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A Walk Through of My Soldering Station

When working on electronics it is important to keep a tidy, and safe workspace.  I thought I would show what my bench looks like as an example for others who are just starting out on their tinkering journey.

Desk & Chair

I recommend a desk that is at a comfortable working height, that is clean and resistant to static & fire/heat.  An adjustable padded chair, such as an office chair, that can keep your knees at 90 degrees and help maintain good posture is key for avoiding long-term injuries.

Soldering Iron

I have both a cheap RadioShack soldering iron and a decent Weller adjustable temperature iron (WLC100 Soldering Station).  It is okay to start with the cheap one until you can upgrade.  The basic requirements are an iron that is at least 25 watts.  Most come with a conical tip (useful for small joints), but wedge tips are better for maintaining heat, which is better for good soldering joints.

Solder & Flux

Even though Leaded solder is toxic and not used in commercial products, it is still the go-to for electronics hobbyists in the United States due to its low melting point and ease of creating good soldering joints.  Lead-free is available and recommended from a safety standpoint.  Solder with 60% tin (often called 60/40) is seen as the best solder, due to its lower melting point.  Flux-core solder, as the name suggests, contains flux, often rosin/resin, which aids in creating good solder joints.

Helping Hands

Circuits and components get hot when soldering, so helping hands are a must.  There are several styles depending on your needs and budget.  I recommend one with alligator clips and a magnifying glass as a bare minimum.  Upgrades include a mirror with a light, a fan attachment, and different style clips.  There is even a silicone connector holder called a Hot Holder that is a must-purchase for anyone creating a variety of custom cables.

Fan & Airflow

A fan is a necessity in order to avoid inhaling fumes from the heated solder.  Airflow must be directed away from the working area, which means there must be at least one open window/door in addition to the fan if you are working indoors.

Light

I recommend an adjustable desk lamp for any soldering project.  I inevitably find myself in rooms with insufficient light and a desk lamp is key for inspecting tiny soldering joints.

Wirecutters & Strippers

Generic wire cutters are so important, that one might even have multiples, like angled wire cutters for circuits in a small housing.  While some use pocket knives for wire strippers (to trim the plastic coating off wires), I prefer having a multi-gauge wire stripper.

Sponges, solder suckers, scrapers, wicks

Over the course of soldering, the solder coating the tip of the soldering pen will discolor and become ineffective.  To clean the old solder one can use a small wet sponge, it often comes with the soldering kit, or a brass wool solder scraper.  I use both.  Solder suckers and solder wicks are useful when one accidentally uses too much solder on a joint and bridges two wires together.  Solder wicks are copper braids that soak the excess solder, while solder suckers are retractable pen that sucks a small chunk of solder.

Other Helpful Tools

With tiny components, fingers are often too clumsy or too large, that is why I have tweezers and needle nose pliers in my kit.  I also keep cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol to clean up my finished board.  Multimeters are useful to double-check connections within the circuit.  If there are any accidental shorts or missed joints, the multimeter should find them.

Safety notes

Wear safety glasses to protect your eyes from flying wire fragments and hot solder.  Use a bubble wand to find out if the airflow of your work area is directed away from your face.  If the bubbles are floating towards the open window, you are all set.  When the bubbles just hang in the air, it is time to add another fan or open another window/door.  Take regular breaks from the soldering and take a short walk.  It is not good for your overall health to work in a fume-filled and cramped position (even when trying to maintain good posture).  If you have a drink in your work area, make sure that it is covered (to prevent contamination), and wash your hands before handling any food or drink after soldering.  Overall it is good practice to wash your hands after soldering.

Ham Activities 

Here I am back with my Amateur Radio Technician License. Now what? Where will my radio take me? Amateur radio enthusiasts often explore several niches without limiting themselves to one genre of radio. However, their activities can be broken down into five categories: radio contesting, research, public service, digital and computer networking, and technical experimentation.

Contesting

Contesting refers to radio operators contacting others like a scavenger hunt. These can be at events, where the most contacts at the event is a winner, or collecting contacts of a certain category. Ongoing contests include getting all 50 states in the United States or contacting all the National Parks. Field Days are annual events that occur in June and October where contesting happens, but also many clubs set up in local parks to show off their gear to the public. I attended my local one a few weeks ago and one radio operator contacted a Park On The Air in New York. While these contests can be purely for verbal bragging rights, there is a tradition of QSL cards. These postcards show the call signs of the conversation participants and are exchanged as proof of contact. The most unusual are displayed as trophies. As a fan of postcards, I made a stamp of my call sign to create my own QSL card.

Research

Amateur radio enthusiasts are already science-minded individuals, so citizen science research naturally shoehorns into the hobby. By using a variety of equipment and transmitting in all weather conditions, radio operators can observe the propagation of radio waves in less than ideal conditions or even during rare phenomenon like auroras. Also by communicating with amateur satellites, radio operators can monitor weather patterns and gather data.

Public Service

To take this altruism further is public service. In the United States, the two major organizations for emergency communications via amateur radio are RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) and ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service). These two organizations set up networks of volunteers who facilitate communication between the government and other groups. When cell phone towers are down and power is out amateur radio can still get messages through. There are even protocols in place to get messages from survivors to their families around the country.

Digital and Computer Networking

While amateur radio as a hobby is more than a century old, there are a variety of digital avenues to use for communication. Software-defined radio is an inexpensive way to use radio integrated into a computer. Other formats are Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), radio teletype (RTTY), and packet radio. Some of these can be used in conjunction with the other categories.

Technical Experimentation

As with other hobbies, amateur radio enthusiasts try to push the boundaries of the craft. There is the fairly obvious homebrew or do-it-yourself aspect of building your own equipment. For low power and high noise situations, radio operators use Continuous Wave (CW) and Short Wave (SW). CW often employs morse code instead of vocal communication. These modes can even be used to bounce waves off of the moon! Audio is not the only medium that can be transmitted either, there is Fast Scan television to send amateur signals short distances.

Currently, I have a handheld transceiver and an RTL-SDR dongle (for passive listening to software-defined radio). However, that is only the start of my amateur radio journey. I hope in the future to take you through some of these different categories of radio. This is Nicole KQ4BHO signing off.

Becoming a Ham:  Venturing into the World of Amateur Radio

 

Late last year I saw a post calling for individuals to sign up for a class to become an Amateur Radio operator.  In the back of my mind flashed the opening scenes of Contact starring Jodie Foster.  Long story short, I signed up.  The Make Amateur Radio Easier (MORE) Project was started by Dr. Rebecca Mercuri for Amateur Radio outreach in order to attract underrepresented demographics of radio operators and is backed by Amateur Radio Digital Communications and by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).  Through MORE I and my classmates will receive a hand-held 2-way radio, training, and pass the Technician exam (fingers crossed) to be able to Get On The Air (GOTA).

Dr. Mercuri

Amateur Radio, or Ham as it is affectionately known, is communication by radio waves for non-commercial purposes.  Radio operators use frequencies within a designated band to broadcast text, data, voice, and even images.  They identify themselves with callsigns, a combination of letters and numbers assigned by their home country’s broadcast governing body.  While their host country is in charge of licensing, a radio operator with the right radio and antenna can broadcast all over the world.  Referencing Jodie Foster’s character in Contact again:  she contacts Australia from her midwestern home, and later is part of the search for extraterrestrial life.

Shortly after the advent of telegraphy, amateurs began broadcasting.  Women were there too in the earliest days of radio as landline telegraph operators circa 1840s.  As maritime radio gained steam, cultural ideas about the fragility of women in emergency situations led to the ousting of women from professions in telecommunications.  When the rise of amateur radio occurred in the beginning of the twentieth century, the hobby attracted fans indiscriminately.  Mrs. M.J. Glass and Olive Hearberg were two of the first women to the hobby, registering in the 1910s.  In the lingo of Ham Radio, male operators called each other “OM” or “old man” in addition to their call signs.  Starting in the 1920s women used “YL” or “young lady.”  Young Ladies Radio League (YLRL) was founded in 1939 by Ethel Smith after seeing an ad in the membership journal of the National Association for Amateur Radio.  She became curious about how many women were Hams and wanted to reach out to them.  After writing a letter of her own to the journal, she created the YLRL that exists to this day offering scholarships and networking opportunities of all kinds.

Owning an amateur radio involves more than just knowledge of antenna and equipment, there is a whole language and etiquette involved.  Morse code no longer is required for United States licenses, however, there are many Hams that still use it.  The International Phonetic Alphabet is useful for intelligibility, especially when many phrases are shortened to acronyms.  In turn, the acronyms are useful when a broadcast signal is full of distortion.  Often local Ham radio clubs offer mentorships to encourage new Hams to keep broadcasting.  Other advantages of clubs include access to more advanced equipment and opportunities to broadcast from unique locations like lighthouses.

I am excited to participate in the MORE course and find another way to marry my electrical and audio worlds.  To be fair, I am also excited to emulate Jodie Foster in some way.  Well, I need to jump off to study for my Technician exam, wish me luck.  I don’t have a call sign yet, so this is Nicole, final clear.

For MORE information: n2re.org/m-o-r-e-project

Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, Grant Administrator, rtmercuri@ieee.org

Dr. Rebecca Mercuri interviewed by SoundGirls here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAOEL-VR6yc

Website for Young Ladies Radio League:  https://ylrl.net/

2022 Leading Women in Audio

The Sound of Strength Conference

On a surprisingly mild February weekend, I attended the 2022 Leading Women in Audio (LWIA) conference at Elon University in Elon, NC.  The theme for this year was The Sound of Strength focusing on the voices that one can hear in performances and the silent voices that create the art.  In the current era of COVID-19, this conference was held as a hybrid event of in-person panels and live-streamed attendance options.  Panels and presentations were recorded for future viewing opportunities.

In changing the face of audio, the LWIA conference focused on High School and College students.  Students were invited to attend a studio tour, a conference dinner added to the ample networking opportunities for presenters and students to mingle, and there were panels for alumni and early career professionals to bridge the gap between dreams and starting out in audio.  In the past I have attended student-centric summits while enrolled in college, but this time I went as a guest of Christa Giammattei, both a presenter and vendor at the conference, to help out her Command + S Apparel booth.

Sabrina Smith, a sophomore from Elon University, who volunteered as the Public Relations Director for the conference, helped me gain insight into the event.  While it was also her first time attending the event, this is the LWIA’s 4th year.  Smith noted that it’s empowering to bring a variety of women in demographics and industry together to push through the stereotypes and to see what we are capable of in highlighting our contributions.  The panels that caught Smith’s eye were Jasmine Battle’s “DJ Techniques” and Marcella Araica’s “Mixing Vocals.”  Networking was also important to Smith, both with peers and panelists.  In the future Smith wants to DJ and to give back to her local community in Charlotte, NC.  Just like the people she grew up with, Smith wants to show people there’s always a way for you to belong.

In many of the conferences I have attended before (the exception of the SoundGirls conference) the only all-women panel was also the token diversity panel.  At LWIA the “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” panel was less about how hard it is to be a woman in the Audio Industry, but instead how to thrive in a positive environment.  The entire career arc was covered from having a day job and leaving a toxic workplace, to defining success and avoiding burnout.  However few work alone and as panelist leader, Aurelia Belfield stressed, “You heard of the boys club?  Make a new club.”  There’s plenty of work to go around, recommend your peers who are better for a certain job.  Have each others’ backs, our failures, and successes happen as a team.  LWIA gave me lots of hope for the future of Audio.  We are in this together, let’s help each other up.

Review of Behind the Sound Cart

 

If you are looking for a master class in production sound, Behind the Sound Cart: A Veteran’s Guide to Sound on the Set by Patrushkha Mierzwa is just that.  From gear to career development this book covers it all.  With her many years of experience as a Utility Sound Technician (UST), Mierzwa provides more than tips and tricks.  Packed in each chapter is a guide to best practices and the reasons why.

Behind the Sound Cart is divided into chapters based on topics beginning with an overview of the UST’s duties.  Also known as 2nd Assistant Sound, they work on everything sound-related not covered by the Mixer or the Boom Operator, even then the UST might have to use a second boom, or even cover for the mixer.  In light of how flexible the UST must be, it makes sense to use them as a focal point for a guidebook on production sound.  Mierzwa has the reader follow her footsteps through nearly every scenario a UST might face.  I cannot believe I ever set foot on a set without Behind the Sound Cart.

Mierzwa stresses the importance of safety with every chapter.  Current events show us that this emphasis is always necessary.  However, safety is not just protection from a dolly running you over:  heat, stress, and fatigue can also be deadly.  Don’t skip the sections on first aid and COVID protocols either.  Gear cleaning and maintenance fall into this category as well.

From cover to cover, Mierzwa leads by example of professionalism and integrity.  Do not expect this book to be full of celebrity anecdotes.  Part of being a respected UST is respecting the cast. One might expect a book on the basics of production sound to be dry without juicy gossip, but there are plenty of stories and jokes peppered through each chapter.  Attached in the appendices are forms, paperwork, and other documents used throughout the film production process.  Those alone are worth the price of this book.  Refreshing is the way Mierzwa uses “she/her” as the default pronouns over “he/him.”  Sure, a more neutral pronoun like the singular “they” would be optimal, it allows one to imagine a film crew that is more diverse than the “industry standard.”

I recommend Behind the Sound Cart to anyone looking to succeed in the film industry.  That includes early career professionals, as well as students and production assistants.  I would even recommend this book for fledgling directors and cinematographers.  Patrushkha Mierzwa has put a career’s worth of information into a manageable package, and it should be in every production sound engineer’s library.

Editing Women into Wikipedia Part 3:  Notability

There’s nothing more disheartening than to create a Wikipedia article only to have it instantly flagged for deletion.  Even with hours put into finding sources and carefully formatting every section to fit Wikipedia’s style, there is one major issue that can doom the best of intentions:  Notability.  Let’s say that you want to create an article on your favorite SoundGirls Blogger.  You might be able to find an interview, a picture, and maybe even their IMDb page.  However, it takes more than that to qualify.

Notability

Means a subject that stands out from the crowd.  An event that started a movement, a company that pioneered a technology, a person who did something for the first time, these are all subjects that are deserving of note.  Celebrity status can help a person acquire notability, but it does not guarantee that they are worthy of a Wikipedia article.  In my previous articles, I stressed the importance of reliable sources of information.  By using books, journal articles, and interviews there is added longevity and importance.  A social media star usually misses these in their 15 minutes of fame.

Wikipedia editors often choose topics they care deeply about, however, Wikipedia is not the place to deep dive into a given topic.  Just like their predecessor, the encyclopedia, they are a place to start a research journey.  Every article is there to give a taste of information.  Categories are for a summary of knowledge in a selected field.  By flooding Wikipedia with the mundane, it drains the usefulness of the website.

What guarantees notability?  As mentioned before: reliable sources.  Books, biographies, interviews all contribute to the information contained in a Wikipedia article, but also add to the subject’s notability.  Notable people win awards.  Grammy night is a great time to edit Wikipedia.  Academics, while not famous, can be notable if they publish groundbreaking research or books that influence their fields.  Specifically for the field of Entertainment, notability means having worked on several popular works:  films that get released to theatres and festivals, songs that chart, tv shows on network tv, or streaming platforms.

There is a reason why Wikipedia encourages new editors to edit articles over creating new articles.  Finding a subject that fits the notability requirements can be tricky.  Luckily my user page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lyrelyrebird (as mentioned in my previous Editing Women into Wikipedia articles), as well as Wikiprojects, have lists of suggested subjects to get you started.  Remember to be bold and cite all your sources.  Happy editing!

Editing SoundGirls into Wikipedia

SoundGirls Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon

The Plumage of Punk: Review of Violence Girl

I don’t know where I first heard of Alice Bag, but it must have been when doing a deep dive into Riot Grrrl.  What I heard stuck with me:  a woman my mother’s age hitting just as hard as any punk band in their prime.  I wanted to know more, but I only found bits and pieces here and there.  An interview of anglicizing names, mentions of her influence, nothing until I was looking for more books to review for SoundGirls.  Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage by Alice Bag is an action-packed cruise through the first part of the life of Alicia Armendariz (Alice Bag’s birth name).

Violence Girl is a memoir told in brief anecdotes, like memories, and arranged mostly chronologically detailing her life until her early thirties.  We are first introduced to her parents and in a way, East L.A.  Born to Mexican immigrants, Alice feels like an oddball not quite fitting in with her classmates or her Mexican cousins.  From an early age, Alice begins to realize the world is complicated when domestic abusers go free and police both protect and battle against innocents.  In describing her life in school, Alice documents her love affair with music.  While Alice does end up becoming a musician, it is by becoming a hardcore fan that sets her future in motion.  The combination of the outcast, the fighter for justice, and the crazed fan is an alloy of punk at its most concentrated.  By the time Alice Bag forms The Bags, she is ready to rip the world to shreds.  Alice and the rest of the L.A. Punk crew have formed a movement.

I see some of Alice Bag in me.  The self-directed anger and aimless wandering through life, the outcast, the mom, the straddling of multiple genres.  Her story resonates with me, by laying bare each facet of her life, she makes her life accessible.  Embarrassment and shame have long gone.  Her confidence in who she has become is contagious.  Regrets occur, but they do not stop her from her fight.  By her side is a who’s who of L.A. Punk, but L.A. Punk is its own character as well.  Through Alice Bag’s memories, the reader is a fly on the wall of the formation of the Go Go’s and the rise of Black Flag.  These bands are mere appendages to the pulsating mutant, centering around select locations in L.A. and even San Francisco and gorging on the actions of devoted fans.  As memories do, some sections blur through a string of concerts and events, and in doing so build upon the scene as its own entity.  This mutant is greater than the sum of its parts, and can only exist when everyone is doing their part.  Fans are there to support any and all bands, venues and derelict apartments host the orgies (both of music and not), the bands are not the only puzzle piece.  The cohesion fails when the fans are cast aside or the venues disappear, and the music cannot exist in a vacuum.

Punk is more than the Angry White Boy image that has taken hold of it.  It takes us all to make a scene rise from its seed.  The roots pull from the variety of individuals, and it cannot flourish without that variety.  Violence Girl is more than an autobiography, it is a study of Punk as a community from the eyes of its biggest fan.

Available at the SoundGirls Lending Library

More on and by Alice Bag

The Women of Rock Oral History Project

Alice Bag’s Women in L.A. Punk Archives

Turn it Up

Review of A Short History of Electronic Music and Its Women Protagonist

 

Built from author Johann Merrich’s blog, A Short History of Electronic Music and Its Women Protagonists, presents the technological and philosophical developments of Electronic Music through the stories of those who created them.  Originally published in 2019 in Italian, the English version was released this past June.  Johann Merrich is an Italian musician and freelance researcher focusing on electronic and experimental music. Her blog, Short Stories focuses on creating an intersectional account of the music she is passionate about.  When I received this book to review I was excited, I cannot get enough of stories from audio history, especially one that highlights diversity as does this book.  Artists, inventors, benefactors, they all have a part to play in the chronology.  Among the names of Leo Theremin, John Cage, and Robert Moog are the names Ciani, Derbyshire, and Carlos.  It doesn’t stop there either:  layers are peeled further to unearth stories hidden from the public eye, until now.  Sisters, wives, and others who had their stories overshadowed by more stereotypical heroes finally receive the spotlight.

 

It reads more like a nonfiction novel than a textbook.  The sections are grouped together by cultural background or by artistic movements.  It allows for each character to be introduced by the one preceding, a stream of consciousness that seamlessly follows the evolution of Electronic Music at each stage.  Be prepared with a notebook nearby, for this text is a deep dive that features many unappreciated musicians and artists that are worth discovering.  It starts with the birth of Experimental and Electronic Music, covering its growth through radio and television before branching off to regional niches such as Japanese, Italian, and even Eastern European.  From there it focuses on the fringe and the mainstream before tying the past with the future:  computers.

No other book intertwines different movements in Electronic Music with the variety of perspectives that A Short History of Electronic Music and Its Women Protagonists accomplishes.  As its title suggests it is a timeline of Electronic Music, focusing on women.  It claims to be a new narrative, inclusive and inquisitive, and it succeeds.  Because of the care put into researching, no one name stands out as unworthy, each story has its place alongside another.  I feel as though I am walking through their studios and concerts, piecing together what is Electronic Music.  What a journey it is.

Keeping Afloat with Postpartum Depression

Content Warning: Discussion of mental disorders and suicide.

April Tucker has written some great articles on pregnancy and working as a mom in the Audio Industry, however, I want to focus on something specific:  Postpartum Depression (PPD).  Currently in the United States parents have been hit hard by the lack of affordable childcare, parental leave options, other childcare support infrastructure, not to mention the earthquake in the Entertainment Industry from the COVID pandemic.

PPD is a mood disorder that affects parents after childbirth.  Symptoms can occur regardless of gender and type of birth and start during the first year after birth.  While it is not possible to know for sure if you will develop it, there are several risk factors: family or personal history of mental and mood disorders, addiction, lack of support, complications with pregnancy, and childbirth.  Symptoms are low self-esteem, doubt, mood swings, irritability, emptiness, exhaustion, lack of concentration, inability to make decisions, poor memory, fear of the baby, thoughts of self-harm or suicide, thought of harm to baby or partner.  PPD is more than just “baby blues,” it is a real and serious disorder.

You are not alone

It is estimated that 15% of women have PPD, and I am part of that 15%.  My pregnancy and delivery on paper were healthy and tame.  I had a great medical team assisting me, and my husband had enough medical savvy to calm any worries leading up to and during the big day.  My family is full of healthy and supportive people.  However, I had no local support network of friends or family, had no close “mom friends”, I upended my career to become a mother, and my birth experience traumatized me.  PPD can happen to anyone, and there is no shame in that.

First consult your team: Doctor, Midwife, Doula, Lactation Consultant, Therapist, Psychologist, your child’s pediatrician.  Ask whomever you already have on your side.  They have the medical knowledge to help you, they want you healthy.  Strength lies in knowing when to ask for help.  I used the depression questionnaire as the opportunity to bring it up at my postpartum follow-up.  Even with a diagnosis, life goes on and appointments don’t happen every day.  Being a parent is more than a full-time job, and often parents have another job on top of it.  Sometimes it can be hard to keep your head above water.

In those moments there are little things that can make life bearable:

Find me on the SoundGirls Audio Moms group, reach out.  Also check out our video Breaking Norms: Moms in Audio and The Music Industry.

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