electronics and hobbies

Electronics and other hobbies

Hugh is involved in a great number of hobbies, but electronics has been the main focus since age nine. At age nine, Hugh built a crystal set that sparked a great interest in the implementation of electronic components and circuits. From that point on every electronics/radio article that crossed his hands was devoured. At the time, about the only publication carrying "radio" articles was Popular Mechanics, and Hugh's father had a garage library of past issues that became a resource of ideas, circuits and understanding of radio theory.

As time progressed, Hugh's electricity skills developed to the point that he was servicing the neighbors electrical appliances and radios. Upon reaching the 5th grade in Grammar school, he was allowed to teach electricity/radio to the class one hour each week. The teaching routine continued through the 6th grade as well. Coming up with circuits and circuit theory was a real challenge, but the effort helped to place Hugh in a position for teaching electronics later on in life.

Another motivating aspect of Hugh's electronic development was the recognition of his talent by Vic Williams who ran Vic's Radio repair in Hawthorne. Vic hired Hugh to repair radios in his shop. But, because of Hugh's young age, he was placed in the back room out of site of the customers who might be offended by such a young person working on their radio. Working on "real" problems was a rewarding experience.

Upon entering high school, Hugh met Jack Brown (W6EQH) who taught electricity, radio and mechanical drawing. Through Jack's encouragement and effort, Hugh got his ham license. From that point on, Hugh's electronics career was set in concrete and the rest is history as indicated in his resume.

Club activities link: * 1995 Christmas Banquet * JPL visit * 1998 picnic * Field Day activities	The patch is from the Xerox Amateur Radio Club. Hugh is one of the founding members of the club. Hugh attempts to write a technical or news article for each monthly issue of the club newsletter - The Skip Zone. Hugh is responsible for the maintenance of the Club's repeater that operates in the 450MHz band. The club is active in field trips, luncheons, swap meets, ham field day, dinner meetings, monthly club meetings, picnics, etc. In other words, fun stuff!
	Here is an old picture of Hugh's work bench when it was cluttered following a project (not that it looks much different today). The white faced equipment are various pieces of test equipment that Hugh has designed for his use. Some of the pieces have been the focal point for a magazine article.
	This is how the test bench appears today. In the lower left is the all-band ham rig including VHF and UHF. Beside it in the stack are two communication service monitors and an audio oscillator. Also included on the bench are the following: DDS RF signal source, function generator, CTCSS encoder-decoder, signal tracer, TV-VCR tuner test set, VOM's and various power supplies.
Some of Hugh's projects are shown here by clicking on the following: * Signal generator (100-1000Mhz) * DDS (Direct Digital Synthesis) * Digital and analog TV/VCR tuners * Fun Radio * TV tuner articles on various subjects * Touch Detector * Tracking Dual Voltage PS * VHF/UHF Signal Source * LM and BC221 Freq Multiplier (to 1Ghz) * Bookbinding to save technical articles * Many of Hugh's articles were published in 73 Magazine from 1982 through September 2003. References are available upon request. This section is still under construction.	Designing and building projects consumes a large part of Hugh's day. Some of the current projects involve the following: * TV/VCR tuners and their applications in ham projects. * Frequency multiplier circuits. * Repeater repairs and enhancement. * Writing magazine articles. * Bookbinding (an annual affair). * Of course, automobile maintenance and yard work are a given necessity. * Getting on and operating the various ham bands may or may not be considered a project, but it certainly occupies considerable time. * Completed the repair of a couple of Bearcat 250 scanning receivers and an antique 1937 BC receiver. * Repair of Wavetek, Singer and Cushman communication service monitors. Projects in this section are constantly evolving, and therefore those shown are generally not current..

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