[AK-VHF] Radio Projects

[Edward R Cole]

Almost all radio's from the 1920-40's were housed 
in wooden cabinets.  Lots of test equipment, too!

The old saying "building a bread board" came from 
mounting components on real wood bread boards!
Shielding of radio stuff did not start until post 
WWII when hams began to get complaints of TVI 
with the new TV sets that became popular in 
1950's.  Most of them had copper chassis and 
wooden cabinets so poorly shielded.

My early ham friends (1950's) worked in TV shops 
so I got see a few on the workbench.

I made a huge loading coil from No. 12 house wire 
(stripped) and used a while plastic cutting board 
to make my form (photos attached)

73, Ed - KL7UW

At 12:43 PM 4/21/2020, Brandon Clark wrote:
>That's a very cool project. And you're right, you don't see a lot of tuners
>with a wooden box. It's interesting though how little the fundamentals have
>changed: if you have a coil and a capacitor then you can tune antennas,
>whether you're in 1920 or 2020, lol.
>
>What are your plans for the tuner?
>Brandon
>
>
>On Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 11:58 Tom Elmore <tom at telmore.com> wrote:
>
> > Brandon, Since you were sharing.
> >
> > I Picked up this antenna tuner from ebay recently because I thought it
> > looked interesting but who makes a tuner out of wood. I’m guessing the
> > thing
> > is from the 40’s or 50’s judging by the 
> antenna current meter. The plugin
> > coil assembly fell apart during shipping but to be fair the little plastic
> > strips that hold the coils in place have all shrunk and the glue dried up I
> > see this a lot on these types of air coil forms. I decided to rewind them
> > so
> > I turned a piece of Teflon 2 ½” in 
> diameter to re-wrap the wires around to
> > act as a master form on the lathe. I also wanted to remake the little
> > strips
> > that go inside the coils to keep the coils spaced. What I did was take
> > another piece of 2 ½” diameter x 2 “ long Teflon solid round stock and
> > threaded it at 11 threads per inch. I figured out with a thread gauge
> > holding it over a slightly still intact coil that it was about 11tpi. I
> > then
> > bored out the entire Teflon piece until I add about .100 of material left.
> > I
> > then took that whole form and cut ¼” strips the length of the form that
> > were
> > threaded and help keep the wire in place. I placed 3 strips around the
> > outside of the master form and then wrapped the wire over the strips in the
> > grooves I cut while threading. I then used clear JB weld to hold the little
> > strips in place against the wire . When the epoxy cured I slipped the coil
> > assembly off the master form. What I ended up with looked like the original
> > did and I suspect this is probably how they did it in the factory more or
> > less.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ak-vhf-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:
> > ak-vhf-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
> > On Behalf Of Brandon Clark
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 9:15 AM
> > To: AK VHF+ Group
> > Subject: [AK-VHF] Radio Projects
> >
> > Hello group,
> >
> > I've been tied up with moving, but am now getting back to working on radio.
> > If you're on FaceBook, search for me and you can see the photos of a J38
> > key
> > that I just finished restoring. The metal work is better than new, and I
> > replaced the bakelite base with a stone one made from a floor tile. (Now I
> > just have to finish learning the code <sigh>)
> >
> > I have also shared a few photos on the club FaceBook site as well. If you
> > have been working on any projects lately and would like to share then with
> > the group I'm happy to post them online. Things like that are great for
> > outreach. More importantly, being able to see how experienced hams set up
> > equipment is really useful for new hams that are looking for guidance.
> >
> > So if you've been working on something fun, take a few photos and send them
> > to me off-list. I'll get them posted up online.
> >
> > 73,
> >
> > Brandon
> >
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73, Ed - KL7UW
   http://www.kl7uw.com
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