Friday, August 28, 2009

Animal Shop

Since she got a book about it, over the past few weeks Duamuteffe has been making cute animals from highly colored socks. We can't keep 'em all, so she set up an online store though Etsy. Go have a look; the pics are adorable:)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Radio update

A few weeks ago I was given a 60s shortwave radio kit. It is a Knight Kit Star Roamer and was partially assembled - I was tasked to finish it, and let the owner mess with it for a week or two. The instructions were very clear and 3/4 was done already; I just had to find a few spare capacitors and a diode (it was made at the time semiconductors were being introduced - vacuum tubes are still used for amplification). Unfortunately when I applied power, there was a loud 60Hz hum - I thought I could get away without replacing the electrolytics, but no...
In other radio news, the small Stromberg needs a new transformer (6v 10amp) and the big Stromberg needs at least one new 1/2 watt resistor. They didn't mess around with low power stuff in those days.