Retrotechtacular: Radar Jamming

April 28, 2015 by Kristina Panos 23 Comments

It’s been said that the best defense is a good offense. When aloft and en route to deliver a harmful payload to the enemy, the best defense is to plan your approach and your exit carefully, and to interfere with their methods of detection. If they can’t find you, they can’t shoot you.

As of May 1962, the United States military was using three major classifications of radar jamming technology as described in this week’s film: the AN/ALQ-35 multiple target repeater, the AN/ALQ-55 communications link disrupter, and the AN/ALQ-41 and -51 track breakers. The most important role of these pieces of equipment is to buy time, a precious resource in all kinds of warfare.

The AN/ALQ-35 target repeater consists of a tuner, pulse generator, transmitter, and control panel working in concert to display multiple false positives on the enemy’s PPI scopes. The unit receives the incoming enemy pulse, amplifies it greatly, repeats it, and sends them back with random delays.

The AN/ALQ-55 comm disrupter operates in the 100-210MHz band. It distinguishes the threatening enemy communication bands from those of beacons and civilians, evaluates them, and jams them with a signal that’s non-continuous, which helps avoid detection.

Finally, the AN/ALQ-41 and -51 track breakers are designed to break enemy lock-on and to give false information. It provides simultaneous protection against pulse ranging, FM-CW, conical, and monopulse radar in different ways, based on each method’s angle and range.

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Brewdoo Helps Keep The Office Coffee Fresh

April 25, 2015 by Kristina Panos 9 Comments

Until about lunch time, the coffee goes pretty fast in our office. Only a few of us drink it well into the afternoon, though, and it’s anyone’s guess how long the coffee’s been sitting around when we need a 4:00 pick-me-up. It would be great to install a coffee timer like [Paul]’s Brewdoo to keep track of these things.

The Brewdoo’s clean and simple design makes it easy for anyone in the office to use. [Paul]’s office has two carafes, so there’s a button, an RGB LED, and a line on the LCD for each. Once a pot is brewed, push the corresponding button and the timer is reset. The RGB LED starts at green, but turns yellow and eventually red over the course of an hour. Brewdoo has a failsafe in place, too: if a timer hasn’t been reset for four hours, its LED turns off and the LCD shows a question mark.

[Paul] knew he couldn’t touch the existing system since his company leases the equipment, so the Brewdoo lives in an enclosure that [Paul] CNC’d with custom g-code and affixed to the brewing machine with hard drive magnets. Although [Paul] designed it with an Arduino Uno for easy testing and code modification, the Brewdoo has a custom PCB with a ‘328P. The code, Fritzing diagram and Eagle files are up at [Paul]’s GitHub.

Linear Book Scanner Does It With Arduino

April 23, 2015 by Kristina Panos 26 Comments

About two and half years ago, the Google Books team open-sourced the plans for their book scanning rig, and there was much rejoicing. As [Dany Qumsiyeh] explained in the Google Tech talk we linked to at the time, the scanner uses a vacuum to lift the next page from the stack and turn it, saving hours of human labor and, admittedly, putting books in a little bit of danger.

[Chris] tipped us off about a different take on the linear book scanner created by [Forssa1] that uses server fan to turn the pages. [Forssa1]’s rig is built from laser-cut acrylic and employs two handheld scanners driven by an Arduino Mega. We don’t have a great deal of information about this build, but you can check it out after the break.

UPDATE: [Forssa1] checked in with us and sent a link to more build photos of his book scanner.

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Retrotechtacular: Stateside Assembly And Launch Of V-2 Rockets

April 21, 2015 by Kristina Panos 28 Comments

At the end of World War II, the United States engaged in Operation Paperclip to round up German V-2 rockets and their engineers. The destination for these rockets? White Sands Proving Grounds in the New Mexico desert, where they would be launched 100 miles above the Earth for the purpose of high altitude research.

This 1947 War Department Film Bulletin takes a look inside the activities at White Sands. Here, V-2 rockets are assembled from 98% German-made parts constructed before V-E day. The hull of each rocket is lined with glass wool insulation by men without masks. The alcohol and liquid oxygen tanks are connected together, and skins are fitted around them to keep fuel from leaking out. Once the hull is in place around the fuel tanks, the ends are packed with more glass wool. Now the rocket is ready for its propulsion unit.

In the course of operation, alcohol and liquid oxygen are pumped through a series of eighteen jets to the combustion chamber. The centrifugal fuel pump is powered by steam, which is generated separately by the reaction between hydrogen peroxide and sodium permanganate.

A series of antennas are affixed to the rocket’s fins. Instead of explosives, the warhead is packed with instruments to report on high altitude conditions. Prior to launch, the rocket’s tare weight is roughly five tons. It will be filled with nine tons of fuel once it is erected and unclamped.

At the launch site, a gantry crane is used to add the alcohol, the liquid oxygen, and the steam turbine fuels after the controls are wired up. The launch crew assembles in a blockhouse with a 27-foot-thick roof of reinforced concrete and runs through the protocol. Once the rocket has returned to Earth, they track down the pieces using radar, scouting planes, and jeeps to recover the instruments.

Thanks for the tip, [Thomas].

Retrotechtacular is a weekly column featuring hacks, technology, and kitsch from ages of yore. Help keep it fresh by sending in your ideas for future installments.

Retrotechtacular: Using The Jet Stream For Aerial Warfare

April 14, 2015 by Kristina Panos 17 Comments

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are all the rage these days. But while today’s combative UAV technology is as modern as possible, the idea itself is not a new one. Austria floated bomb-laden balloons at Venice in the middle 1800s. About a hundred years later during WWII, the Japanese used their new-found knowledge of the jet stream to send balloons to the US and Canada.

Each balloon took about four days to reach the western coast of North America. They carried both incendiary and anti-personnel devices as a payload, and included a self-destruct. On the “business end” of the balloons was the battery, the demolition block, and a box containing four aneroid barometers to monitor altitude. In order to keep the balloons within the 8,000 ft. vertical range of the jet stream, they were designed to drop ballast sandbags beginning one day into flight using a system of blow plugs and fuses. In theory, the balloon has made it to North American air space on day four with nothing left hanging but the incendiaries and the central anti-personnel payload.

Although the program was short-lived, the Japanese launched some 9,300 of these fire balloons between November 1944 and April 1945. Several of them didn’t make it to land. Others were shot down or landed in remote areas. Several made the journey just fine, and two even floated all the way to Michigan. Not bad for a rice paper gas bag.

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Robotic Glockenspiel Crunches “Popcorn”

April 12, 2015 by Kristina Panos 14 Comments

[James] sent us a video of his latest creation: a robotic glockenspiel that’s currently set up to play “Popcorn”. It uses eight servos to drive mallets that strike the tone bars with fast, crisp movements. The servos are driven with a 16-channel I²C servo driver and MIDI shield, which are in turn controlled with an Arduino Uno. The previous incarnation of his autoglockenspiel employed solenoids, dowels, and elastic bands.

[Gershon Kingsley]’s 1969 composition for synthesizer “Popcorn” has been covered by many artists over the years, though perhaps the most popular cut was [Hot Butter]’s 1972 release. Check it out after the break, and dig that lovely cable management. We’d love to see [James]’s autoglockenspiel play “Flight of the Bumblebee” next.

If you’re hungry for more electro-acoustic creations, have a gander at [Aaron Sherwood]’s Magnetophone.

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Retrotechtacular: The Bessemer Converter

April 7, 2015 by Kristina Panos 25 Comments

Here’s a rose-colored look into the steelworks at Workington, Cumbria in northern England. At the time of filming in 1974, this plant had been manufacturing steel nonstop for 102 years using the Bessemer process. [Sir Henry Bessemer]’s method for turning pig iron into steel was a great boon to industry because it made production faster and more cost-effective.

More importantly, [Bessemer]’s process resulted in steel that was ten times stronger than that made with the crucible-steel method. Basically, oxygen is blown through molten iron to burn out the impurities. The silicon and manganese burn first, adding more heat on top of what the oxygen brings. As the temperature rises to 1600°C, the converter gently rocks back and forth. From its mouth come showers of sparks and a flame that burns with an “eye-searing intensity”. Once the blow stage is complete, the steel is poured into ingot molds. The average ingot weighs four tons, although the largest mold holds six tons. The ingots are kept warm until they are made into rail.

The foreman explains that Workington Works would soon be switching over to a more modern process. As it was, Workington ran a pair of Bessemer converters on a 40-minute schedule, ensuring constant steel production from ore to rail. Between 1872 and 1974, these converters created an estimated 25 million metric tons of steel.

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