distance apart in a tub of water and fed with 110 or 220 AC to generate steam. Small version is sold as a humidifier/cold remedy in many drug/department stores. They actually work pretty well as steam generators but if you have hard water they build up really fast.

I have an MFJ 260 air cooled load on the bench. 300 watts for 30 seconds, has a Stackpole

50 ohm 10% hollow carbon rod. Measures about 1/2" diameter with a 1/4" hole in the center and about 6" long. Ends look like they are copper or similar dipped. The ends clip into a pair of holders, one insulated with a ceramic stand off and the other contacts the case for a ground.

I must have missed that.

Certainly -- that was what I thought I was describing -- and I thought that I actually mentioned thst by name and/or company, too. (Perhaps in another branch of the thread.)

O.K. I was wondering what frequency range a light bulb would work for.

Enjoy, DoN.

An interesting story my dad had was when he was designing Radar systems at White Sands - they used dummy array antennas until the unit checked out.

Dad used 1000 watt light bulbs - 100 at a time. He ran through 1000 a week for about 6 weeks. Then they went to the large antenna.

The funny part was the purchasing officer kept ordering the bulbs!

They caught that pretty quick! - Thankfully they used the bulbs on the base already.

I'll have to check out the large 'sun gun' lamps I have - see what resistance they have cold. I don't have a holder for hot.

They are 10" long as I recall. I'll try to see what they have.

Mart> >> "DoN. Nichols" fired this volley in

Then you have to quickly wash ALL the etchant out of the porous, absorbent carbon, especially that which is trapped under the end sleeves. jsw

I just measured a piece of carbon fiber insulation about .75" x 1.5" x

10" long at under 2 Ohms. jsw

Check it with an SWR meter.

If anyone has a spare Network Analyzer they don't need I could measure the frequency response of a bulb.

I sent several million dollars worth of them plus a 13" South Bend lathe to government surplus, but couldn't qualify to bid on any of it. jsw

(select California, hit search)

4 or 5 scheduled this year. Maybe see what is scheduled in Aridzona, or Nevada.

technomaNge

What is the wattage ? - sure I can buy drafting pencils from

6h to 6b. The B's are softer and more carbon and less clay. The clay and wax binds them together.

If one makes a pencil line of very soft pencil and makes it twice as long it would double the resistance. Make it twice as wide and it would half and so on.

The welding sticks (I have some Gunner sold/gave me.

As they heat, pencils will boil off the wax and become harder and fragile.

Mart>> I used to use a high power carbon pile in the labs.

QRZ has a database of all the hams. You can search by county. Or you can just put in CA, and it will return a list of all the counties in Calif. with how many hams are in each county.

Dan

Watch out especially for the one surrounded by well-dressed relatives.

Don, they used a 200 watt 50 ohm carborundum non-inductive oil treated resistor immersed in transformer oil.

What kinds of issues?

What bands are you interested in? 160/80/40/20/15/10/6/2 Meters

432/1296 MHz 10.5 GHz? Modes? CW/AM/SSB/FM/ATV? Power level?

There are a bunch of news:rec.radio.amateur newsgroups that would have a lot more help for you. Just be ready to kill file a couple dozen ass hats.

Ham radio is like any other hobby. Patience and some sweat equity in the equipment...or "buy it now". If you want something specific, you'll end up paying more than if you snap up the "door buster" at the swapmeet.

I'd recommend against tube equipment...unless it's dirt cheap and the tubes are good. The stuff usually falls into two categories... junk stripped for parts and collector's items fixed using those stripped parts. Neither is a good deal if you just want to communicate.

If you have any hams in your area, you may be able to borrow something to get your feet wet while you wait for the big score.