CW Class

Winter is underway here in Minnesota... the perfect time for CW class!


KA0CSW lead a CW class for the Meeker County Radio Club tonight at the Litchfield Rescue Hall. I took N0AEA (12) and  N2BEN (10) with me to the class.

We worked on 8 letters: AEITMNDG



There were a couple of practice keys but the class was taught with a computer so the straight key just kind of set the mood.  :-)

I have to admit that it was a fun way to spend an evening.

73 de NG0R

A SBL-1 can be your friend!

Q: How do you test your 432mhz transverter on CW & SSB?

A: You combine a SBL-1 + a signal generator attached to a HF rig



I have a 432mhz transverter that was not working properly.

• I don't have a second rig with 432mhz SSB/CW.
  
• Normally I test a lot of projects with N0FP but he currently does not have 432 weak signal gear.
• The two other hams with 432 weak signal stations that I frequently test with were AWOL Sunday afternoon when I was looking to work on this project.

I decided to punt. I had four SBL-1 diode ring mixers sitting my office desk. They have been staring at me for several months waiting for my to get some time to start another homebrew project.



I dug up the pin out notes for the SBL-1 and soldered some short leads with BNC connectors.


I used my Wavetek signal generator as the LO


The IF port of the SBL-1 is connected to my Icom 756


The RF port is connect to the my dual band vertical on the HF. (Using it as a receive antenna for this test.)

I was able to transmit SSB and CW on my K2+XV432 on the VHF tower and listen on the Icom 756 on HF tower via an RF path. All-in-all it took about 20 minutes to setup the test once I decided to do it.

I have not worked on any projects with the SBL-1 in the past. Tonight's positive (and easy) experience with the SBL-1 mixer will likely drive me use it for some projects in the future.

73 de NG0R

2010 MNQP Award

A nice piece of paper came in the mail today....


Last February Ben (who was nine at the time) and I operated the Minnesota QSO Party for a little while. This is the second time that Ben and I have gotten a piece of artwork for the wall from this contest.

To be real honest there is not a lot of activity in Meeker County let alone other multi-op stations. We have a pretty good chance to get something in the email if we spend an hour or two operating.

I think that Ben made about 83 SSB contacts and I made 24 CW contacts once Ben stopped operating. We had fun during our brief time operating the contest. Ben enjoyed being the center of the pile-up.

Here is the blog post from last winter after the end of the event.

73 de NG0R

so2sdr

Over a quick lunch break I was reading an email saw this:
http://code.google.com/p/so2sdr/

It is "Single OP 2 Software Defined Radio" contest logging software.

hmmm... what is the world coming to?  :-)

73 de NG0R

Softrock Ensemble Night 8

The big night....


I finished up the last stage of the kit tonight. Overall it was not too difficult except for the two transformers. It is pretty tight fit as they have a bifilar winding and single wire winding on a small binocular core.

T3  6T/3T bifilar #30 on BN-43-2402 (12")
T4  4T bifilar/5T #30 0n BN-43-2402 (12")

The raw construction appears to be done. I will need to go through the test steps and if all goes well then work on the TX I/Q balancing.  Those next steps will be saved for another evening.

73 de NG0R

Ski Club Night

Jacob (12) has ski club on Monday nights at Powder Ridge.




Jacob likes to ski but Ben (10) and I like to snowboard. It has probably been 14-15 years since I have been on a snowboard. When we left the hill at around 8pm it was about 4F.

FYI...I might be sore in the morning.

Softrock Ensemble Night 7

Not much time at the workbench today....


I finished the "TX Mixer (QSE)" stage tonight. It was not too complex except for the T2 transformer. It is has a bifilar primary (P1 and P2) that is 8 turns on a T30-6 core plus a 15 turn secondary. That makes for 6 leads coming from the T30 core to the PCB.

It is not too hard other than you need to concentrate on what you are doing. I have a homebrew solder-pot that makes cleaning & tinning the leads quick & simple. 

The next & final stage is the "Driver & PA."   I probably will not get to it until at least Tuesday night since the boys have "ski club" tomorrow evening. I will probably take my snowboard and go chaperon the kids.

73 de NG0R

Linux SDR Links

I have not tried all of these (yet)

Quisk
http://james.ahlstrom.name/quisk/

SDR Shell
http://code.google.com/p/sdr-shell/

Lysdr
http://lovesthepython.org/git/?p=lysdr.git

Quisk worked with Softrock Ensemble RXTX with only a few minutes of setup.  I will try the others once the kit is finished and back a point where I can hook it again.

73 de NG0R

Softrock Ensemble Night 6

About another 45 minutes at the workbench tonight.


Tonight I worked in the TX "Opamps" section. There are about 6 SMT parts on the bottom otherwise the rest of the parts were through-hole on the top side of the board for the evening session.

Looking at the build notes it appears that I have about two more sections to build and test.

73 de NG0R

Softrock Ensemble Afternoon 6 - More

Working nicely now...

Larger image here

I went back to the workbench after the last blog post and restarted QUISK.  It is now only consuming 30% of the CPU and performing great. Clearly there was another process running early that impacting the performance.

I started tuning around a bit and ended up going to 20m where there was some ragchew activity. This works great. (It is actually setup for 10m-12m-15m for using transverters later on.)

I have not really worked with the QUISK configuration beyond a couple of minutes of initial configuration and it was up and running. I am able to point and click on a signal and/or use the scroll wheel on the mouse. --Very cool!

I was concerned that this might be an addictive kind of tool. (I really like my radios as dedicated radios and then computers to be computers... this is clearly "crossing the streams.") After seeing the initial pieces up and running on receive it is clear that this will be addictive.

73 de NG0R