Softrock Ensemble Afternoon 4

So... how do you test a Softrock Ensemble RXTX when the software is designed for Windows and you are running Linux?  (Ok... I am running Ubuntu 10.10)

I fired up Oracle (Sun) VirtualBox and launched a virtual machine running Windows XP.

I downloaded the various drivers and software packages listed at:
http://www.wb5rvz.com/sdr/ensemble/03_lo.htm

Once my laptop was ready I moved it to the workbench near the test gear. I connected the Softrock to the laptop with the USB cable, then I configure the USB pass-thru (right click on the USB icon)  so that XP could see the USB port, then XP prompted me for the driver location.  It took all of 60 seconds from connecting the cable to XP finishing installing the driver.

I ran the various setup and test steps with no issue. I connected a test probe between the SDR PCB and my oscilloscope and then my frequency analyzer.  As I changed the frequency in the software it would change on the scope.

That test step was extremely uneventful... very nice.

73 de NG0R

Softrock Ensemble Night 3

Another quick night at the workbench but some forward movement!


Tonight's steps were around building the LO.  On the backside of the board there are a several additional SMT capacitors and then the Si570. On the front side the additions are some resistors, a PNP transistor, a couple of diodes and the Atmel CPU.

Oh yeah, the first toroid T1 was installed as well. 

I think that I am the point where I can contact a PC and try to test the LO. That means that I need to load up some Windows software. I will probably need to fire up XP in a Virtualbox session on an Ubuntu laptop that I can bring over to the workbench. --I will save that for another night.

73 de NG0R

Softrock Ensemble Night 2

It was a quick night at the work bench tonight... only 7 parts




The SMT parts are hard to capture in the picture. There are three SMT caps and 3.3vdc regulator in a SOT23 package.

73 de NG0R

Softrock Ensemble Night 1

I spent some time this afternoon cleaning off the workbench so that I can make room for the next project. I have quite a few kits sitting on the shelf awaiting some attention so I decided to start the Softrock Ensemble RXTX kit. (I will go back to homebrewing after I complete some of the kit backlog... I am feeling guilty.)

I sorted the parts into some basic groups.


My son N2BEN (10) is helping me solder.


We finished the initial 5vdc power regulation stage.


I will see if we can try to put 30-60 minutes in per night to see if we can try to keep this moving along.

Some good build notes at:
http://www.wb5rvz.com/sdr/ensemble/

73 de NG0R

NG0R QTH early Dec 2010

Here is a picture of the QTH from early December... probably about 4 or 5 storms ago. We have quite a bit more snow on the ground now. This was a quick  picture from the DroidX as I drove away from the house.

Homebrew CNC

I really enjoy reading about people that are designing homebrew CNCs.  I would like to have something similar for cranking out prototype circuit boards for projects.


Click on the image to go read more about it.

Here are some other links:
http://buildyouridea.com/cnc.html

Incident

http://xkcd.com/838/

A white December in MN

It has been blowing and snow here for the better part of 24 hours. We had no plans so we stayed home and did stuff in side of the house.

The map above is pretty interesting because all of the state highways in our area are either closed or listed with danger warnings. The wind is blowing pretty hard so it has been largely white-out conditions all day. Now that it has gotten dark I suspect the plows will largely shut down till morning since they will not be able to keep up.

This is the third storm in about 3 week weeks. Winter 2010-2011 is turning into a classic Minnesota Winter. (The estimated high temp for tomorrow is +1F.)

Cool codec conversion utilities on Linux

I needed to convert some video clips from format A to format B.  (The video clip started as an OGG format)

• I tried to upload the whole clip unedited but YouTube could not handle the OGG format and conversion.
  
  
• I ended up using some video editing software (and trimmed it down a bit.) When I tried exporting the final product so that I could upload it to YouTube I was not happy with the file size to quality trade-offs.  (Yeah, I am bandwidth limited here in the middle of now where.)  I ended up exporting to a couple of different formats and uploaded one of large files (H264, MOV, MPEG4)
  

I was not completely happy with the experience and decided to do some more research. I discovered (no surprise) that the current flavors of Linux have some powerful utilities assuming that you are willing to work from the command line.

I have a many of the audio and video codecs loaded so I did not actually need to install anything new... your mileage may very.

Here are a couple of examples:
ffmpeg -i fileA.ogg fileA.avi
ffmpeg -i fileA.ogg fileA.mov

The file size and quality were very good. I am sure that with some additional tweaking I could improve upon the results of tonight's exercise.

Take a look at:  man ffmpeg   for more details

SO-67 Sunday night

A rare one....

I got an email from Chris KC0YBM indicating that he was going to try to work SO-67 tonight. I am not a huge satellite guy so I was not really aware of SO-67 until I went out to the AMSAT page.

I was working some 80m PSK and participating in the Sunday night QRP/homebrew net at the same time. So I figured that I might as well record the satellite pass for Chris and maybe try to work a couple of folks. I ended up getting in the log prior to losing the bird.

73 de NG0R