Getting set

Bitumen are getting themselves ready for the event tonight.

8.30pm The Chameleon, map £5advance £6doors, 4 bands, aural delight.

Rishworth Radio Convention

The radio convention yesterday was wonderful! Along with all the usual suspects around the market tables there were folks from further afield. Namely Rex Harper who delivered a fascinating lecture about PICaxes and their programming, see http://qrpme.com/. This really does seem like a rich area for electronics.

I participated in the Buildathon on the day, which involved constructing a 40metre radio receiver, ugly style under the guidance of pro's! (This project is publicised in Practical Wireless this month) :)

The build took about 3.5 hours in total and was working by the end of the session, receiving morse! I was well pleased.

Here is how it looks:



As I was browsing the isles of the market stalls in the rally I encountered a couple who were selling a book on crystal radio projects. Now I don't know if I have told you yet, but this is how I started getting into radio's. At least after breaking one or two when circuit bending and making music. I had encountered this easy radio to build on the internet. It uses only a crystal rock or a diode to rectify the signal of the electrical current, a tuning capaciter, and plenty of wire for ground, antenna and a coil. Oh and to hear you need a crystal ear piece.

So getting back to the rally. I had spent too long quite frankly looking through this book on crystal radio projects when the female of the couple said "you can have it for a pound" "oh, i guess i should buy it, I've spent so long looking at it!" Then the male counterpart joined in with questions about my job and then I suddenly developed into a "worthy cause". Very kind I think. And so for about £8 I ended up with a bundle of crystal radio parts to construct together and develop and share those skills.

So here is the crystal part.


This rock of galena is the detector. Using a piece of wire known as a "cat's whisker" to touch points on the crystal it is possible to pick up a radio signal.

Here is a suitable capacitor which is used to tune into the frequency of radio stations, this works along with the coil and crystal. Notice the fins that are carefully engineered not to touch each other as you turn the nob.


Then came these beauties


A real set of vintage headphones, 2000ohms (i think) that'll work wonders with a crystal set I am planning on building. They have a lovely leather strap and are in good working condition. The cord is fine for a vintage set of cans. Mmmm...


Once I am firmly on water I can get cracking with this project at my workstation. At the moment boxes lie upon boxes in the flat and there is no workstation to be seen - oh dear!

Redhill on the bill

We have settled our narrow boat on a three month mooring at Redhill boatyard, set amongst majestic chimney towers, cattle fields and the River Soar. With great links via the local rail station we can access the City no problemo.


We will have our own pontoon to float besides.

At a fair rate, this seems like a good place to start out our adventures, under the wings of experience and kindness.

Penniless Peggy Project *3

I have found the box full of pegs and continued with the preparation of the construction of the Penniless Peggy Project. All the holes have been drilled (as per previous entries to the blog) and then came the laborious task of sanding every hole and in-between the peg legs to remove any shards and splinters of wood. So this has all been completed.

Thus comes the threading of the pegs together using fine wire. Cut eleven pieces, 27inches long


Then one at a time thread the pegs together with them all facing the same way. Alternate the height of the pegs from line to line.


gradually this will build up. The aim is to have a rectangle of 16 pegs by 6 on the very outter edge.


As you start to come to the other end of the rectangle the penultimate line of pegs is where the 16 other pegs come in (the ones with a hole drilled 1inch from the bottom). They are inserted in the same way however facing in the opposite direction. So you will notice that this means the outer pegs have a continuous look, pointing head outwards.


It takes a while, but it was getting there


And there is the pegs all attached. As you can probably now guess, I am making a door mat.

Next step is to trim the wires, and thread them in to tighten... tbc.

Nocto Loco demo

This night time demonstration depicts the Nocto Loco FX pedal by 4ms pedals,hand-built by myself being sonically exploited by Leigh. The output sound is being filtered by the Sherman Filterbank and has Bugbrand's audio weevil as the input to the Nocto. Enjoy.

Beautiful Burner

Here she is, the lovely Morso squirrel woodburning stove fixed in place on our narrow boat. The builder, Andy Bailey from Redhill Marina has done a sterling job! Leigh and I are very pleased indeed.

We decided upon the Morso after much deliberation. It was a matter of going for a well recommended stove, quality built from iron and the knowledge that fuel would last not just burn up in an instant and provide a good glow through the self cleaning window. The size and heat output (5kw) we believe will successfully keep the 65foot narrow boat warm through out winter. We decided to not have a back boiler fitted (for heating water) as this dramatically reduces the heat output, so this stove is our main and only home heating source. The hearth is composed of a concrete slab with slate crazy paving on top. This is due to be varnished upon the cement drying to allow for ease of cleaning. Behind the burner is a large sheet of Masterboard used as fireproofing, on top of this is a sheet of aluminium which aims to reflect the heat from the chimney and finish off the look.

It is wonderful! Beam, beam, beam... Bring on winter time!