ATS4 Evening 4 - The Fix!

I replaced C55 and that was the magic fix.  It was supposed to be a .1uF - 104 but who knows what it really is since it is an unmarked SMD part.  I had a 1uF - 105 in the proper SMD size on my parts shelf. It was about a 20 minute repair end-to-end.

That made a huge difference in the amount of audio that is available to the headphones.

73 de NG0R
73 de NG0R

ATS4 Day 4 - made a QSO

This afternoon I spent some time going through the calibration steps. The setup was pretty simple. I am getting about 3.5 to 4 watts out depending on which band I am testing. My rig is setup for 17 meter instead of 15 meter. (I have never been very active on 15m for some reason... but I love 17m...go figure).

I have two weird quirks that I need to check into a bit further....

1. The audio on the headphone is pretty low.
   I tried using computer headphones, a Heil Proset, and amplified speakers.  --Something to investigate further.
   
   
2. The voltage indicator on the LCD shows weird values.
   A 6vdc bench supply will read 10.8vdc
   A 12vdc bench supply will read 21vdc

I plugged in a crude set of paddles and manufactured a rough contact with N0FP this afternoon. It was important to me to be able to say that I had made a QSO with the rig.  :-)

I am pretty excited about this radio. Once I get this audio level issue resolved I am going to put together a small box that will live in my truck. The box will have the ATS4a, a small paddle, a battery, coax, and an EFHWA for a couple of bands.  --This radio might be the reason for me to relearn CW.

73 de NG0R

Modern Archimedes

http://xkcd.com/857/

Wow... there is some commentary.

Tension (

http://xkcd.com/859/

ATS4 Day 3

It has been almost a month since I worked on the ATS4 project. A couple of business trips to the west coast, some 60 hour work weeks, and getting sick have prevented me from visiting the work bench.



I spent about 5 hours today finishing installing the remaining components.


It is a pretty tight fit within the case.



I briefly turned it on at the work bench and the LCD lit up and the controls seemed to work. 

The next big step will be to plug in a dummy load, headphones, and a paddle and to try to run it through the tune-up/calibration steps.
73 de NG0R

2011 MNQP in the log

Ben (10) and I operated the Minnesota QSO Party today for about 2 1/2 hours.

We had a few other things going on today so our butt-in-the-chair-time was pretty short. We mainly operated SSB and Ben ran all of the QSOs while I was logging. He got spotted on the DX cluster a couple of times and did a good job "running" even with some nice size pile-ups.

A kids voice is like having another +6dB of power on the bands.





I always wish that I had more time to dedicate to this operating event. It is a fun event, it has a good participation level, it is only 10 hours long, and the exchange is fun.

73 de NG0R

LOTW

Last night I spent a few minutes to request my certificate to setup Logbook of the World. The request was pretty straight forward from my Ubuntu PC. Create the request & upload the file via the web. I should get a post card in the mail in a few days with my password to finish the process.

http://www.arrl.org/logbook-of-the-world

I am not sure if I am overly excited about this tool yet. I will reserve final judgment until I am fully integrated and can test it for a while.

73 de NG0R

Google Reader Stats

I did not realize until a few minutes ago that I could see my reading stats in Google Reader

From your 118 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 2,968 items, clicked 0 items, starred 0 items, shared 0 items, and emailed 0 items.

Since March 18, 2007 you have read a total of 22,747 items.

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The stats are interesting because I have used Google Reader intermittently over the past few years. I returned to it using it full time about a year ago or so. Now that there is a good Google Reader app for my DroidX I use my phone to read the majority of my blog related content.

Mad made me stop and laugh

I was walking through  a Barnes & Noble book store looking for something to read on the plane tomorrow afternoon. I saw the cover of Mad magazine and I thought that they did a good job of capturing the moment.

Kohl's Kiosk Crash

I was walking through a Kohl's department store today picking up a couple of items before I leave on my trip to California tomorrow. I walked past a kiosk and noticed a bunch of shoppers and an employee standing around it. It appears that kiosk is based upon Windows XP and it had crashed and was in the process of rebooting.

I get a chuckle out of seeing kiosks and ATMs that are still running Windows XP that have crashed in a public location and leave messages on the screen for everyone to see as they try to recover.