Tricks of the Trade

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"Tricks of the Trade" a series of articles contributed to bbceng by David Porter

The articles linked below were first published in Signal, the quarterly publication of The Vintage and Military Amateur Radio Society.  They are reproduced here with kind permission from VMARS, which exists to help and support Radio Amateurs and Shortwave Listeners who wish to restore and operate vintage military or commercial radio equipment on the amateur bands.  See "About VMARS" on their web site for more information.

Audio processing

Signal Issue 62 80 years of BBC and VoA HF transmission audio processg by Dan Brown with assistance from David Porter.

Drives

Signal Issue 10 Tuning fork and crystal drives

Signal Issue 11  VFO-4 and HGM-1 drives

Combiners

Signal Issue 12 Combiners used for Aspidistra and OSE5

Signal Issue 13 Combining techniques

Signal Issue 14 More on combining AM transmitters

Signal Issue 15 AM transmitters, combiners and history of OSE transmitting stations

Also see Issue 32 below.

Marconi and other Transmitters

Signal Issue 17 Part 1 MWT BD228A medium wave transmitter, as used by the BBC at Brookmans Park.

Signal Issue 18 Part 2 MWT BD228A medium wave transmitter, as used by the BBC at Brookmans Park.

Signal Issue 20 Broadcast Division of Marconi Communications Systems Ltd.

Signal Issue 21 High power short wave transmitter design.

Scheduling of HF transmissions

Signal Issue 23

Signal Issue 24

Signal Issue 25

HF antenna arrays

Signal Issue 26

Signal Issue 27

Signal Issue 28

Signal Issue 29 (Rhombics)

Miscellaneous

Signal Issue 30 Safety in transmitter systems

Signal Issue 31 High Voltage techniques

Signal issue 32 Follow-up on the set of articles concerned with RF combiners

Signal Issue 33 Components and safety

Transmitters

Signal Issue 33 Continental Electronics CE317B and equivalent transmitters

Signal Issue 34 Continental Electronics CE317C and equivalent transmitters

Signal Issue 35 Ampliphase’ transmitter

Signal Issue 36 Outphasing technology, including reference to BBC trials

Signal Issue 37 Pirate radio, but with references to the BBC

Signal Issue 38 Review of transmitter developments

Signal Issue 39 Valves and cooling systems

Signal Issue 40 Pulse width modulation

Signal Issue 41 PANTEL and PULSAM

Signal Issue 42 High power Tx developments since the 1980s

Studios

Signal Issue 43 Restoring a BBC Local Radio Mk 1 Studio Desk

Frequency allocation

Signal Issue 46 The history of 648kHz transmissions.

MF and LF Antennas

Signal Issue 46 The new Radio Caroline 648kHz antenna at Orfordness.

Signal Issue 47 Development of antenna systems used in the UK for MF (and LF) broadcasting.

Signal Issue 48 More on antenna systems for MF and LF broadcasting.

Signal Issue 49 Practical MF antennas and the ways of feeding them.

Signal Issue 50 Ground systems.

Signal Issue 51 Blaw-Knox and Lisnargarvey.

Signal Issue 52 Blaw-Knox at Droitwich. Other MF antenna and combiner systems.
 

Directional Antenna Systems

Signal Issue 53 Directional MF antennas and their use in meeting the requirements of World War II.

Signal Issue 54 Directional Antenna Systems

Signal Issue 55 Directional Antenna Systems

Signal Issue 56 Directional Antenna Systems

Signal Issue 57 Directional Antenna Systems

Signal Issue 58 Directional Antenna Systems
 

The setting to work of MF and LF Antennas

Signal Issue 59 Antenna Tuning Units for MF and LF

Signal Issue 60 Series-to-parallel impedance conversions

Signal Issue 61 The practical setting up of transforming networks 

Signal Issue 62 Π (pi) matching networks

Signal Issue 63 Reverse calculations to determine an antenna’s driving point impedance.

Signal Issue 64 Low profile Tee antennas for MF.

Signal Issue 65 Development of antenna and ATU systems at Brookmans Park.
 

Technical Pot-Pourri including Specialist Engineer Contributions and Updates

Signal Issue 66 Intermodulation Products causing interference from MF and HF transmitters.

Signal Issue 67

Signal Issue 68. Back cover

Signal Issue 69

Signal Issue 70: A ‘Winter's tale’ about a few days at Woofferton.

Signal Issue 70: Intermodulation products, feeder switches and baluns.

Signal Issue 71: Baluns

Signal Issue 72: High power transmitter designs New Nov 2024

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