Hobbies that sometimes are interrupted by work...

Sometimes I think, or pretend, that amateur radio is my foremost hobby. I have a Swedish and an U.S. ticket, SM6MOM and KQ6AX respective. I finally got the Morse code straight, but I am really not very good at it. Bill Allen, N6XD (link) told me the Morse code! I made a mess of the last CW QSO I tried! The R7 antenna is tuned to the CW parts of the bands, and has a bad VSWR on the SSB parts. I refuse to re-tune it. To me "real" ham radio is CW. The much lesser bandwidth is the reason. One day I am going to stick out my nose again in the ether where the short ones and long ones propagate. In the meantime I just built a wire dipol for 20 m and strung it up between a couple of trees. It is broader than the R7 and works well on both the CW and the phone part of the band. Listen for me at 14.256 MHz on Sundays at 1500 Z (1600 Z in the winter half of the year) when the "Swedish Meatball Net" gets together!

Around 1975 I was the President for the Göteborg Ham Radio club, GSA. A chaotic period in their history. I even forgot to announce the election of the next Pres in time, so I had to take a second year. I will try to make up for it one day. They have recuperated nicely, although it took many years, and have now a really nice radio museum! If you get anywhere close to Göteborg, it is a "must see!" (link) Even the old Lorenz transmitter my brother gave me has ended up there. (It was neither of us who painted it sea-sick green!)

For HF I have a TEN-TEC 580 Delta 100 W transceiver. It seems to be a good radio. I got to get the X-tal filter and the noise blanker for it though. Then there is the Kenwood TS-700S. All mode 2-m. A horizontally polarized 19 element Cushcraft "allows" me to use about 12 m of RG-58. The TS-700S had a modest receiver sensitivity and noise figure, but changing the input FET did good. I work San Diego, about 300 km at 135°, easily on SSB.

I also have two RS-390 receivers. With the mechanical Collins filters and a 100 dB dynamic range, I doubt anything yet measures up to them. Neither in weight, size or power consumption. (See the "Boat Anchor Page!)

We realize that ham radio is a serious hobby as we see the soldiers line up when the HAM whips out his radio for a little QSO.

(I am not avoiding to give credit to the photographer for this masterly picture, but I forgot to write up his name. The picture is lifted from Popular Photography around late -96 to early -97.)

At least, the ham radio hobby provides the little birds with lots of parking space...

as well as providing the postal office with inspiration for stamp motifs.

Then there is the 8" Celestron telescope. Figure I might as well appear in the picture while I still have some hair left… With the advent of comet Hale-Bopp it gets some fresh air these days. I have even taken a few pictures, but sloppy setup and no good guiding showed all too clearly. One can always use it to look at the comet...

Just recently I turned in two films almost entirely with Hale-Bopp pictures. Hours of setting up the telescope correct, and many more of exposing the pictures. Would you believe it: the lab had a problem with their machine and destroyed both my films! I lost some hair over that! OK, they offered me two new films, but they lost a customer! I went out and bought some more 400 ASA film and captured a few new ones before the comet got too far away:

The telescope was lined up pretty good! These are exposed for about 10 - 15 minutes. The drive makes one turn in 4 minutes, and I have carefully adjusted the position of the screw, so there is almost no periodic drive error.

This one makes me think of the good old tune "Moon over Miami". Was it not Densil Best on the drums? Anyhow, will someone write "Comet over Cushcraft"? The group of stars on the upper left are the Pleiades. The vertical antenna to the right is the R7 multi band antenna.

Shooting is another hobby in hibernation. I used to be very good at pistol, but the summer of -68 I managed to cut the bending strings on the right index finger. I am very right handed, and shooting with the left is not so easy. Here is a target I made some 10 years ago at Winchester Canyon Gun Club (in the mountains above Santa Barbara) with a .22 S&W revolver. I was about to put all 50 shots from a box of ammunition through the 10 circle when someone came and talked to me. I lost concentration and shot a few 9's before I got back on track again. Left hand, straight arm (no support hand), 25 yards. (Picture, when I find the target!) Here we go:

The 10-circle is 84 mm in diameter. Looks like 7 are in the 9 circle, so 493 of 500 possible.

Around Christmas -98 it was time for another trip to the shooting grounds. This time a target with 6 shots from the Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. It has a Pacmeyer grip. Without it the hand would feel like minced meat after 50 shots. The recoil with the short barrel version is grim.

Here we can study two common mistakes. The 8 at 11 o'clock is typical for what happen if one does not keep the eyes fixed on the front sight, but on the target. The front sight then becomes a bit fuzzy and one aims higher! The less light, the higher, as the iris in eye opens up. The 9 at 4 o'clock is probably, at least partially, due to not pulling the trigger straight back in the hand. Even though the trigger on this revolver is very good, one has to do it right. Clearly I have not done enough shooting in the later years for to keep up the skill.

The natural hobby is of course to build electronic stuff. These days there are so many very good components and IC's so there is no time to try them all. When I grew up it was the other way around. Plenty of time and no components. I still remember saving the weekly alimony towards a 1N34 diode for a crystal receiver. Bought it at Deltron, Valhallavägen 67, Stockholm. SEK 12 (about USD 2.20) or so in 1955 or 1956. Lots of money!

Some things do get built. Years ago I invented a Grid Dip Meter with a J-FET, where the ON-OFF function, OSC-DET switch and SENSITIVITY are all controlled by one potentiometer. It won the second price in the first design contest held by "Radio & Television" magazine in Sweden. Around 1975. I still have it, and the power supply is now replaced with batteries. Silly to not use batteries, when they are likely to last for my lifetime. (Lithium).

A few years later I invented a detector that can show the reflection coefficient in a transmission line on a regular oscilloscope, or X-Y recorder, with exceptional sensitivity. It took a few years until I built it, and it worked fine. (pictures on the "Specialties" page) shows the sweep of a 2 element antenna (HB9CV) for 144 MHz with an extra resonant circuit held close to the antenna. The little loop is from the extra resonator, and you have to imagine the Smith Chart overlay yourself! The matched point is in the middle of the screen.

This device won the second price in the "RF Design's" first design contest.

I have described some projects and measurements in VHF Communications http://www.vhfcomm.co.uk/ , an excellent publication.