More to Salvage.

 I looked into more old stuf I have lying around.

Found some ancient analog satellite TV receivers, and as no one used those any more, and we are likely to be unable to use the 1240MHz band for analog FM TV, I have decided to discard them and salvage some components, such as tuner modules.

The same gors for some old digital satellite TV receivers, onlt capable of DVB-S(1), and not DVB-S2. 

The casings could be used for some small non-critical projects, so I will keep them, too.

One I could not open, because some of the screws are incompatible with my bit-set for screwdrivers. I might just drill them out if I can not find a suitable screwdriver bit.

Next in line are some stone age cable TV receivers covering 50-450MHz. The casing is plastic, but the screw heads I have never seen before. Then again, I am not planning to use the plastic casings for anything, so I will probably just have a go at them with my hacksaw, so I can get to the internal parts.

All in all, this winter I should get some of this done, so I can make enough space in the lab/workshop to make some new projects. That part is a bit tricky right now, but I will get there.

Tidy, Or Untidy? That Is the Question.

 My house has grown very intidy the past few years, after having had to do chemo therapy and an operation, then starting to recover, then the COVID-19 pandemic started, I have not had too much energy to do both, some radio activity and getting more tidy.

Well the radio activity is an ongoing thing, has been for 50 years now, so I am not planning to stop that.

But now I got started with a process that will take months, possibly years, or is it another ongoing process? Yes getting the house more tidy, and getting a few things working again, in the house.

Today I finally got two middle-age computers disassembled: An old Pentium 2 and another oldie, a Pentium 3. Those were "compact" Compaq's, so they took time and not so common tools (especially screwdrivers) to take apart.

I will only recycle very few things for my own recycling, everything else goes to the "official recycling".

- the top and bottom covers can be used as "chassis" for some projects, or as a support for a mag-mount antenna.

From the PC boards very little is useable. Some toroids can be used for EMC means, and there are some SMD inductors, too. Other parts, yes, maybe some power supply ICs and crystal oscillators, possibly a few of the connectors. That is all. The rest goes to "official" recycling.

There is more ancient computer stuff, and most of that will be treated the same way.

Then there is some stone age test equipment for my radio like:

- a 10-500MHz synthesized signal generator

- ancient Marconi signal generator, so old that it uses a classical free running oscillator.

- a signal generator for 1.7-4.4GHz. Real stone age, built with a klystron (tube/valve) oscillator.

For those heavy pieces there will be a bit to salvage. I suspect that I can easily salvage the step- and variable attenuators. Attenuators are always useful. Some cables, connectors, knobs etc, then decide what more useful material can be found in there.

Yes it will make for a busy time, but it will provide me with more space to do radio, and other activities.

Openings on 50MHz.

 Occasionally I have seen DX openings on 50MHx this year. 

As my monitor antenna is very low, and only a half wave vertical, it is limited what I see

Mostly in the autumn I have seen openings to Southern Africa, Like ZS. This could be F2, if it happened in the middle of the day. If it is late afternoon, or in the evening, in my opinion it must be trans equatorial propagation (TEP), extended by something else, like sporadic E from here to the Mediterranean Sea.

Very occasionally, with solar flux above the 170 mark, I have seen one or two stations in the Caribbean or Central America. Just one or two FT8 spots from my monitor receiver.

Today was different. I spotted Florida, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Bonaire, with the very poor antenna. I could see others in Northern Europe working far more stations than those. 

I think it is time to get my IC-7300 up and running with FT8 again.