Archive for category: Amateur Radio

DC40B, Day 4, and stupidity on my part…

October 19, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Well, over the weekend I completed the trial assembly of my DC40B. The voltages all measured out correct, but the oscillator seemed to not start reliably. It appears that the twin 47pf caps that provide crystal feedback may not be quite sufficient to reliably start the oscillator on power up. If I prod the base […]

No DC40B work tonight…

October 16, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Too tired, so instead I took the wife out for some Mexican food and a movie, and when I got back I relaxed a bit. I have the feeling in my tired state I would have just made mistakes. I did dust off my old Manhattan style constructed oscillator since AK6L was going down the […]

DC40B Construction: Day 3

October 15, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Toroids. Today it was winding toroids. I really don’t mind winding ’em, it is stripping and tinning the leads that seems to be annoying. Nevertheless, I got the four toroids done (two simple, one bifilar transformer and one regular) and installed on the board. A simple continuity check between the pads indicates that all is […]

Midway DXpedition, courtesy of my HW-8

October 15, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Well, as I was heading off to bed, I was reminded that there is currently a DXpedition operating from Midway island using the callsign K4M. A quick google revealed that they were operating on 7.078 SSB, so before heading off to bed, I decided to power on my HW-8 (ever since I got it, the […]

DC40B construction: Day 2

October 14, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Well, I found a replacement for the one resistor I screwed up, and started work on all the caps. They are all in and double checked (I only screwed up one capacitor, which I quickly desoldered, moved, and resoldered). I then got the trimmers in, and soldered in the 16 pin socket. I was gonna […]

DC40B construction underway…

October 13, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Well, after playing around with my Heathkit HW-8, I was struck by a feeling of productivity and started working on my latest kit, a DC40B from Hendricks’ QRP Kits. It’s a very cute little rig, consisting of a 1 watt (ish) transmitter with a built in Atmel AVR keyer, and a direct conversion receiver. It’s […]

My new toy, a Heathkit HW-8

October 11, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Yesterday I managed to be the winning bidder for this little radio at the QRP Pacificon. Mike Schettler, WA6MER was kind enough to put it up, and I thank him profusely, it’s a very nice little rig. Now, I am one step closer to emulating Bill, M0HBR, as I have BOTH a Drake 2B and […]

Pictures of my Softrock Lite II (40 m)

October 11, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Diane, VA3DB, wanted some pictures of the Softrock Lite II kit that I built, so I fired up the Canon and snapped these.

BROADCAST YOUR PODCAST

October 5, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

Well, this isn’t quite amateur radio in the sense of ham radio, but it’s a cute and potentially useful project: a simple fm transmitter that uses only a single transistor, and is built “Manhattan style” on a scrap of PC board. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to try Manhattan construction, this might be […]

More on the Softrock Experience…

October 5, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

I am not really that much closer to figuring out why opposite sideband rejection is so poor, but I downloaded a couple of different SDR programs in the hopes that they might provide some diagnostic which might point more at the exact cause.

My Softrock 40…

October 4, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

So, I’ve had my Softrock 40 on the shelf for a while. When I’ve hooked it up, I don’t get very good opposite sideband cancellation. I think I see why, although I’m not sure how to proceed to fix it. First of all, check out awesome WB5RVZ page on the Softrock Lite. The basic idea […]

How to use Python to predict satellite locations…

September 27, 2009 | Amateur Radio, Amateur Satellite | By: Mark VandeWettering

Occasionally I get to talk to hams who are just getting into using amateur satellites, and many of them ask the quite reasonable question “How do I figure out when the next pass occurs?”. For most of them, I suggest that they simply use a program like predict, which is probably what most people expect […]

Today’s weather, courtesy of NOAA 19…

September 26, 2009 | Amateur Radio, Amateur Satellite | By: Mark VandeWettering

Nothing more to say…

WSPR back online, but performance is marginal…

September 26, 2009 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

My WSPR setup is back online, but my receive performance is marginal. I am not sure, but my wire dipole may have developed a fault or something, I’ll be out there today doing a visual scan, and then maybe hook up my antenna analyzer and see what is the deal.

Bouncing APRS packets off the ISS…

September 22, 2009 | Amateur Radio, Amateur Satellite | By: Mark VandeWettering

My wife mentioned to me that there was a visual pass of the ISS this evening. Wow, is she awesome or what? She found out about it by subscribing to the twitter feed “twisst”, which is apparently automated, and will send you messages when a ISS pass is about to occur. This pass had a […]