Ramblings of yet another nerd…
Background So, last year, I acquired a SteppIR “SmallIR 80” antenna… This is their “SmallIR” 20 – 6 vertical, with an additional coil for 30/40/80 meters. I don’t know if it’s set up to handle 60 or not… I haven’t looked or asked, since I don’t use that band at this point in time. The …
Read More SteppIR Antenna thoughts
So, I love the Icom 7300 – it has a TON of features. One of the intriguing features is the voice keyer – the radio has 8 memory slots, four of which are potentially accessible via hardware buttons connected to the microphone jack (using resistors). The rear panel has a very dense (13 pin DIN) …
Read More Icom 7300 Front Panel Interface Box
So – the basic design was pretty simple. But now comes some details. This is where the design really needs to be broken into parts… inputs, outputs, extra features… and a power supply – the whole 9 yards. As far as a power supply – this won’t be a major challenge. 12V in, with a …
Read More Semi-Smart 12V Power Panel: Design Details
So, with multiple station accessory devices (Headphone audio splitter, DSP unit, multiple radios, just to name a few) powered from 12V, I had a realization. There’s a LOT of wall warts in my shack, and there’s a lot of devices powered when I forget to unplug them or switch them off. I always shut my …
Read More Semi-Smart 12V Power Panel: Initial Design
I’ve been an electromagnetic interference (EMI) engineer for… well… a bunch of years at this point. As such, I’ve learned a lot about how to tackle problems, and how to solve the underlying issues. That said, I’ve seen a lot of different forums and message boards (unrelated to EMI, RFI or EMC) where people have …
Read More EMI – some basics…
Just like any other tinkerer, I want a completely instrumented workbench with scopes, analyzers, generators and power supplies… but there’s generally a tradeoff. Space, cost, accuracy…. Older equipment is less expensive (usually) – but it’s bulky, and can be out of tolerance (thus inaccurate). Smaller, more modern equipment is generally more expensive… and let’s face …
Read More Gear Junkie: My Digical workbench
So, I hang out with a bunch of gear junkies. This means every problem has some unique solution – sometimes with a little MacGyvering included. In this case, this is a solution just looking for problems to solve.. .and it’s quite effective. While either cleaning his garage, or working on his truck, my friend Tom …
Read More Gear Junkie: Lithium Drill Battery AdaptorI enjoy contesting…. and often do so with a second person as a logger. A couple years back, I picked up a behringer HA400 to split audio between 2 sets of headphones. It worked great except for one thing- it disconnects the speaker when I plug it into the headphone jack. I tried running a …
Read More Behringer HA400 mod
So… I am by NO means an expert… but I’ve had some thoughts on DMR programming before, and I have some additional thoughts to share. Contacts The radio can support a boatload of contacts – and there’s a number of places to download the US-only or US database. I load the entire US Database. It …
Read More Some DMR programming thoughts (a draft post)so it’s been a little while since I posted anything, but it’s been slow going. Using the citrus gel stripper that was recommended by the others in the facebook group, I took what seemed many layers of not only varnish, but also 75 years of dirt and grime. It took several applications, and several days …
Read More RCA 56×3 – Wrapup