SQLite

I was on the road today driving my sons up to meet my dad for spring break. (We meet
half way which is Brainerd.) On the way up I was listening to a podcast that was talking
about SQLite.

It is an Open Source/Public Domain database. It is a flat file based system. It is
not going to scale out to thousands of concurrent users but that is not the point
of the project. I see some real potential for something like this. It is on my list
of things to investigate when time permits.

The list of companies that
are using this tool is pretty impressive.

I would like to investigate using it for Ruby on Rails, ASP/ASP.NET, and some other
projects that are tied to weather systems and embedded systems. Like I said, lots
of options and the price is right.

K2 - Night Seven

The Good:


I am into the initial alignment and testing phases of the project. That means that
I put most of the case together and connect the RF, Control and Front Panel boards
together. I ran into one little bug that I was able to resolve with a little bit of
trouble shooting.

The Bad:

I am not getting the exact status message that I am expecting from the radio.
It should come up with VFO A @ 7100.00c and that is not happening. I sent an email
to the Elecraft mailing list with some details and some questions.

It looks like a real radio now. It will be interesting to see what happens with this
status message issue. I will give the mailing list a little bit of time then my next
step is to probably call into tech support for some guidance. I don't mind working
through the troubleshooting process... I just need some hints of where to look next.  --Stay
tuned.

K2 - Night Six

I managed to squeeze in another hour of bench time tonight. Between the distractions
of fixing my the boiler for my in-floor heat and my kids wanting to play XBox 360
I banged out a couple more pages.

I only ran into one issue... my kids were distracting me while I was trying to install
J2. I ended up putting J2 on the wrong side of the board. Once I realized the issue
and chased my son away for a couple of minutes I discovered that J2 was going to be
a challenge to remove from the board. I ended up having to hunt down my de-soldering
station. (I haven't used it since we moved into this house so that was a little bit
of a challenge as well.) I also ended up using my soldering station and some
compressed air (I have my compressor in the garage plumbed to the basement work bench)
to finish the remove process.

I am now on page 38 of 80. I am almost 50% through the assembly phase of the book.

The next section (maybe tomorrow if I am lucky) is to attach the side panels and front
control panel then move into the initial alignment phases.

Parallax SX28

I received my Parallax SX
Tech Pro board today.

It looks like a pretty fun system. I spent about 2 hours on the phone with friend
that bought the same board. We were able to get it hooked up and working. We also
did some back hello world kind of testing. It will take a couple of days of reading
to get a basic feel for programming this little gem.



The SX28 chip is only about $2.50 a piece so a person can actually afford to build
some projects with it.

The images were lifted (screen
captured) from the website in case they disappear over time. They are very nice
references to their very nice product.

Solid State Design for the Radio Amateur

I have been hunting for a copy of "Solid State Design for the Radio Amateur" and being
defeated in my search. Everyone keeps bidding it up on eBay so I let it go once it
become unreasonable.

At $40+ it can go to someone else's library. I will wait for the next one to turn
up. I may just move on to Experimental Methods in RF Design which is supposed to be
the newer version of this classic.

Grid Mapping

http://ve2zaz.net/WorkedGrids/WorkedGrids.htm

Looks like an interesting program. If time permits I hope to take a look at this weekend.
I discovered it on Jeff's blog.

K2 - Night Five

Tonight after dinner and once the kids had headed off to bed I managed to spend about
another 90 minutes working the K2 project. I am now working on the main RF board.
There are a LOT of components on this board. As an example there are 17 relays to
install in one of the first steps of this section.

This board will probably take me several evenings unless I can find a 3 or 4 hour
block of time this weekend to dedicate to the project.



Working on the drywall project in the basement has been dominating much the weekend
time that is not spent with the family. The K2 seems to be more a week night project
once everyone heads to bed... I sneak downstairs to the work bench for 30-45 minutes
and melt solder.

K2 - Afternoon Five

The front panel & board are largely complete. The front now looks like a real
radio. I have to admit that the knobs are a little close together even for my small
fingers. It is clear that the design of this radio is to appeal to the portable/field
use as much or more than being the main stay of the shack.

I have now completed 32 of the 80 build pages of the manual. -That is pretty cool.

During the assembly of the front panel board I also added the Internal
Mic Adaptor mod from Rework Eliminator folks.

The radio is far enough along that I should probably post some pictures now that it
looks something like a radio. If time permits after support and family game night
I would like to start working on the main RF board in section 6 of the book.

K2 - Night Four

I managed to squeeze in about 75 minutes of assembly time in tonight. The board for the front panel controls is now complete. The next step is adding the SSB parts to front panel and the mic adapter kit.



I would not even have the SSB option kit except for the fact this radio will be the
IF rig for some of my transverters. Otherwise it would be a QRP CW rig for me.



Tonight's assembly was pretty straight forward. I will need to try to take some more
pictures if/when time permits. It was very relaxing to melt some solder and follow
the assembly instructions.

Inflation Fears

It drives me nuts when people talk about "cost of living" and inflation.  The
government and many other places that report the data adjust the numbers so that it
does not include food or energy items.

Hello... I still have to pay for food and energy so it is a REAL cost. Please
do NOT adjust my real costs out of your formulas to make things look better.




Here is an example:


3 month rate ending 2008:


All items: 6.8%


All items minus food and energy: 3.1%

Check that out... the real number is DOUBLE what people are reporting.

----Most folks are seeing salary raises in the 1.5-3.5% range.


----Our real cost of living is growing at 4-7.5% a year.

We are in a recession.... our costs are raising faster than our incomes. Our government
is growing faster than the people that have to pay for to it.

I don't know about you but our family has been trimming costs for a couple of years
to try to live within our means.  --Call me a fiscal conservative.