14-04-2011, 08:18 AM
Hi Rob,
Ah yes, I remember it well!
You and Josh, if I'm not mistaken?
Nice to see you on this forum Rob, and glad to hear that your meter is a worthwhile addition to your test gear.
I've built lots of bits of test gear over the years, often for a pittance. One such item as a crystal calibrator which has square wave outputs at 1MHz, 100kHz, 1 kHz and 100 Hz. This is handy as a marker to calibrate homebrew receivers (or any receiver come to that) and for checking the calibration of a scope, as those frequencies correspond to 1uSec, 10uSecs, 100uSecs, 1mSec and 10mSec respectively. I recently looked up the construction article, which was in Everyday Today International Electronics 'ETI' (now sadly defunct and incorporated into EPE), and was shocked to note that it was back in 1981 when I made it. It uses 3 BC109 transistors, and four CMOS ICs, all still available cheaply (under a pound for the lot of 'em), four caps, eight resistors and a 1mHz crystal. Apart from the PCB and a little project case, the whole lot shouldn't be more than a fiver.
If there's any interest in such htings, I'll be happy to post some pics etc on the forum.
Have fun!
David
(AKA David G4EBT elsewhere).
Ah yes, I remember it well!
You and Josh, if I'm not mistaken?
Nice to see you on this forum Rob, and glad to hear that your meter is a worthwhile addition to your test gear.
I've built lots of bits of test gear over the years, often for a pittance. One such item as a crystal calibrator which has square wave outputs at 1MHz, 100kHz, 1 kHz and 100 Hz. This is handy as a marker to calibrate homebrew receivers (or any receiver come to that) and for checking the calibration of a scope, as those frequencies correspond to 1uSec, 10uSecs, 100uSecs, 1mSec and 10mSec respectively. I recently looked up the construction article, which was in Everyday Today International Electronics 'ETI' (now sadly defunct and incorporated into EPE), and was shocked to note that it was back in 1981 when I made it. It uses 3 BC109 transistors, and four CMOS ICs, all still available cheaply (under a pound for the lot of 'em), four caps, eight resistors and a 1mHz crystal. Apart from the PCB and a little project case, the whole lot shouldn't be more than a fiver.
If there's any interest in such htings, I'll be happy to post some pics etc on the forum.
Have fun!
David
(AKA David G4EBT elsewhere).
