H. P. Friedrichs (AC7ZL) Homepage
Tucson, Arizona U.S.A
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News!
Make Your Own Cuprous Oxide Diodes!
Kitchen and garden-shed chemicals can be applied to copper to produce semiconducting junctions. Add a piece of plastic, a bit of metalwork and a handful of bolts, nuts, and washers, and you can fabricate an interesting, attractive, and functional piece of primitive radio equipment. Read about it here!
Make Magazine Reviews The Voice of the Crystal and Instruments of Amplification!
Gareth Branwyn of Make Magazine had some very nice things to say about my books in his review in issue #21. You can read what he had to say here. If you are interested in purchasing your own copies of my books, click here for a list of outstanding vendors. Thank you Gareth and thank you Make!
Update Regarding Electromechanical Magic Eye Tubes
Comments about my "Magic Eye" video appeared in a blog entry on Make Magazine's web site. Almost overnight, the number of times the video had been viewed soared from a few hundred to several thousand! Last time I checked, the count was approaching 7,000. I have been inundated with requests for schematics and similar details. Here is the plan:
The editor for Practical Wireless magazine has indicated that an article I had written with details of the magic eye will likely appear in their magazine some time before mid-2010. I'd encourage you to find yourself a copy of PW, because it's a great magazine, but don't worry if you can't find it locally. Once the PW article has appeared, it is my plan to rewrite the text and post the essential technical details on my site. Until then, thank you for your interest, and thank you for your patience.
Going To War With Static Electricity
Question: What do you get when you combine an army tent in a middle-east desert with wind, blowing sand, and an antenna? If you answered "high voltage electricity," you're right! Now, how do we get rid of it? Read the story here.
Neat People And Their Nifty Projects
As the result of publishing my own work, I have had the pleasure to meet (or at least learn of) a large number of experimenters with interests similar to mine. As evidenced by the photos and links that follow, all of this work is impressive, and some of it is downright astonishing.
If you are really interested in fabricating your own vacuum tubes, you have almost certainly seen the work of Claude Paillard. His video montage (also on Youtube... part-1 part-2) depicting the construction of one of his home-built tubes has pretty much become the stuff of legend.
Interestingly, I have received correspondence from two of Claude's countrymen, each engaged in experimentation that is near and dear to my heart. Jean-Jacques has been tinkering with homemade point-contact transistors, not unlike those that appear in Instruments of Amplification:
Serge Pierre, on the other hand, has been tinkering with experimental tubes in the style of the dynamic-vacuum tubes in IOA. He sent me these photos of some of his interesting equipment:
Let's not overlook the work of wizard Aleksander Zawada of Poland. In some respects, his work is like Claude Paillard's, though it appears that much more of the detail work is done freehand.
Henry James, here in the good old U.S.A., sent me these photos some time back. The first shows one of his experimental globe tubes being lit up. The second photo depicts a molecular sieve apparatus he was experimenting with to improve his capability for producing vacuums.
Kenton Stevens constructed a mineral detector as part of a competition crystal radio that was based on the "Boom Detector" in my book, The Voice of the Crystal. I really like his use of the glass drawer-pull as an insulated handle for the boom.
Then there is this beautiful interpretation of my "Gallows Headphone" by Gordon McCall, which appears on his web site.
Tom Kipgen builds and sells a wide assortment of artful and creative crystal and primitive tube radio sets. As evidenced by the pictures his versions of the "Gallows" headphone and the "Needlebox" transformer, he has found inspiration in both The Voice of the Crystal and Instruments of Amplification.
Finally, there is now an entire Yahoo newsgroup devoted to the construction of, and experimentation with, homebrew transistors. You can find that group here.
I'd like very much to set aside a page on this site to accumulate and display images of the work of other experimenters engaged in the type of work above. I am particularly interested in others' interpretation of the projects in my books. Please drop me a line.
Steampunk Yard Lights
Our new pavers were in and the entrance to the house looked beautiful... that is, until night fell. In the darkness, a step becomes treacherous, a cactus, dangerous, and the mood, uninviting. We could have purchased and installed some off-the-shelf landscape lighting, but after some research and a little bit of experimentation, I combined century-old telegraph insulators with modern white LEDs to create an eye-pleasing yard lighting solution. Read about my "Steampunk" landscape lighting here!
Ruggedizing the FT-60
Cell phones are great... when they work. Unfortunately, there are a lot of circumstances and a lot of places when and where they won't, and this always seems to happen when you need them the most. Amateur radio operators understand this, but because cell phones are so common, even we can become complacent. A recent adventure in an Arizona desert inspired me to purchase an HT (handy talkie) and to fashion a set of accessories that will assure my ability to communicate in the future, whether my cell phone works or not. Read about it here!
It Isn't About Politics!
The members of our military have volunteered to put their lives into jeopardy, and the lives of their loved ones on hold, simply because their country asks them to. If this kind of sacrifice is not worthy of gratitude and appreciation, then nothing is.
Some people are upset about American foreign policy...fair enough, there's plenty of room for different opinions. But the next time you see a man or woman in uniform, don't forget to tell them "thanks."
(Last website revision 03/04/2010