General Interest -- Miscellaneous Articles on Various Topics

An assortment of published articles about different subjects that may be of interest to ham radio operators and other electronics hobbyists...

All articles are copyrighted material as stated thereon; photo credits are given as appropriate and are also stated thereon.

As you read these articles, please feel free to drop me an email with any questions that you may have. I will be happy to provide an explanation for any of the material that you may find to be confusing.

A new feature, effective 23 March 2024, is that the article titles in the listings below will from this point on also be live links to those articles!

Basic Electronic Troubleshooting

This article deals with the procedures and safety rules involved in performing basic troubleshooting of electronic equipment...

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One Saturday Morning

A light-hearted look at the use of our radio club's test and repair bench equipment by some club members...

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Wire Antennas - Inverted V Dipoles

This is a PowerPoint slideshow that has been PDF-converted to make for easy web viewing, and covers Inverted V dipole antennas...

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Radio Programming with CHIRP

This is a PowerPoint slideshow that has been PDF-converted to make for easy web viewing, and covers the basics of using the popular CHIRP utility to program radios...

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Impedance Matching

This article addresses the topic of impedance matching at a basic level, explaining some of the methods used to achieve an impedance match...

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Feedline Length Measurement

This is a short article that briefly describes using the NanoVNA and the RigExpert AA650 Zoom to measure the length of an unknown segment of feedline...

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RCA WO-33A 3-inch  Oscilloscope Refurb

This article describes the partial refurbishing of a 1960's-era RCA WO-33A oscilloscope, with an eye towards a later conversion of the 'scope into a curve tracer display...

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PCB Fabrication for the Electronics Hobbyist

This is an article that explores some of the methods available to the electronics hobbyist when it comes to making printed circuit boards (PCB's) for a project...

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PCB Creation Using ExpressPCB

This is an article describing the process for converting ExpressPCB printed circuit board design files into Gerber data file sets for submission to a PCB manufacturer...

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Yaesu G-5500 Rotator Controller Repair

This is a case study report of an involved repair to a Yaesu G-5500 AZ-EL rotator controller that I recently made...

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Kelvin Resistance Measurement Method

This is an article that explores and explains the Kelvin four-wire resistance measurement method that removes the test lead resistance from the reported value...

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Orion OR-2300 Rotator System Refurb

This is a complete description of the tasks involved in the resurrection of an Orion OR-2300 rotator system that had sat in standing water for an extended period of time...

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Icom IC-756 VFO Encoder Repair Options

This article describes the various aspects of repairing and testing the magnetic encoders used for the VFO control in certain Icom radios...

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Toroidal Coil Wire Length Calculations

This article explores the equations used to determine the length of a wire of any given wire gauge needed to wind a specified number of turns onto a toroidal form of a given size...

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Coax Switch Isolation

This article delves into the use of and performance issues related to various makes and models of coaxial cable switches...

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NanoVNA Recommendations

I have been asked for my recommendations as to what NanoVNA models would be good ones to purchase.  This article provides the answers to that question...

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