[Snowball] Heads Up Al
Al ae6cm
ae6cm at sonic.net
Sun Feb 17 02:35:31 EST 2013
Greetings fellow snow warriers
Walked down to the PO (about a quarter mile) yesterday (Friday) to get the
mail. I was expectecting a small box/envelope of parts from an ebay
purchase I made in late December that is coming from Thailand. So, I was
happy to see the call slip in my box. But when I got to the window, Post
Mistress Peggy said "You'll have to come in here -- I'm not going to pick
that thing up off the floor!." I had given up on ever seeing the snowball
so all I could think was "That's way more than what I ordered!" After
staring at it on the floor for a couple seconds, I mumbled "Huh?" I could
see fear in Peggy's eyes -- she was afraid that I was going to stick her
with the monster! Finally I recognized Bill's name on the label and it
struck me... splat! <g>.
Timing was great -- I have been out of town for a few weeks and my neighbor
who picks up my mail would have had a problem with the box. Are you sure
it's only 31 lbs Bill? It seemed a lot heavier after I got it up off of
Peggy's floor and huff-n-puffed it back up the canyon to the house. (I knew
Peggy didn't want me to leave it there while I went to get my pickup)
Opened the box this morning. Pickin's seemed a little slim (compared to
Lloyd's original snowball) which made me sad and happy at the same time.
Sad because I missed some of the excitement of examining all the exotic
goodies, happy because I knew some people who don't have 20 or 30 40 or 50
years of accumulation were able to pick out stuff that they could put to use
and replace it with something -- at least packing as Bill mentioned. To me,
this is what it is all about -- spreading all this good stuff around where
it is most useful and to prevent its use as landfill. Feel the good!
The little stereo amp looked interesting so I set it aside. No tubes --
probably 6BQ5's? Make a fun computer speaker amp? Receiver/Jones-rig power
supply if nothing else. The "belled" transformer in the box looked like a
filament transformer and I would like to find a 2.5v xfmr for a "Jones rig"
with a 53 or a 7.5v xfmr to play with some 801's I have. So I set it aside
too to check out later. That lightened up the box, but have no fear... A
few banana plugs. A couple precision resistors to use for calibration or as
matched "A" and "B" resistors in a temporary bridge setup on a protoboard.
So there WAS some interesting stuff in there after all despite Bill's
attempt to warn me. <g>
I have a new box. Spring/Antenna-season is nigh so the box now has 6 pounds
of 6" ceramic spreaders layered in the bottom -- enough for 150+ feet of
open-wire line. I have more if needed -- I didn't want to fill the box with
only ceramics. But I did also put in a few 12" spreaders (for a multi-band
dipole?). And some fairly heavy duty end-insulators. A couple of ceramic
feed-throughs that can probably each be split into two "bee hives". Some
air variable caps -- small to medium sized. A bunch of high-C compression
trimmers good for low/medium-power pi-net output caps, or series-link
coupling caps. Two tubes -- an 813 and a 4-125, both unknown condition. The
813 is a pull from a ART-13 and I don't remember how I came by the 4-125. I
wrapped them in styro-sheeting -- hope that will be enough to protect them.
The wrapped tubes are in plastic ziplock bags to contain the pieces should
they fail to make it in one piece. An R-175 RF plate choke. It is not the
"175A" model so it will fry if used without modification on 15 meters.
Several other small/medium sized ceramic-core pie-wound chokes. A matching
pair are "stand-up" -- perfect for a breadboard Jones xmtr. (I kept a pair
myself). More 88mHy telco toroids (although several samples measure only
82 - 83 millihenries). Miscellaneous goodies.
And that makes for a bulging box without any extra padding and not much room
for the contents of the old box. I will keep some of the old box after I
spread what I can of the better stuff throughout the small voids of the new
box. I don't think the box will make it back to Bill's 31 pounds but it
will be close.
I didn't think to throw in sockets for the 4-125 or 813 until after the box
was bulging. If I get a request for them before Monday, I will pull
something out to make room for them. In any event, come Monday noon (Peggy
closes up shop early) -- look out Ian -- It's comin' at ya!
Hope Peggy has my parts from Thailand -- it's past paypal's 45 day guarantee
period.
73, Al
*********
My "longshot" want list:
1) A dual 5 megohm log taper pot (or a dual 5 -15-meg linear pot that I
could shunt to make it quasi-log) -- for a selectoject. I am considering
using a pair of shunted 10 or 15 meg single pots from Alltronics. I would
hope that they could be coupled face-to-face, still with some means of
adjustment. Bevel gears? That won't work if they are both log pots, but
would work ok with shunted linear pots. Mounted crosswise with a large
wheel that extends through a slot in the front panel? Mounted side-by-side
behind the panel with large gears (from ARC loading coils?) on the shafts --
then drive one with a shaft extension through the panel? Or, with a pinion
gear between the two larger gears? Regardless, a dual pot would be so much
easier.
2) A pair of period bypass caps for a Jones PP rig. I have everything
except those two condensers and a tuit. (I would consider even bad caps
that I could mill out from one side (the bottom) to insert modern caps.
3) A 2.5v filament transformer for the 53 Jones rig (and possibly a future
super-gainer using 2.5v tubes). This is a long shot I know -- the audio
people have these sewed up. I will probably end up "unstringing" a 5/6v
transformer or using a 5/6v transformer and dropping resistor -- or beg a
6A6 from someone (I have several new 53's but no 6A6)
4) A 7.5v filament transformer for an 801A rig. -- again made unobtanium by
the audio folks.
5) A 6.0 Henry +4% / -20% (I can't go much over 6H but I can add a little
series inductance if I have to) Audio Choke. A power supply choke won't
do - it has to have a minimum Q of 12 @ 1KHz, more is better. Does anybody
have any high-inductance toroid or pot core coils sitting around? This is
for a Westinghouse-type SSB phasing network.
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Wood" <ke9xq at charter.net>
To: <snowball at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2013 8:25 PM
Subject: [Snowball] Heads Up Al
> Greetings OM and Group
> This heafty little load is on it's merry way to your QTH : )
> 30 lb 12.2 oz, the guy laughed as he put the '61 dollar' he said
> load onto the scale : ) That is about what it would cost if it did
> not go VIA flat rate rates : ) That alone almost made my day...
> You didn't get back to me with a request, so it's totally pot luck.
> But hope you will enjoy the goodies. The man said it should get
> there maybe Friday or Saturday. Your tracking number is:
>
> 9505 5102 1557 3044 4227 27
>
> Hope all is well with you and yours : )
> 73
> Bill KE9XQ
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