Ramblings of yet another nerd…
so…. an interesting development. The regional command vehicle that I help to support has been chasing down some network gremlins ever since it went to a heavily networked configuration. We’ve got 3 large switches – one in the front, one in the middle, and one in the back of the rig. These switches all connect …
Read More Ethernet in an RF Environment
I noted during some experimenting that my plots all seemed to have an upward slope – then I noticed, my Y axis was totally random… strange behavior to say the least. Did some modification to the code (namely calling my RSSI values as floats, i think they were strings originally), and it cleaned up nicely! …
Read More Python Programming… Pt 2
So, this started out as an exercise to see if could get Microsoft Excel (through VBA) to directly talk to my Uniden scanner. I’ve done this in labview quite a bit for a number of reasons. FreeScan is nice, but there’s times I want to be able to do things MY way. After some mucking …
Read More Python – just what i needed, another project
ok – this should be the final post…. I did one more batch of updates… this time I designed for EMI. Not only did I ensure I had full isolation between the radio and computer, I also added some ground plane breaks to control noise. I also did some trace routing to keep signals routed …
Read More Soundcard Interface: Design For EMI
Over the past couple weeks, I have been tinkering more with the soundcard interface. I started using FreePCB (http://www.freepcb.com/) – which is a VERY nice PCB drawing program with gerber file output, and, well, i couldn’t complain about the price! Once I got the “as built” drawing done, I ended up ordering a set of …
Read More USB Soundcard Interface… update 4Yesterday I posted the project… now I’ve made some updates…. a few minor things, and one major thing. First, the minor things- I made the schematic a bit cleaner, and got it down to a single page. I also cleaned up aa few traces and some other minor formatting things. I improved the power supply …
Read More USB Soundcard interface…. version 3 – Update
Many life changes have resulted in a change of shack configuration. I’ve also acquired an Icom 706 again (thanks, Lou). In tinkering, and deciding how I want to operate, I decided that I’d like to have the ability to do “soundcard” digital modes with the 706 either while portable, or just at the dining …
Read More USB Soundcard interface…. version 3I’m not the first person to need accessory power in a Chevy truck – but it took a while to find a solution. One possible solution is to just put a tap splice on the stereo ignition wire – but this is iffy. In this case, I’m not posting something I engineered – but rather, …
Read More 2014 Chevy Truck Accessory Power
One of the interesting things about equipment on the market today is the commonality between different models and bands of radio equipment. In years past, it was just the basic housings and controls that were common, maybe some control parts – but RF boards varied widely. Not so much anymore…. but they still have some …
Read More Motorola MTR2000 Band Change
Today, I tackled interrupts. I’m not so sure I tackled interrupts, so much as i worked on determining the dynamic tuning step timing. I needed a routine to wait for an encoder pulse, and then determine how long since the last pulse. This isn’t too bad, but the previous attempt was sampling loop timing more …
Read More CI-V EXTERNAL VFO CONTROL, PART 4