Wilford Brimley, ‘Cocoon’ Star and Quaker Oats Pitchman, Is Dead at 85

By BY WILLIAM GRIMES from NYT Obituaries https://ift.tt/2EErrxj

Quotation of the Day: Law to Cut Drug Sentences Is No Help for Some Inmates

By Unknown Author from NYT Today’s Paper https://ift.tt/2PgIK9Q

‘Saare jahan se achha’ is a better economic mantra

from The Times of India https://ift.tt/39MwIyp

Happy Friendship Day 2020: Images, quotes, wishes

If you are looking for some heartfelt messages to share with your friends, here are some of them that guarantee to put a smile on your friend's face.

from The Times of India https://ift.tt/39Oop5l

A Homebrew Radio, As All The Best Homebrew Radios Should Be

It started with an old TV sound chip, and some curiosity. The TDA1701 that [Philip Bragg] found in a box of junk is a complete FM IF strip and audio power amplifier from the golden age of analogue PAL televisions, and while it was designed for the 5.5 MHz or 6 MHz FM subcarrier of European broadcast TV, he found it worked rather well at the more usual 10.7 MHz of a radio receiver. There followed a long thread detailing the genesis bit-by-bit of a decent quality VHF radio receiver, built dead-bug-style on a piece of PCB material.

The TDA1701 was soon joined by a couple of stages of IF amplification with a ceramic filter, and then by several iterations of a JFET mixer. A varicap tuned MOSFET RF amplifier followed, and then a local oscillator. Finally it became a fully-functional FM radio, with probably far better performance than most commercial radios. He admits tuning is a little impractical though, with what appears to be a cermet preset potentiometer covering the entire band.

We suspect this project isn’t finished, and we hope he posts the schematic. But it doesn’t really matter if he doesn’t, because the value here isn’t in the design. Instead it lies in the joy of creating an ad-hoc radio just for the fun of it, and that’s something we completely understand.

We’ve covered a lot of radios in our time, and while it might be the first to feature a TV sound chip, it’s not the first built on bare PCB.

from Hackaday https://ift.tt/3frPw7u

IPL franchises await answers as GC set for meet

The members of the governing council will meet on Sunday afternoon. Long due already, and with franchises and other stakeholders waiting to hear more, the meeting can be expected to turn into a marathon as BCCI president Sourav Ganguly joins the GC members in capacity of a special invitee.

from The Times of India https://ift.tt/3flAkZx

Kashmir's open-air classes offer stunning solution to lockdown

Open-air schools provide a welcome respite from Covid-19 restrictions in Indian-administered Kashmir.

from BBC News - World https://ift.tt/2Pdnyl9