Happy New Year

I have had a few sessions in the COLD radio room and have managed to solder on all of the resistors and caps on the ATS III B board. Tomorrow I will work on the semiconductors. It is really neet to watch the tiny componenants snap into plasce when the heat gets right. Happy new year to all de Paul N0NBD

Small fish for Peg and Little Zie

This post is for Peg and little Zie, Peg got a kick out of these little fish pictures and little Zie is nuts about Curious George. Hello Zie from Uncle Bub.

First try at SMT and hot air soldering

Terry WA0ITP sent me 22- 1.1k SMT resistors to practice soldering on so I sawed a hunk of copper clad and made a dummy load. I used my Wal-Mart candle/cup warmer and a heat gun from work. The solder paste and hot air works great, just like I have read and seen in the video that KD1JV made. It is really cool to see the solder paste soften up and all of a sudden it turns silver. I think I did over do the heat a little as it discolored the copper a little. I think I will get an embossing gun ordered. It should be a little easier to use as well. I had a cool Curious George Altoids tin that I had mounted a balen in. The balen did not work as expected so I gutted the coil and mounted the little board in the tin. I will dig in my box of goodies and get a cap and diode to make a rf probe off the end to measure output.

For my first try at hot air and SMT parts I am encouraged. I will get an embossing gun ordered and start my ATS IIIB now. More later de Paul N0NBD

4SQRP AA0ZZ ZOMBOIDS keyer is complete

My AA0ZZ keyer is complete and works GREAT. The 4SQRP guys hit a homer with this kit. I "over" glued the switches that were provided in the kit so I mounted three small switches in the end of a ZOMBOIDS tin and it works Great! Good Job Terry, Craig and Joe de Paul N0NBD ar sk..