Khz vs Mhz vs Kc vs Mc

[mikethedruid]

Trick I learned when I was assistant quality control manager for Cable Electric Products years ago.... get some 12 gauge bare copper ground wire and bend it to the size and shape of the regular Weller tips for the 8200... it will work just fine and is a WHOLE lot cheaper. I buy it in 10 foot lengths... enough for a year or more... and I can replace the tip whenever I need to.

 

[jhooten]

Trick I learned when I was assistant quality control manager for Cable Electric Products years ago.... get some 12 gauge bare copper ground wire and bend it to the size and shape of the regular Weller tips for the 8200... it will work just fine and is a WHOLE lot cheaper. I buy it in 10 foot lengths... enough for a year or more... and I can replace the tip whenever I need to.

If you are half way decent with a tinner's hammer and a file you can shape the wire at the tip to better suit the task at hand. Be careful not to thin it out too much.

 

[ArloG]

Yaaa. Adapt. Sure. I have my old Weller dual heat gun. With the tip lock nuts, thank you.
Lately I prefer my hot air station and Hakko vacuum desoldering tool. The FR-301. For tube equipment. Works like a peach to pull solder. And my big, fat Weller 50 watt soldering iron for reassembly. Desolder wick here and there. And an industrial sized roll of good old Kester 60/40. Don't forget the fume extractor. Because that roll of Kester will far out live me!
I don't care. If you pump your mountain bike up a hill and you've done a kilocycles (of the pedals). Cool.
If you've pumped the pedals a kilocycles and it megahertz....time for a break. Or you're just plain old.
That's my two-bits worth. Or...25 cents, a quarter dollar in modern, commonly accepted, today's terms.

 

[KK4JUG]

I dumped the soldering guns in favor of irons. It seems the the guns sometimes reek havoc on some musical instrument magnetic pickups. The soldering irons don't have any effect.

 

[mikethedruid]

for printed circuit board work I use my Weller WTCPT station. For old chassis lug style wiring I use a Weller 8200. For desoldering I use solder braid which I improve by painting it with a special flux I make by dissolving powdered violin rosin in isopropyl alcohol. This makes it suck up solder MUCH better. I also use this flux when soldering to a chassis, and sometimes on other lugs. I keep it in a little pimento jar, and use a small artist's brush to apply it. I have used expensive solder sucking stations, but they end up clogging pretty quick, and then take time to clean out before work can continue. I find using my improved solder braid much easier and less annoying in the end. It even works well on printed circuit boards.

 

[mikethedruid]

I dumped the soldering guns in favor of irons. It seems the the guns sometimes reek havoc on some musical instrument magnetic pickups. The soldering irons don't have any effect.

Great tip ! If I ever work on a guitar pickup I'll use the WTCPT

 

[Boombox]

KHz, MHz, Kc, Mc.... it's all personal preference. And sometimes some people forget that radio is a hobby. You don't go to prison for using the wrong term in your logbook.

 

[mikethedruid]

Yep, that is the one I have. The first thing I did was throw that stamped steel POS in the scrap metal bin.)

Yup. The stamped metal one with the kit is pretty poor. A small adjustable wrench from Harbor Freight is OK if you keep it properly adjusted, and a proper fitting open end wrench is best.

 

[Scan125]

Well for you old boys and girls you might like these units - courtesy of Admiralty Handbook Of Wireless Telegraphy 1938 (for education reference use only )

They of course used kc/s and Mc/s for frequency. Upper limit in those days 30,000 kc/s also referred to as Centimeter Waves (cm/W)

As for oersted and gilbert ..... didn't realise they were on at the London Paladium theatre at that time.

Not to mention the "jar" !

 

[dlwtrunked]

KHz, MHz, Kc, Mc.... it's all personal preference. And sometimes some people forget that radio is a hobby. You don't go to prison for using the wrong term in your logbook.

I find it interesting that people use "It is only a hobby." to use outdated terms and abbreviations or improper ones,(the correct abbreviation is kHz as KHz means "Kelvin Hertz". No you will not go to prison; but you look outdated, hard to read, or illiterate.
For those who do not know, Hertz replaced cycles in 1960, so using cycles is over 60 years, half a century, out of date!

 

[mikethedruid]

Guess I'm "half a century out of date"... and DAMN PROUD OF IT ! I also still call a condenser a condenser, not "capacitor", since that is the term I learned first. I am old, and have been in the electronics industry since long before most of you were born. Keep on being picky, smug, and critical; you only reveal yourselves as what you are, ill bred, lacking in social skills, self righteous, and devoid of a knowledge or appreciation for the development of the field. Personally, I find y'all quite sad, and can only have pity for such creatures. You must be really fun at parties.

 

[k7ng]

I think this thread was supposed to be somewhat lighthearted in its beginning...

 

[mikethedruid]

I think this thread was supposed to be somewhat lighthearted in its beginning...

It was. Sadly it also seems to have brought out the worst in certain people. I began the thread in response to someone getting picky about the use of the term "megacycles." Little did I realize how many people in this field seem to have a mental problem characterized by a lack of social skills, inability to accept other points of view, and a deficiency in mental adaptability. I have no problem understanding when someone says kilocycles or kilohertz, or calls a condenser a capacitor, and I am certainly not infantile enough to get picky about it. Seeing these people getting all wound up in this thread would actually be pretty funny if it were not so pathetic.

 

[Scan125]

I had to smile at the "jar" unit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jar_(unit)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyden_jar

I got my degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 1978. When I found my copy of the Admiralty Wireless and Telegraphy 1938 I was quire staggered by the depth and complexity of what those radio engineers had to understand and work with. When I get bored I pick the volumes up and pick a page at random. Does my head in every time.

Here is a simple diagram explaining the Marconi-Franklin Series Phase Aerial

 

[Scan125]

And as a student going for a "jar" was the done thing going down to the local pub!

 

[Scan125]

It was. Sadly it also seems to have brought out the worst in certain people.

Hope you are not referring to me. I picked this thread up only today so waltzed over the k vs K vs m vs M etc. as I thought everyone knew what was meant.

I hope my posts about the old units are informational and not confrontational and a little bit of "fun"?

 

[mikethedruid]

Hope you are not referring to me. I picked this thread up only today so waltzed over the k vs K vs m vs M etc. as I thought everyone knew what was meant.

I hope my posts about the old units are informational and not confrontational and a little bit of "fun"?

Nope, not you at all... read through the whole thread and you'll see what I mean. Unfortunately, your response came in while I was typing out mine, and came up before it. I actually found your response very true and interesting. Beyond my schooling from the U.S. Navy, I am an autodidact. I have studied my electronics from many sources, ranging from the 1920s through the turn of this century, shortly after which I retired, and stopped reading the current journals (IEEE etc.)

 

[MUTNAV]

It was. Sadly it also seems to have brought out the worst in certain people. I began the thread in response to someone getting picky about the use of the term "megacycles." Little did I realize how many people in this field seem to have a mental problem characterized by a lack of social skills, inability to accept other points of view, and a deficiency in mental adaptability. I have no problem understanding when someone says kilocycles or kilohertz, or calls a condenser a capacitor, and I am certainly not infantile enough to get picky about it. Seeing these people getting all wound up in this thread would actually be pretty funny if it were not so pathetic.

You really didn't realize it? I really think that one of the big advantages of Ham radio (until the internet and cell phones allowed modified social contact arrangements) was that it allowed those with poor social skills to try and communicate, and those that DO have good social skills can always claim "propagation issues" when the conversation gets too awkward (augh!!! , my antenna is falling down, and sunspots are making hearing you difficult..... Bsssshhh.....)

Think of someone with Asperger syndrome (very high functioning autism, narrow field of interest and kind of is stuck with talking about the single interest). What better arrangement than radio (ham and CB)?

Then of course there are other people that are just having difficulty communicating (lots of swearing, unusual ideas, no one WANTS to talk with them etc...), in my mind, I think that even if no one listens to them on the radio, if they THINK someone is listening to them, that's great, and probably helpful.

This is a little out-dated now, because there are conversational computer programs that let a person "talk" to another "person" that is actually a program, and it helps the person resolve issues, great.

This isn't being mean or anything, the Japaneese (and other countries) are working on robots to act as companions for the elderly, both to physically help them, and "talk" with them.

Thanks
Joel

 

[MUTNAV]

Nope, not you at all... read through the whole thread and you'll see what I mean. Unfortunately, your response came in while I was typing out mine, and came up before it. I actually found your response very true and interesting. Beyond my schooling from the U.S. Navy, I am an autodidact. I have studied my electronics from many sources, ranging from the 1920s through the turn of this century, shortly after which I retired, and stopped reading the current journals (IEEE etc.)

My favorite was the Air forces 31-141 series of books on electronics. Even in 2003, there was a section about how exciting it was, and that in the future we may be able to hard land a probe on the moon and send back telemetry.

Thanks
Joel

 

[Fixitt]

It's the Brits (and others) with their 'zed-naught', pronouncing the L in solder, and the ever popular al-you-min-eee-yoom.

Even though we ‘Merikans butcher the Queen’s English, I still wonder why they call their mother ‘mum’ but don’t call their father ‘dud’