Monday 9 May 2016

Some small jobs, and a scary bit

With a few free hours on a nice weekend, I managed to find time to get a bit of radio work done, at least, enough to progress a couple of 'commission' jobs a little.

One of these is a ruggedised 9v power regulator for Bob M1BBV. A simple enough circuit


Much of the work needed for this is metal bashing. Above is the view with the LEDs and fuse holders installed, and the 7809 9v positive regulator.


Built 'dead bug' style, using a couple of bolts and solder tags to ground as stand-offs, but otherwise hard wired between the legs and terminals of the various devices. A red LED indicates that the input 12v supply is good after the first fuse (protects the batteries, also includes an 'idiot diode' just for Bob!), and the green LED indicates the output 9v is good.


Above is the completed unit. The device has flying leads rather than chassis connectors so Bob can use whatever crimps or the like he wishes.

A bit more work was also done to the Theremin, including adding the oscillator FETs and the volume control. Just the antennas needed now and I can start testing and alignment.

Having been instructed by my good lady wife that I had to clean the front gutters out, which means working up the ladders, I decided after completing that task to finally finish putting the brackets up for the antenna pole on the side of the house. Just to get all the work at height done and out of the way whilst I was still in a state of abject terror. This involved using a pnumatic hammer drill and a big 16mm SDS at over 30ft, something I was not particularly happy about, but the brackets are now installed, after a mere six or so years.

And ive also finally started to rebuild the RT-320. Happy with the new paint finish, I started to reinstall the radio last night - i'd only popped out to check everything was turned off in the workshop!
But, all but the ATU is now remounted to the front panel, although the nuts still need tightening. And I only managed to trap one wire! I just hope ive reconnected the power wiring correctly, as I really dont like the very small insulated bushing that bolts the solder tags down to the casing!

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