[ARC5] WHINK and crystals.

[Dennis Monticelli]

Ken,

My experience with a buffered HF solution has been that 25KHz of movement
is easy without loss of activity but more than that may impact activity.
 You need to insure the solution has good access to both sides without
masking off a part of any surface.  That is a bit tricky to implement
mechanically.  Providing a little bit of agitation every now and then helps
move quartz laden solution away from the immediate surface.

It helps to be able to quantify activity ( perhaps via osc output or
vigorous startup) so you can determine when you are approaching the danger
zone.  It is hard to restore activity after it is lost.

Let us know how the long distance move comes out. I have moved several
dozen rocks with HF so I'm really curious how yours turn out.  I still have
a lot to learn about etching technique.

Dennis AE6C


On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Kenneth G. Gordon <kgordon2006 at frontier.com
> wrote:

> Yesterday I decided to fire up the GRC-109 for the first time in a couple
> of years, so I dug out
> my box of crystals, and set the rig up on the bench.
>
> The first crystal I grabbed was my only 7025 rock, and I plugged it in and
> pressed the key.
>
> Nothing.
>
> Hmmm....says I...
>
> So I checked all the voltages, took the transmitter ouf of its box to make
> sure everything was
> lighting up, etc. Everything was normal.
>
> So, I grabbed another crystal and tried it. Viola! Everything worked fine.
>
> Took the 7025 crystal apart to find it split in two pieces right across
> from one corner to the
> other.
>
> I took one of those FT-243s I had bought to try moving them into the ham
> bands, a 6975 Khz
> rock. I plugged it into the '109 and it fired right up. The frequency
> counter read 6975.35 KHz.
>
> I took that one apart, carefully, and dropped the crystal blank into a cup
> I had made by cutting
> the bottom couple of inches off a much larger styrofoam cup, marking it
> carefully with skull
> and cross bones, and pouring 1/8" of WHINK into.
>
> After about 30 minutes of soaking in the WHINK, I carefully fished it out
> with a pair of
> tweezers and washed it off in cold water. It had moved up 500 Hz. to
> 6579.88 KHz.
>
> Calculating the shift-rate at approximately 2 KHz/hour, I left the crystal
> in the stuff for the next
> 14 hours. Now it oscillates vigorously at 7009 KHz.
>
> Final calculations show approximately 2.2 KHz/hour of soaking in WHINK.
>
> To get it to 7025 KHz, I need to soak it another 7.3 hours, or 7 hours and
> 18 minutes.
>
> It is now 2:40 PM here. I'll let it soak until 9:58 PM.
>
> Let's see how close I can get to my goal of 7025 KHz.
>
> Ken W7EKB
> ______________________________________________________________
> ARC5 mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/arc5
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:ARC5 at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>