RAN Technology

Articles

Products and ideas to generate the frequencies we need
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The Galaxy COMM2

Leo Meyerson had been in the ham radio retail and manufacturing business for over 25 years, and by 1970 he was ready to retire.   His son took over the WRL distribution and retail business but the Galaxy Electronics manufacturing operation was sold to his long-time friend Andy Andros WØLTE, founder and president of Hy Gain Electronics in nearby Lincoln NE.   The CB radio ele...  READ MORE
ranickels
11/26/2022
Vintage Ham Radio
Don Taylor of the Yukon, and the Trappers Sched

Most of the articles on this site are about hams, or  ham radio.    This one is not about a ham but about a man who built as much a reputation through HF radio as any ham on top of the BPL ever did.    Don Taylor is one of those rugged independent-minded people who thrive on a lifestyle most of us couldn't even imagine - as a trapper in Canada's Yukon wildern...  READ MORE
ranickels
10/31/2022
Historic
KYW-KFKX - Linking Broadcasting Stations by Shortwave

  Most radio fans know the history of KDKA  but maybe not "the rest of the story". In November 1920 the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company began operation of a radio broadcasting station, KDKA, in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, often described as the "Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World."  KDKA is generally considered to be the ...  READ MORE
ranickels
09/09/2022
Historic
AT&T Scranton LongLines tower

The microwave network constructed by AT&T Long Lines and other telecommunications companies in the past 50 years were engineering masterpieces using state-of-the-art technologies and some were designed to withstand nuclear attack during that Cold War era.      This is a non-hardened site on top of a mountain in upstate New York that existed long enough for graffiti taggers...  READ MORE
ranickels
09/08/2022
Historic
The Pioneer 530

In 1917 a missionary named William Cameron Townsend went to Guatemala to sell Spanish Bibles. But he was shocked when many people couldn’t understand the books. They spoke Cakchiquel, a language without a Bible.   He believed everyone should understand the Bible, so he started a linguistics school (the Summer Institute of Linguistics, known today as SIL) that trained people to do Bibl...  READ MORE
ranickels
07/02/2022
Vintage Ham Radio
The Elgin National Watch Company Time Broadcasts

  Visitors to the Elgin National Historic area along the Fox River in Elgin Illinois may not realize they are at the site of a famous shortwave radio station - W9XAM - the time signal station operated by the Elgin Watch Company. Elgin was the only watch company maintaining an observatory that observed, recorded and broadcasted time from the stars correct to the hundredths of a...  READ MORE
ranickels
05/09/2022
Historic
The Mosley Commando II

The Mosley CM-1 receiver is quite well known and not especially hard to find in the US even though it was the only radio produced by the company that has been well-known for antennas since 1939.    Or is it...? A full-page ad (advert for you on the other side of the pond) appeared in the RSGB Bulletin in 1963 for a nice looking and very capable SSB transmitter called the "...  READ MORE
ranickels
04/15/2022
Vintage Ham Radio
DIY DEG - Homemade Droplet Energy Generator works!

I'm not ready to publish a description of exactly HOW it works, but 20 minutes effort with scissors and tape produced a prototype  Droplet Energy Generator that allows me to say for sure that IT WORKS! I duplicated the design shown in this video.    I wrapped a scrap of plastic in aluminum foil, then applied a strip of double-sided tape and to that attached a piece of PT...  READ MORE
ranickels
03/30/2022
Technical
Robert and Richard Santin - true ham heroes

When I was first licensed in the 1960s in Nebraska, two groups of hams were commonly heard on the air before those with jobs got off work - other teens like me and the disabled hams.    Some of my earliest Novice ham buddies were blind students at the Nebraska School for the Blind in Nebraska City, and there were many other visually-impaired hams, all of whom were exceptional operators,...  READ MORE
ranickels
03/21/2022
Historic
Ceramic Loading Capacitor Replacement

Old style mica capacitors were used in the pi-net matching sections of several vintage transmitters and the combination of age, heat, and high RF currents have made them likely failure items.    My Collins 32V-2 transmitter was to the point where it would not properly load to full power on 75 meters so something had to be done.   Mica capacitors are no longer made but fortunately n...  READ MORE
ranickels
03/19/2022
Technical
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