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74HC240 as an amp

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Ubuntu 10.4 + VirtualBox... USB permissions

I was having a hard time getting the USB ports to work properly with Ubuntu 10.4 LTS 64bit and VirtualBox 3.1.6 r59338   It turns out that the USB group was missing.

Steps:
  • open SYSTEM>ADMINISTRATION>USERS AND GROUPS
  • Click on USER AND GROUPS and then click on MANAGE GROUPS
  • Then click ADD then enter the group name as usb (lower caps) change the group id to 85
  • Click the check mark for your group member (your user name) and click OK.

It appears to require a reboot to pick up the permissions. There is probably a simpler way than the reboot but I am not sure what service to restart to see this so the reboot was quick painless.

Now I can add & remove the USB devices on the fly with my virtual machine.

Here is where I found this info:
http://forum.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30906&sid=83b22991a9c34aa69ff180fbc5fb7b20&start=30

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NG0R is back on APRS

Where is the truck located right now:
http://findu.aprsfl.net/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=NG0R-9&radar=***

Here is an example of the APRS image over a radar map.
(It is shrunk down to 500 pixel wide on the blog)


I will post some more links as time progresses. Some our friends and family follow our Internet breadcrumbs to see where we are camping and/or where my photo trips might be leading me.

Some D700 Notes:
http://www.aprs.org/D7xx/d700-faq.txt

http://www.aj3u.com/tm-d700-tips/

73 de NG0R

PS...

http://aprs.fi/info/NG0R-9

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/breadcrumb.cgi?call=ng0r-9&geo=usa.geo&start=10000



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QRSS + BASIC + 16F628A

Tonight my wife is hosting a Pampered Chef event upstairs with the gals. I decided to go down to the "man cave" and played a little XBOX with my sons and then shift gears to do some programming.

I started building the subroutines for sending the dits and dahs for the alphabet and the numbers 0-9.



If this looks simple... that is the idea that I am striving for.  Calling "Dit" or calling "Dah" is actually the "Dit sub procedure" or the "Dah sub procedure" that I wrote last night.

73 de NG0R

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Sunday evening radio

After spending all weekend working on outdoor projects (3' x 28' berry planter, split rail fence for the grapes, hauling 5 yards of black dirt, etc) I am finally getting to spend some time playing radio now that my family has gone to bed.   (Two days of sun burns is catching up to me.)

Tonight I am talking on EchoLink and writing some BASIC code for my PIC 16F628A. (I am not a huge EchoLink guy, but there is a nice group of QRP folks that meet there Sunday night.)

I am playing with some different ideas for DFCW and a couple of different QRSS timings.



I have not tested the code yet, but after correcting a couple of errors it is compiling properly now so I should be in the ball park.

I was looking at some different ideas for handling my timer functions since I will have about 6 different timing schemes.

'Standard delay
delay_ms (1000) 'One second pause

'Variable delay
pause = 1000
Vdelay_ms(pause) ' ~ one second pause

'Using symbols for delay
symbol MYDELAY1 = delay_ms(1000)  'one second pause
symbol MYDELAY2 = delay_ms(2000)  'two second pause

The screen capture above shows me trying out the "symbol" approach along with some "case" statements.

I am doing the prototype work on a PIC-EL III board from KangaUS and AA0ZZ. The BASIC code is using the MikroeBasic compiler.

73 de NG0R

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QRSS + 16F628A mockup

I spent some time tonight bonding with the 16F628A and BASIC tonight.  I mocked up the LCD display and started figuring out some of the variables that I am going to need.



----Tonights Code----
program QRSSKeyer

'LCD Module Connections
dim LCD_RS as sbit at RB6_bit
    LCD_EN as sbit at RB4_bit
    LCD_D4 as sbit at RB0_bit
    LCD_D5 as sbit at RB1_bit
    LCD_D6 as sbit at RB2_bit
    LCD_D7 as sbit at RB3_bit
    LCD_RS_Direction as sbit at TRISB6_bit
    LCD_EN_Direction as sbit at TRISB4_bit
    LCD_D4_Direction as sbit at TRISB0_bit
    LCD_D5_Direction as sbit at TRISB1_bit
    LCD_D6_Direction as sbit at TRISB2_bit
    LCD_D7_Direction as sbit at TRISB3_bit
'End LCD module Connections

dim callsign as string[10] '10 char for message
    qtime as string[2]     '60, 30, 10, 6, 3
    qmode as string[4]     'CW or DFCW
    freq as string[10]     '10.140.050
    'Freq will eventually be the counter once it is built


main:

callsign = "NG0R"
   qtime = "10"
   qmode = "DFCW"
    freq = "10.140.050"

'PIC setup
TRISB = 0     ' Set PORTB as OUTPUT
PORTB = 0     ' Set PORTB all pins to 'off'
'End Pic Setup

'LCD Setup Section
LCD_Init()               'Initialize the LCD library
LCD_Cmd(_LCD_Clear)      'Clear the LCD display
LCD_Cmd(_LCD_Cursor_Off) 'Turns blinking cursor off
'End LCD Setup Section

LCD_Out(1, 1, callsign)  'Show the message
LCD_Out(1, 14, "Q")      'Write text
LCD_Out(1, 15, qtime)    'Show the qrssXX mode
LCD_Out(2, 1, freq)      'Show the freq
LCD_Out(2, 13, qmode)    'Show the mode

end.