Daily Archives: 2nd May 2016

Ham Radio

Mag Loop

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Had a play with my Mag Loop project, the problem I had was that the stepper motor which turned the Vacuum Capacitor introduced a lot of noise into reception, removing the supply from the stepper motor caused the bellows in the capacitor to return to a resting position, knocking the tuning out.

To combat this I have fitted a friction brake which uses a terry clip to the shaft of the motor, this seems to work ok, but a bit more work needs to be done.

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The loop tuned perfectly on 3Mhz, pity it’s out of band, oh well, a job for another day!

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Electrical & Security

Widow Maker Plug Top

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I was given a 13.8v Power Supply Unit at a local radio rally so thought I’d check it out, first job was the plug top, this is what I found;

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I rewired the plug and used the optional extra strain relief, this was the before picture.

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It was only after I put the plug back  and inspected it, that I noticed the condition of the outside of the plug and the lethal exposed conductor.

Once a new plug was fitted the PSU worked fine, just a cautionary tale, always double check everything from a rally.