Here's malware parading as a virus remover: (One should just close the page; clicking on 'Start Protection' or clicking anywhere in the below window will install this deceptive malware!)

 

Here's what you see when Microsoft determines your copy of Windows is NOT legit:

   

The Zenith radio had the infamous 'black dial' that makes it stand out from the crowd. The tuning dial has a flywheel which gives it a firm feel. Together with the 'tuning eye', you get an 'oh wow' feeling while tuning across the AM and shortwave bands. This radio was made in 1940 and the technology had come a long way. Compared with radios of a decade earlier, the detector stage was designed much better, and the volume was controlled directly rather than by raising or lowering the operating voltage to the tubes. In addition, Zenith implemented push buttons which provided 64 different combinations of tone control. The radio also came with six programmable AM station presets. This radio actually sounds better than many radios in homes today. The radio had a few bad resistors and capacitors, but its biggest problem was corroded switches.

 

 

There are options available for communications on touring bikes, but they are often expensive and designed only to address a single issue. But for my own Goldwing, I wanted it all. When I got done, my radio had a subwoofer that was bi-amped, and my intercom supported communications with my passenger (wife), cell phone, and 2-way FRS radio.

 

Adding sound to my motorcycle helmet was pretty straight forward. I bought a good set of Koss headphones (with a lifetime guarantee), removed the earpieces, and inserted them into the helmet. For a microphone, I bought a $20 headset boom mic. It was a condenser noise cancelling mic, and therefore needed power to run. For that I merely connected a 9 volt battery in series with the microphone element. To further reduce wind noise, I enclosed the mic inside a windscreen.

 

My Honda Goldwing comes with a factory intercom system. To combine the various audio sources, I added a microphone buffer circuit using an IC from Radio Shack. I connected the output of this circuit and the outputs from my cell phone, 2-way radio, and radar detector to the input of the factory intercom using resistors to balance the volume. I also connected the output of that microphone circuit to the input of my cell phone and 2-way radio. It works so well that I have had people call me on my cell phone and not even realize I am cruising down the interstate. I can even voice dial the cell phone except when passing a loud semi or riding in a severe crosswind.

 

It would be quite the exaggeration to suggest 'the sky is the limit' when installing a subwoofer on a motorcycle -- your options are nil! There simply is not space to mount a large speaker, nor a location that allows the speaker to efficiently transfer its energy. But you can improve on the small factory speakers. I found I could mount a 6" dual voice coil subwoofer in the storage area located where the fuel tank is on most bikes. I chose to build a sealed enclosure because a "speaker cabinet" could not be made large enough for a vented enclosure to work right. I used an automotive booster amp (hidden below the trunk) to drive the subwoofer so as not to suck power from the factory radio. And although it doesn't produce chest pounding bass, the radio does have a much fuller sound than what you hear on any other bike in town.

Yes, I know. Pump Organs have nothing to do with computers or electronics. But when a dear old friend was dismayed her heirloom organ still wouldn't play after spending good $$ to have it restored, what could I do? Well, I could fix it for her...

 

The bellows in these old organs often leak air, and they had already been repaired. But cracks in the wood that were leaking air hadn't been sealed. But more significantly, due to the vintage of these instruments, the reeds are frequently coated with soot from coal burning furnaces, which prevents them from sounding true -- if they vibrate at all. Although tedious, the reeds must be removed and cleaned. The simplest way to do this to soak them in a chemical cleaner (I used Scoot) for a short minute. However, care must be exercised while doing this since the reeds can be easily damaged by the chemical.

 

The repair of this Baldwin organ was straight forward from a technical standpoint, but much broader in scope than anticipated. Schematics were available, and with an oscilloscope trouble-shooting was routine. However, it turned out that the capacitors used in the oscillators were failing and it would be necessary to replace them all.

 

By design, this organ contained twelve master oscillators -- one for each note in the musical scale. Six separate but nearly identical chassis were used to house the note generators, with frequency dividers cascaded in series to generate the pitch for every octave of each note. Six double triodes were used in each chassis to accomplish this. In all, that meant 72 triode stages were needed just to generate all the frequencies produced by this organ!

 

To obtain different timbres of tone, the signals from the tone oscillators passed through tone shaping circuits that were switched in and out of the signal path by the voice tabs. Vibrato was implemented by modulating the bias voltage going to the master oscillators. A power amplifier with parallel push-pull tubes provided several watts to drive the speakers. And yes, the power consumption and heat generation of this organ was substantial. It was also incredibly heavy.

 

This organ had two major issues. One was that the capacitors in the master oscillators and frequency dividers were failing. That meant nearly 100 capacitors total had to be replaced. The second problem was that most of the contacts had corroded and needed to be cleaned. This was a bit tedious since each keyboard note contained a pair of contacts and the organ stops typically had four sets of contacts each.

 

To put the organ keyboards back in place after removing them for cleaning, I slid a wood strip between the key contact fingers. I then twisted it to spread the fingers open far enough to allow the key tabs to slip into place. I then rotated the wood strip back flat again in order to slide it out and remove it. I can only guess how the factory built this organ, but I am sure it had to be quite labor intensive.

 

To tune the organ, I only had to tweak the 12 master oscillators, since the octaves were locked in phase mathematically by the frequency dividers. I used a frequency counter that would display to a tenth of a Hertz, to get maximum accuracy. To calculate the frequency of each note I took the musical reference of A-440 and repeatedly multiplied it by two until I reached the top octave. Then, based on the equal temperament scale, I multiplied this reference frequency repeatedly by the twelfth root of two until I had the frequency of every adjacent note.

  

This antique wall phone was a personal project for my antique collection, and I had two goals. One was that I wanted a functioning phone despite the age of its components. The second was I wanted to play mind games with techy types who came to visit. I was able to attain both goals... 

 To make my home phones work without a landline connection, I have purchased a Dock-N-Talk unit. This clever device connects to your home phones using a standard RJ-11 jack, and to your cell phone via Bluetooth. You can then use any home phone to make and receive calls because the Dock-N-Talk has them all connected to your cell phone. It works great.

 

There were a couple of technical issues that I had to address in order to make this phone work with current telephone standards. One problem is that phones of that era depended on a set of dry cells to power them. In my case, I just connected up a 6v lantern battery, which lasts me for years since I don't use this phone daily. The second issue is that the ringer was directly connected to the phone line, which made the phone appear to phone equipment that it was off-hook at all times. The workaround for that issue was to add a couple capacitors to the circuit to block any DC current draw when the phone was hung up.

 

Another problem that I had was that an inductor coil which matches the impedance of the carbon mic to the impedance of the earpiece was open, due to age related corrosion. To maintain the authenticity of the phone, I ordered an original used replacement coil from PHONECO inc. (http://www.phonecoinc.com/).

 

At this point, my old wall phone could be used to receive phone calls. But if someone turned the crank, the magneto would feed voltage into my home system and possibly cause damage. My workaround for this was to disconnect the magneto from the phone line and instead connect it to a relay which would switch the ringer from the phone line to the magneto when it is cranked. This allows the bells to ring when someone turns the crank, yet also still work for incoming calls.

 

I also bought a $10 phone from Radio Shack and stripped the circuit board out of it. After I jumpered the wires for the "#" key, I connected it to spare contacts of the relay I had already hooked to the magneto. Thus, when the magneto is cranked, the phone generates the # key tones over the phone line. I did this because the Dock-N-Talk that I use puts my cell phone into voice dial when the # key is pressed. Get the picture? When you come visit, I ask you your cell phone number. Armed with that info, I take the wall phone off-hook, crank the magneto two turns (which rings the bells & secretly puts my system in voice dial mode), and say "Dial: <your number>". Within seconds your cell phone rings, and we are talking over my old wall phone. This totally baffles people -- especially after I open the phone and they see all the original components and wiring, but fail to notice I've hidden a touch-tone circuit board behind the magneto.