Welcome to the SPARKTRON Web Page!
The
Art of Electronics and Engineering
I am Steven --
KA9VNW
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Updated as of
07MAR11 !!
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Check
out the P-Box page!
Thanks to all of
you dedicated P-Box Kit fans out there!
(It is now
only a matter of DAYS until I have the hi-res copies up on the new site!)
Thanks to all of you folks who take the time to send the hard copies to me via
snail mail!
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This page shows my favorite starting points in web
surfing. As you can probably guess, I
am very much into things technical and electronic. I
am particularly interested in things to do with ham radio -
especially AM medium and long wave, VLF, and whistlers -
electronics using tubes, music synthesizers, and such.
I am also a big Commodore 64 fan and love to keep the oldies
but goodies alive and well via emulation and other tricks.
What I love most about things technical is that I can use
electronics to create and add to things artistic. I find an open
breadboard
with blinking LEDs or tubes aglow to be in and of itself a work of art.
But to those who cannot see this, I am equally comfortable
designing
neat things and effects into "conventional" avant-garde art. I
have
designed sensors, sounds, and displays for pinball games, pachinko
games,
Christmas displays, Halloween novelties, centerpieces, and other such things. I have
designed
light shows to be incorporated into museum piece displays. I have
even provided design concepts for lighting wax sculptures! If you
are an artist wanting to find ways to incorporate sound, light, and
sensors
electronics into your masterpiece, I could be the person you are
looking
for to help make it a reality for you!
Check back from time to time to see what's new.
Please feel free to link my
page to yours.
If you have any comments or suggestions for
this page, please send me an e-mail . I
will update this page from time to time as I discover neat
things to put here and when I learn new HTML tricks.
Enjoy!
S...
V..._
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Special Features ~
I am an electronics designer - I love to create
products involving electronics as all or part of their features. I
especially love to design things that mix and match many different
technologies - analog, digital, audio, music, etc. I am also an
inventor.
My Inventions: Here are some of my inventions for which I have
won patent recognition.
-- Patent # 5529294 - LED Lighted Stand Up
Target for Pinball Games
-- European Patent # EP0722754A1 - LED Lighted Stand Up
Target for Pinball Games
-- Patent # 6212679 B11 - External Control of
V-Chip Functions in Institutional TV Sets
-- Patent # 66614771 B1 - Relocatable "ON"
Position for Institutional TV Sets
-- Patent # 7135664 B22 - Method for Adjusting Multiple
Light Sources to Compensate for Variation in Light Output that Occurs with Time
-- Patent # 7173383 BB2 - Lighting Aparatus Having a Plurality of Independently Controlled Sources of Different Colors of Light
I have many others pending and many others not yet applied for.
My Church: I belong to the First Presbyterian
Church, Elgin. I even sing tenor in the choir! I also play the oboe and
bassoon from time to time. Check out the First Pres web page.
P-Box Kits : This
is one of the things that fired up my interest in
electronics - the Radio Shack, Science Fair, P-Box kits.
There
were about 30 of these things back in the early 1970's. My first
one was an electronic metronome. I do not seem to have
the instructions for it (or the kit) any more, but I remember
it as being a single transistor, hartley type audio oscillator.
As I find other manuals, I will add them to the list.
Synthesizer Circuits & Stuff
: I have always had a passion for music - especially jazz and
things off the main stream. Naturally, synthesizer music caught
my
attention. It was this that made me sure I wanted to do something
with electronics for a career! I lived for making electronic
music. I arranged my college degree to emphasize acoustics and
electronic music. Credit to Walter
Carlos - Switched On Bach for first whetting my appetite for
electronic music and ultimately my foundations of music theory. I
am an amateur musician - I play the bassoon, oboe, and theremin.
I also sing in church as a tenor. Once in a while, I even sing in
a barbershop quartet!
Ham Radio
: As a natural outgrowth of my
love for electronics, I became interested in amateur radio. There
are lots of reasons why different people do ham radio. Some like
to talk, some like the technical challenges, some like contesting, some
like helping out in emergencies, some like fox hunting. For me -
it was always because I love to build things!
VLF : One of the forgotten cousins of ham
radio is all that goes on below the AM radio band. I
particularly like to experiment with this art because the circuitry
and theory is much more like audio than it is like RF.
Consequently,
"building stuff" requires little worry about layout issues and the
gremlins
associated therewith! You can also use op amps and other easily
obtainable, readily substitutable parts to make things - no weird,
impossible
to find transistors or capacitors, no silver solder required!
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Common & Favorite Links ~
Last Update: V2.04 07MAR11
