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  Just found an awesome place in Bulgaria where I was able to order some cool RF parts, including some interesting ex-Soviet power transistors for quite reasonable money.

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  Something looking very hacked in Apple Translate. This Russian datasheet DOES NOT say that. If you scan it with Apple Translate there is all this “I’m sorry” etc all over it. It returns different results on different scans! 3rd image is from Google Translate.

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  Hey LinkedIn, I don’t give a crap about puzzles!

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  My homebrew 20m SSB rig is coming along well. Working on a more permanent assembly before moving on to transmit side stuff. The display in the lower left is an OLED driven by an STM32-based frequency counter for the analog VCO. Photo is still WIP. #HamRadio #AmateurRadio

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  This weekend I got the transmit side of my all analog SSB homebrew rig for 20m working! I took a little time this evening to tune up the audio. Now sounds good, I think! The crystal filter is 2.2 kHz wide so on the narrow side. Kind of can’t believe it’s finally working. This is milliwatts level power. Next: QRP power amplifier. #HamRadio #AmateurRadio https://youtu.be/uz1vV5uMMgk?is=cwySubbv45_itQuR

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  @liamdv4@mastodon.ie I thought kinda hard about it... and I can't come up with a single one.

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  Aer Lingus botched my daughter's flight to Denver via Boston because a failing toilet ran through all the water in the tank while on the ground. Plane over two hours late and she missed her connection. By EU rules she is due compensation for arrival at her final destination the following _day_ instead of as planned. They rejected on first submission because delay was only 2 hours. We re-opened a claim and they finally agreed. Wonder how many of these they skate out of. #mastodaoine

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  As promised, I wrote up a blog post on the 3D printed reduction gear assembly I made for variable capacitors. It's a 5:1 drive and you can print it in PLA. The only other requirements are an M4 bolt and a 5mm stainless rod. It works rather well! #HamRadio #AmateurRadio https://ei9itb.com/posts/2026/04/24/3d-printed-reduction-gear/

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  Working on a 3D printed reduction gear setup for variable capacitors, for those who homebrew. So far, it's looking pretty good! Will post a blog post when I have it all done and working. #HamRadio #AmateurRadio

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  I built an iOS app for myself: a set of RF calculators (inductance and reactance, toroids, air core inductors, parallel/series resistors and capacitors, pi networks, etc). Using Ionic framework and Codex, it took only a few hours to have something decent enough that I'll use it for myself. I previously had a web page I had collected calculators on, but this is on the phone all the time. We'll see how it goes, but pretty happy with it so far. #HamRadio #AmateurRadio

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  Making progress on my 20m SSB homebrew rig! Three working, tested bidirectional amplifiers (Hayward/Kopski) and the BFO from the BITX20 modified to 9MHz. Two amplifiers are 20dB and the other is 15dB gain. Also have a mixer (Ethernet transformer based) and a 3 pole band pass filter. More parts to come… #HamRadio #AmateurRadio

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  When your government is entirely captured by campaign funds from an industry. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-orders-diplomats-fight-data-sovereignty-initiatives-2026-02-25/

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  Fantastic interview in French magazine "Le Point" with Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah of Iran. I found his response to the question highlighted here quite interesting, regarding the Carter administration's complete misunderstanding of political Islam, and the idea that they could form an Islamic "Green belt" to hold back Communisim. I intend to read more about this.

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  I'm continually annoyed that GopherCon UK is in August, which is pretty much the main vacation month in Europe and a terrible time to have a conference. I used to go to dotGo in Paris before that closed down, and the timing in Oct/Nov was MUCH better. #Golang #gopherconuk

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  LOL Boots is charging €2.50 for Click and Collect . LMFAO NO.

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  Another very good day working on my homebrew 20m SSB rig. I designed and built a simple BC549-based 46dB audio pre-amplifier to boost an electret mic. Here's me testing it out with a Motorola hand mic I chopped up for another project awhile ago and will now use for this radio. The output amplifier is the Soviet PNP transistor based one I designed and built awhile back. #HamRadio #AmateurRadio https://youtu.be/LQBby_bXigE?si=gbO32mZ-ydn_3Dp3

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  For my homebrew 20m SSB rig... Following up on the success of the audio pre-amp, I built up the product detector from the BITX20, including the 4dB pad. Here's me testing that with the BFO from the BITX20 modified down to 9Mhz. The VFO here is an SI5351-based bench oscillator running my own software, that I made back in the fall. The audio amp is my own design. #HamRadio #AmateurRadio https://youtu.be/Xko_p5t7XzU?si=Kyun8OxhLAt1iVQw