Make It Tea

August 2026

• Gopher

  My Gopher Hole Quite some time ago I delved into the realm of Gopher - the internet protocol that pre-dated WWW and that quickly became extinct thereafter. Gopher is a simple protocol and mostly serves simple text files, but can "deliver" other types of files (images, sound etc). What it doesn't do is allow formatting within a text file, it's just plain text, no markup, no "rendering" and significantly no inline images and no embedded hyperlinks. You can have a menu (aka gophermap) that has selectors - links to other resources which can be local to this gopher server or remote on another gopher server. It all looks like one distributed filesystem. There's been a resurgence of interest in "small-web" protocols lately - simple HTML-only personal websites, simple self-hosted blogs (like this one) and alternative protocols like Gopher and the newer Gemini. Gopher space is different to the Web. And there are people who only post/publish on Gopher. There are…

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• Next project will…

  The next band I'm deciding which band to build my new transceiver for and initially thought I'd go for 17m. But it's a band I've not used in the past and am only interested in it as somewhere new to explore it's not going to be open for large periods of the day I think 20m will give more opportunities to have QSOs at the random times of day I get to operate I thought I'd get more use from 20m, and leave a 17m for another project in the future. I have 20m at the moment through the QMX (80/60/40/30/20) but I'd like to move to 100% homebrew (i.e. homebrew-from-scratch) one day so why not start replacing the bands available in kits and start with 20m? Antenna My "experimental" (isn't everything in this hobby temporary and experimental?) trapped end-fed half-wave inverted-L was initially built for 30m and 40m with a single 10.1MHz trap. It seems to work nicely and it's great to be able to switch bands without having to use an ATU etc. Yesterday I made a 2nd trap for the antenna…

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July 2026

• More test gear for…

  I have been retrieving more gear from my old shack in the shed, trying to save it from the inevitable decay from being left un-powered and unused for so long! I've set up the HP640B signal generator and a Rapco 1804B GPS-locked 10MHz frequency source. I'm amazed and very happy that they both still work. The 8640B took an hour or two to fully warm up and for the slow drift to settle down. Now it's been on for 6 hours it seems very stable. The Rapco GPS-locked frequency source took a couple of hours to change state to "Control On" - i.e. the red LED "Control Off" extinguished. This means I can use the 10MHz reference to keep the following items in sync: Marconi 2022D signal generator Siglent SDG 1032X function generator Rigol DSA 815 spectrum analyzer I also found a mysterious die-cast box in a junk box in the shed and looking inside I see it's a divide-by-two circuit I built to generate a 5MHz reference for the HP8640B, derived from the 10MHz GPS source and it works…

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• Superhet Project #1

  The Crystal Filter The plan is to build a simple single-conversion superhet using NE602 as the first mixer, and perhaps also as the second mixer (demodulator), although I might save my small supply of NE602 chips and use a simple home-made diode ring mixer as the detector. I need an IF filter and plan to try different methods over time, starting simple with a crystal filter of the type that was common until the 1960s... I rummaged through my component drawers and found very few suitable crystals to use in a first experiment. There were two marked 3496kHz (large case, HC50/U ?) and two small 27MHz. I didn't really want a 27MHz IF, so I went with the 3MHz crystals. The first iteration of the filter is the design above I initially tried sweeping it with my Rigol DSA815 Spectrum Analyzer/Tracking Generator - and it looked rubbish... until I realized that I needed to severely reduce the resolution bandwidth... which greatly slowed the sweep rate... and after a while I gave up and swapped…

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• Next Projects

  After building a QCX-mini for 40m a few years ago, and a QMX (mini) very recently I decided a few weeks ago to build a QCX+ for 30m to use as my main shack rig, for my main band of 30m. In the intervening weeks since ordering the QCX+ kit from QRPLabs I finished some old projects that were hanging about in my junk box - a 30m phasing RX and a 30m CW TX - and this combination of separates has become my "main shack rig" for 30m. The QCX+ kit seems a little redundant now, as I try to move myself away from commercial rigs and into the realm of the 100% homebrewer... but I still would like the fun and experience of building it and having it as an addition to the shack. My self-inflicted "rules" are that I should only use transmitters I've "built" myself - and a kit is still acceptable. So I'm planning to put it aside until I have a free weekend with no other homebrew projects on the go, and I'll build it and add it to the array of 30m rigs in the shack. My…

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• A new callsign…

  While looking through the wonderful archive of Short Wave Mags at https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/Short-Wave-UK I had a look at some from the year I was first licenced, 1983. Here's a page from the May 1983 edition of SWM showing me listed as G4SLV .... And a 'phone number, too. That wouldn't happen these days (it's been 43 years since I lived at that QTH, so it's probably safe to put it on the internet now!)

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• Soldersmoke

  Soldersmoke I've recently been revisiting the Soldersmoke Podcast. I remember listening to it in its early days, and on and off in the intervening years. I didn't realize that it's been running no for over 20 years! Before I started to listen to the more recent episodes I thought I'd go back and find the early ones, read more

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• Going All In With…

  Going All In With QRP? I've been mulling over my real interests in amateur radio (again) and it's still firmly in the realm of HF and CW. And I've always had more fun playing with simple stuff and QRP. Pros of QRP With QRP you don't need to worry about huge DC supply currents and suitable wiring sizes, and high current PSUs. you don't need to worry about the ratings of components as much - lower voltage capacitors, smaller toroidal cores. Everything is much easier (and cheaper). you don't need to worry about high RF levels in the shack - or adjacent to the antenna (thinking EMF safety etc.) it's much easier to build equipment. read more

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• My New 30m CW QRP…

  A new TX is born This new TX is re-using PA strip I tried in the QRSS MEPT I've changed the Arduino code and added a rotary encoder and LCD. Basic Architecture read more

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• Radio Magazines…

  While surfing the interwebs looking for interesting radio content I came across a brilliant website that has scans of THOUSANDS of old radio-related material. https://www.worldradiohistory.com There are trade journals, catalogues, magazines from all parts of the world. It must be a massive undertaking to create and maintain, and to source the material and scan it. I found almost the complete set of Short Wave Magazine issues going back to the pre-war period! There are also lots and lots of other great magazines. Short Wave Magazine is of particular importance to me. When I was first getting interested in Short Wave Listening and Amateur Radio as a teenager in the early 1980s I read Short Wave Mag (SMW) and Practical Wireless. But the thing that cemented my whole outlook on what Amateur Radio is (or should be) was a big pile of SWMs from the 60s and 70s that I was given. My dad had a friend who turned out to be a long-time SWL and when I expressed an interest in radio my Dad took me on…

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