Kilo Eight Alpha Romeo Kilo

RxTx Case

2009-07-05T17:54:00.000-07:00

I finally got my RxTx 6.3 Software Defined Radio in a case. I mentioned in the weekly net that I had built it and I was invited to bring it to the next club meeting (which is tomorrow). I'd already clipped off the connectors in preparation for putting it in a case so I really needed to finish that off today so I can show it off tomorrow.

The case I finally chose was an old KVM switch and it fit in really nicely. There's very little wiggle room, but it's still tall enough for the PA filters and not too difficult to take apart.

I'm pleased with the old presta bike valve dust covers that I used as spacers to get the PCB above the metal mounts that were already in the box. The USB socket is from an old wireless router and I covered the unused holes with leftover water heater earthquake strapping. I used Epoxy Resin, but it was pretty old. I plan to file it down and then use body filler to fill in the empty spaces if I can ever be bothered.

All that yellow wire is for the DB9 connector, I didn't have time to cut it short and re-solder it to the socket so I just scrunched it in there. I'll get to that at some point too. After I got it all in the case I fired it up and it worked great. I even manged to decode some PSK31 signal and saw some folks talking about 'working New Zealand' sadly I didn't pick up a callsign so I don't know where they were from.

Soon I need to try and work this thing in Tx and actually try and call someone.

A few more pictures are in the Gallery.

Electronics Lab

2009-06-02T05:46:00.000-07:00

You might be wondering about the lab is at work that I've been talking about. It's just a little room well set up for working on electronic projects. It's rarely busy and I've always been able to get a good hour or so of work fit into my day here and there. The soldering iron they have is awesome, it heats up in an instant and is really nice to use with swappable tips. I was surprised it didn't have a volume control to set the heat, but it appears to be the perfect temperature anyway. If it did have a volume control, it would go to eleven.

The magnifying microscope type thing was also super helpful for dealing with surface mount components.

You can find a larger picture of that and some pictures of my completed RxTx board in this gallery.

Ham PC

2009-05-28T05:37:00.000-07:00

With the limited success of my RxTx receiving i wanted to really receive signals which meant I needed better components in the tool chain. It was obvious that my old 600MHz Pentium laptop wasn't going to cut it and the built in 48kHz sound card were the weakest of the links (Along with my puny un-shielded connectors).

I had been looking around at sound card options and all of them seemed really expensive (Re: over $100). With that out of my budget I as just going to see how far I could go with my old windows laptop (It even had a piece of string to hold the screen upright).

The very next day someone posted on the forsale list at work a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum which was just what I was looking for and only $30! Since it's a PCI card I needed a desktop PC to put it into. Luckily I had just rebuilt my home server and had all the old components lying around in a cardboard box. I also had a case lying around from the server before the one I just upgraded so my plan was to take the super old components out, put in the less old components and see how that went. Those less old components weren't quite as fast as I would like 1.2GHz AMD and 512Mb ram but they were good enough.

I wasn't looking forward to transplanting the power supplies and motherboards and whatnot so on a whim I headed over to the computer recycling area at work. This is where people put their old electronic components and the company makes sure they're disposed of properly. It's fine to take something and reuse it if you can, since reuse is MUCH better than recycling. Luckily for me I found a nugget of gold in there. Looks like someone had got rid of their old high powered machine. They had taken the hard drive of course, but the rest of the machine was intact and still together in a remarkably heavy Antec case. I lugged the box the half mile to my office not even knowing if it would work. When it powered up and did the power on self test beep I was delighted, DVI yielded no signal, but dsub VGA showed the bios configuration screen. I was in luck!I got the box home and threw in a hard drive (I was amazed how many old drives I seem to have lying around) and started the windows XP install process. At home I have a Mac mini with a 20" monitor that only does DVI (I had been given the monitor it has one bad pixel). I've had trouble with PC Graphics cards and DVI in the past, they don't seem to show the bios screen, and that was critical for setting this machine up. So I used the only VGA capable display I have, an LCD TV in the bedroom.It went really well, Windows installed, told me I had an Athlon 2100XP and 1 Gig ram and a ATI Radeon graphics card (the old one out of my old server was better so I switched that out in the end). After about the 3rd reboot during installation it started driving my TV at something more than 800x600 and then on the next reboot the screen suddenly went gray with little colored dots in diagonal lines on it. Ah Ha! I thought, this is why someone left this piece of crap in the recycling pile at work. I started swapping out components to see what was causing the problem and they all displayed this same gray screen. I was flummoxed. I even went as far as to put in the old server motherboard and had the old power supply hanging off it, now I was SURE I was running a computer that worked. I switched the input on the TV and sure enough every input with a signal showed the gray screen. I had blown up my TV. Poop. Oh well I guess I was done with that for a while. I later justified to myself that I didn't like that old TV anyway, it hummed when displaying white, the scaling of solid colors (like The Simpsons) was awful, we never watched it much anyway and I got it from Costco so I think that we might even be able to take it back. (Note: the next day I turned it on again to get a picture of the gray screen for this blog and sure enough it was working just fine. I guess it just needed to sulk for a while, so the TV isn't dead!).Later in the day I found myself over in the valley so we popped over to Frys to see what they had for displays and they had a nice one for $180, 22" 1600x1050 with speakers built in, nice, I got it.With the new display I was able to continue the endless cycle of running windows update, reboot and repeat forever. All while getting some of my other favorite software on there, Google Chrome, Firefox, Google Video Chat, Google Gears, Sound Blaster drivers, ATI Radeon Drivers, Webcam Drivers and of course Rocky (with my own ini file) and the I2C USB drivers. I still need to get Cygwin and Emacs on there and perhaps Skype too.

Now that I had a machine I needed somewhere to put it, hopefully somewhere not too far from my antenna. luckily the old water tank shed, which we optimistically call the 'guest house' was close and I could set up in the loft/bedroom area. The very same area that seems to have a family of squirrels (or worse, rats) living in the walls and floor. In true ham fashion my first Ham Shack Desk is an old door. The handle hole makes a perfect conduit for computer cables. The hinge holes on the near side could use soe covering up at some point. I rested one end on a filing cabinet and the other on a 2x4 wooden cleat I screwed to the wall. It works really well (in that stuff isn't on the floor anymore). I'm looking forward to playing more here.

The new PC works great. The only limitation is that it only has USB 1.0 ports (a $10 five port USB 2.0 PCI card will fix that) and the USB WiFi dongle that I'm using up there only works with a USB cable extender and it stuck in the window (a $20 PCI wifi card with a separate antenna will fix that too). I'm especially happy that it has 2 9pin Serial Ports, a Parallel Port and a Game Port too. Those should be useful for some projects. I'm using an old Dell USB keyboard, if I end up needing to type a lot up there I guess I'll need to get one of my Kinesis keyboards up and running.

RxTx receiving!

2009-05-26T05:36:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I finished the 30/20/17m PA Filter and so my RxTx board is all complete. I put on the connectors and powered it up and plugged it in and... nothing. I got noise and the same stuff if I had the board plugged in or not. Bummer. However the frequencies in Rocky didn't jibe with what I was trying to listen to and after some help over on the Softrock forum (or email reflector as the Hams seem to like to call it) I was on my way. Seems you need to run Rocky once, then you get a Rocky.ini file which you can then edit to have the frequencies you're interested in. I was also a little clueless about the dip switches on the board (which you don't need if you're using an I2C controller like I am, but I finally found this page:
SW1 Settings which helped a lot. Anyway here's a copy of my Rocky.ini file in case it helps anyone else out.

Armed with all of that I fired up the RxTx and my crappy old windows laptop running Rocky and I heard stuff! I was able to make out some voice (although barely copyable) and also heard a lot of CW (Morse Code) which I'd expect on this band. Sadly I can't understand CW yet and I haven't worked out how to have it automagically decoded by the computer. Searching for PSK31 signals didn't yield anything legible.

But it worked and that's the big deal!

Next up is to either set up a proper enclosure with real connectors on it so I can use shielded audio cable, or try a little harder and try and make a contact on it. I'm loathe to try and put it in a container without testing transmit unless I can take it out easily!

My first Antenna

2009-05-19T01:03:00.000-07:00

With the impending completion of my rxtx board I've been thinking about an antenna. I posted on the ham mailing list at work and got some good advice on what band to look at (30m) and what to do about an antenna. With this info I headed on over to the local Radio Ham Outlet and begged for more help. With their advice I got a RadioWavz 20dp11 20m Dipole, 50m RG8X coax, PL-259 connector for the radio, 300ft UV resistant nylon rope and a Dummy Load. It was a lot of small costs that ended up total ing $180. Quite a bit more than I really wanted to spend, but it all looked like good stuff and I was giving my radio it's best opportunity to pick up some signals and hopefully have something to listen to. I plan to enlist the help of my parents while they're here to help me hang this in the redwood trees behind my house.

While soliciting advice at work and at the Ham Outlet I was encouraged to get an antenna analyzer ($300) and the idea of a multi-band dipole seemed interesting, but alas, that would need a tuner too which would be another $150 to $300. All these amounts are way out of my budget right now. I'm still only playing with this stuff.

RXTX Main Board Complete

2009-05-14T01:11:00.000-07:00

Today I soldered the very last component onto my rxtx board! I still have the PA Band Filters to make but the main board is complete (except for connectors). O.K. there's too many disclaimers in there, but it's a big accomplishment for me to get this far so I wanted to share. The blurry picture is one I took with my phone so I could immediately send it off to Micah (KI6TWP) who I'd been building my board with. He's been slacking recently and not coming with me to 'play radios' so I've been charging on ahead. I want to have the full rxtx complete by the time my parents visit in a week.

Softrock RXTX 6.3 ordered

2009-02-23T01:01:00.000-08:00

You remember in that last post how I said I had no intention of getting a radio that would let me use my new band privileges? Well the biggest hurdle was time and the cost of another radio. Luckily while reading QST (or it could have been Radcom (thanks G4HON)), I stumbled across the Softrock project and their RXTX 6.3 board. It was cheap and low power and I could build it myself and the instructions looked really good. So with a co-worker I ordered two kits with full band pass filters since no one on the email list at work would tell me what would be the best bands to try. Total cost around $120 which is well within the playing around with things budget. Our plan is to work on it two hours a week after our team meeting in the electronics lab at work. I've never had much success with building electronics, let's hope this one is different.

General Class License

2008-09-23T01:01:00.000-07:00

Hey, check it out, I just passed my General Class radio ham exam! Just like last time, the test popped up too quickly for me to study properly so I've been cramming the 484 multiple choice questions in the question pool for the last week and it went pretty well. I think I got 30 out of 35 right (I needed at least 26). I had been practicing on my iPhone using AA9PW's online practice exams and it had been going pretty well. It was a surprise to note that the answers weren't in the same order in the real exam as they are online. I also took the Extra Class exam, but I hadn't studied for that at all and failed miserably with a 25 out of 50.

I still have no idea why I took the test. With the new license I can operate at different frequencies that can travel further, but I don't have a radio that can transmit at those frequencies and I don't plan on getting one. I have enjoyed learning all the stuff though. I already bought the Extra Class book so I guess at some point I'll try and pass that, but not this year. I have until 2011 when the question pool will change and my current book will be out of date. Extra is as high as it goes. It's like being a frickin' black belt in radio geekery. Bad Ass!

Long distance contact

2008-08-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

Today I went hiking with my wife around chain lakes in Yosemite. It was a tough hike, but once we had a nice dinner at 9,500ft I turned on my radio to see what we could hear. After some scanning I picked up some folks having a QSO in Monterey (150 miles away!). After they were done I called CQ and had a nice conversation with them. Sadly I didn't write down their call signs, or manage to work out how my signal was getting to them, My guess is that I was Loma Pioneer Repeater Club since I was on 442.900 + PL162.2 that matches their repeater network. It was very reassuring to know that even out there we could contact people if we had any kind of emergency.

My First Contact KG6VMX

2008-07-08T00:44:00.000-07:00

Tonight I attended my first ever local ham club meeting (LPARC). It wasn't where they said it would be! I got off the highway behind a car with a vanity plate that looked like a call sign and had extra antennas on the top so I figured I was going in the right direction. However this car pulled over in to the school and not the fire station where the meeting was. So I drove another few miles to the fire station, only to find a nice note telling me the meeting was at the school! Oh well, it was a nice meeting and I got to show my radio to folks and ask why I couldn't hit the repeater. Seems I had everything set up, the positive offset and the tone frequency, what I had neglected to do was actually turn on the repeater tone!

With this new found knowledge and my repeater tone turned on I got home and called CQ and someone answered! My first ever ham radio contact was with Bill (KG6VMX) who it just so happened had been at the meeting that evening.

I added it to my QSO Map.

Joined the ARRL

2008-06-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

I joined the ARRL. Because my employer matches charitable donations over $50 I joined for 3 years so that my deductible amount was $66 so that they could match it. After a few emails I think it actually happened. There's a lot to read in QRZ magazine which I now get every month and I tend to always learn something from it so I'm enjoying it a lot. Plus it amuses my wife to see pictures of people on extreme DXpeditions. I like that the ARRL is looking out for ham frequencies and keeping ontop of the political side of things.

My First Radio

2008-06-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

My First Ham radio arrived today!

After consulting with my Uncle G4HON, I was advised that ICOM HT's are the bees knees so I ordered this as soon as I got back from vacation. I found the best price online at GigaParts, it was about $280 shipped, far more than the original budget of around $100 for a police scanner!

Now I need to wait for it to charge and to read the manual a lot and work out how to use the darn thing.

I already found a list of local repeaters so I can program those into the memory settings.

Got my license today

2008-06-14T00:32:00.000-07:00

I just noticed on the fcc site that my license was issued today!

Say hello to KI6QNY what an awful call sign, I'm going to have to do something about that. I checked out the available call signs and like the look of K8ARK since it has my initials and of the available ARK's this was in West Virginia (good mountain biking) rather than New York (likely someone else will want it there more than West Virginia). It would have been better to have K6ARK, then my region number would be accurate, but you can't have everything.

I am a radio ham! (Why?)

2008-05-17T00:14:00.000-07:00

Today I passed my technician class license exam! I had been studying for about 2 months I think and I barely squeaked through passing by the bare minimum if I remember rightly. I had planned to study properly, learn it all inside out and then take the test. But my vacation was coming up and I'd be seeing my Uncle Chris (G4HON) and figured it'd be neat if I had passed by then. I started on plan B and studied the question pool and took the test.

Why I became a ham:

I live close to the highway, right where all the cars crash. Recently there was a motorcycle accident and the hillside caught fire and the CDF helicopter came to dump some water. It was reported in the newspaper the next day. What they didn't say in the newspaper, but someone did in the comments below, was that they also found a marijuana growing operation right there and there was lots of chatter about it on the police frequencies. This made me start thinking I'd like a police scanner. I posted at working asking for recommendations. Someone replied and told me that for a similar price to a police scanner I could just get a Ham Radio Handheld Transceiver (HT) and then I could transmit too. That appealed to me a lot since I love the idea of self sufficiency and helping out (I'm first aid/CPR certified, I volunteer with my employer's Emergency Response Team and my wife is a certified EMT). That's how it all started.