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This blog started in conjunction with my return to the United States in 2005 and purchase of a Toyota Tundra. After being away from the US for four years, I celebrated my return by the purchase of the new truck and a (mostly) circumnavigation of the lower 48. My first encounter with Toyota was through my friend Robb and a 1980s Toyota 4×4 he had. Robb was going to school at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Robb was fond of taking his truck to Pismo Beach and enjoying the beach and dune experience. Robb loved his truck.

After spending a year in Monterrey, CA learning Russian at the Defense Language Institute and a few months honing my listening abilities at Goodfellow Air Force Base near San Angelo, TX, I got my follow on orders to Fairbanks, Alaska (Fort Wainwright). I didn’t have a car. I was an enlisted Army soldier making not a whole lot of money. Heading way, way up north. I figured I needed a 4-wheel drive vehicle to make my life a bit more comfortable. My first thought was a Ford Ranger. But it ended up being too expensive. The most reasonable costing 4-wheel drive vehicle was a Toyota 4×4. It was 1993 and the Tacoma had not come along yet. 1993 Toyota 4×4. Manual locking hubs. Manual windows. AM/FM radio. Bench seat. No A/C. 4 cylinders. That truck was to go on to perform flawlessly in Alaska, transported me from Alaska to Georgia and several cross-country trips. Arizona. Washington State. Texas. And California. For seven years, that truck never let me down. I was heading off to Korea for a year to be followed by three in Germany. I sold the truck.

When I was planning my return to the US, I knew I wanted to get another Toyota. I settled on the Tundra. But instead of the minimum package, I was able to swing a 2005 Toyota Tundra Limited Double Cab 4×4. This truck offered to support a newly forming family. I broke the truck in with a trip around the US. I continually upgraded my ham radio installation in the truck, further enhancing my mobile enjoyment. The Tundra performed flawlessly. Never an issue.

The Tundra proved to be the hero of the 2015 Summer trip. Five national parks. From Kansas to Montana, Wyoming, out to California and back. Pulling a travel trailer. No issues, no problems. Over 120,000 miles.

It was time to think about the future. A future of summer travel. Exploration of national parks in the west. Colorado. Arizona. Utah. Maybe an upgrade to the travel trailer. The 2005 Tundra had an older drive train and a towing capacity topping out at 4,200 lbs. Comparing the aging 2005 Tundra to the current available 4x4s… the 2005 had a hard time measuring up.

I wanted to find something that was as reliable and dependable. Offered increase towing capability. But maybe smaller? Truth be told, I often had difficulty parking the Tundra. The turning radius was… challenging. Was there something available in a smaller package, yet offering increased performance and towing capabilities? Oh… did I mention that it has to be a Toyota?

I was able to get out and participate in local Field Day activities with my club, the Benton County Radio Operators. We were out at a private facility out in the country, and ran off of battery and generator power for the event. I worked PSK31 on 20 meters alternating with another club member all day on Saturday. This was the first time I have had my entire station out in the field since building my box. I was also able to use one of my homemade antennas. The chosen antenna for the day was my homemade Buddistick configured for 20 meters. The painters pole holding up the antenna was guyed using parachute cord and three cement blocks as the anchors. The setup was easy to put up and take down and worked well. Since this is the same station and antenna I also use at home, there was really nothing new to try out, so it all had been thoroughly tested before Field Day.

Friday night at the Dayton DX Dinner I won in a drawing this wonderful antenna analyzer from Comet, the CAA-500.  It features a measurement range of 1.8 to 500 Mhz and displays SWR and impedance.  It is powered with five AA batteries or an external 8 to 16 volt DC supply can be used.

Thanks Comet and SouthWest Ohio DX Association!  This will really come in handy considering I’m in a new QTH and I’m in the process of putting up antennas and reassembling the radio artisan shack.  I couldn’t have asked for a more useful measurement tool.

(I am back home and I have several reports from Dayton to post in the next few days.  Stay on frequency…)

This is a question I ask of vendors I order equipment and amateur radio goodies from. You should ask the same of your vendors. If your vendors don’t support Dayton, perhaps you should consider supporting different vendors. Why, you ask? Dayton is the largest amateur radio event in the US and perhaps the western hemisphere. It’s struggled over the years.  However, the visual appearance and condition of Hara Arena tends to tarnish the state of the Dayton Hamvention, in my opinion.  I think the Hamvention is actually doing well.  Attendance was up last year.  Looking at the schedule of seminars this morning, it’s a wonderful collection of varied topics, with something for everyone.  The flea market is huge and it’s exhausting to cover the entire area in the three days.  If your vendor is devoted to amateur radio, they should come to the Dayton Hamvention.  If they can’t make a profit attending and selling products or generating sales leads, perhaps something is wrong with their products, marketing, or business model.  If a vendor devotes the time and effort to come to Dayton with products to sell, buy their warez!  The Hamvention is more than a hamfest, it’s a social event, a gathering, a celebration, and an economic ecosystem for amateur radio.  See you at Dayton!

A few weeks back – in the post about wartime crystal production – I made a tangential reference to my all time favourite YouTube video – Claude Paillard F2FO distilling down to less than 20 minutes his meticulous work making a triode valve, effectively by hand. Watching it again, this time I spent a bit more time looking over the many pages of background information he had posted on his website detailing his research into triodes of the 1920s, the techniques he used and the equipment he used or made to complete this project and create a very cute looking valve wearing blue shorts.

This prompted me to start a more methodical reading of the documents, and to work through the translations to ensure I understood what he had done. (Google translate is great, but it missed a significant amount.) If you’re vaguely interested in the technology of the earliest days of radio, and have ever wondered how these valves were made, the documents take you on a special journey through the eyes of an explorer with a brilliant workshop and skills to match. His research is comprehensive. By way of exploring how early valves were made he produces a full detailed and illustrated life story of the evolution of valve types and introduces important valve families like the 6L6 and its descendants like the 6V6 and the 807 of the late 1930s. He also takes you on an excursion to discover the history of creating an effective vacuum, critical in the creation of the valve aka the vacuum tube.

It’s also an enjoyable way to build up a French vocab for the terminology of valve radio gear. Along the way I stumbled across the Electropedia, a brilliant resource for translating technical terms from French to English with a number of other languages included. But some of the terms Claude Paillard uses reflect an earlier era and vocabulary. He talks about the plaque (plate) of a valve rather than l’anode. I’d love to find online versions of the French radio engineering references he cites from the 1920s.

Another plus of this experience is reading the history of radio from the perspective of a country other than Britain or the US. The French version of radio history introduces interesting characters and stories to the familiar names and places. An inspiration behind the work of F2FO is the history of the triode TM (Télégraphie Militaire). A good outline is at Michel Siméon’s website.

Paul Berché was another prolific author of French radio texts.

I’m a great fan of the Prelinger Archives which is home to so many items like this video I’ve heard about recently from various ham radio email lists.

I like how the components of the earliest electronics and wireless were so basic and ‘natural’. Think of hand made capacitors and resistors using traces of graphite on paper. Valves (or tubes) of course were another story but still capable of being ‘homemade‘.

I love the idea that an accurate, literally rock solid frequency could be achieved using a piece of a very common rock – admittedly a pure piece of quartz cut just so.

This video details the elaborate and meticulous manufacture of quartz crystals during World War 2 by Reeves Sound Laboratories in 1943.

The 41’24” video can also be viewed and downloaded via the Prelinger Archives.

Most of the ‘radio quality’ quartz was mined in Brazil which ceased its neutrality in 1942 and joined the Allies.

The story of quartz crystals during WWII is told in ‘Crystal Clear‘ by Richard J. Thompson Jr. (Wiley) 2011.

“In Crystal Clear, Richard Thompson relates the story of the quartz crystal in World War II, from its early days as a curiosity for amateur radio enthusiasts, to its use by the United States Armed Forces. It follows the intrepid group of scientists and engineers from the Office of the Chief Signal Officer of the U.S. Army as they raced to create an effective quartz crystal unit. They had to find a reliable supply of radio-quality quartz; devise methods to reach, mine, and transport the quartz; find a way to manufacture quartz crystal oscillators rapidly; and then solve the puzzling “ageing problem” that plagued the early units. Ultimately, the development of quartz oscillators became the second largest scientific undertaking in World War II after the Manhattan Project.” (from the book’s blurb)