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Every now and then I come across great books or videos that explain a concept in such a way that it becomes immediately obvious what is going on. I’m a great believer in learning by demonstration or even better, learning by doing.
I came across another explanatory video recently that I thought was too good to keep to myself. It covers a topic that was a complete mystery to me: Phase Locked Loops. We utilize them in almost every modern transmitter and receiver yet most people I have talked to view them as a black box that, fortunately, does its job well and usually without interruption.
The video below does a good job on opening the black box and showing just what makes phase locked loops … well, lock.

Read an interesting Blog today about three Norwegian scientists who used historical solar green corona emissions data to predict that Solar Cycle 24 will be 17 years long, 4.5 years longer than Solar Cycle 23:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/11/quantifying-the-solar-cycle-24-temperature-decline/

The Norwegian study referred to in the Blog is available for download here:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1954v1.pdf

We are currently in Cycle 24 which has, thus far, been lackluster as far as sunspots and solar flux go.  I haven’t read the Norwegian study in detail, yet – I’m curious to know when the Norwegian authors think Cycle 24 will peak and at what level of solar activity and how they reached their conclusions.

My fingers are crossed for a vigorous Cycle 24 peak as it would be nice to have a bout or two (or three) of temperate latittude F2 propagation on 50-MHz before sliding down to the Cycle 24/25 trough!

73
Bill AA7XT

I’ve blogged about iOS apps before, but I can’t remember if I’ve previously mentioned anything about HamLog.  I’ve owned HamLog for a few years now.  I’ll honestly say for the record I don’t currently use it, but feel that will soon change.

HamLog is an iOS and Android application developed by Nick Garner, N3WG.  Nick has developed over a dozen different apps.  One I mentioned briefly in another blog post is his Pocket SOTA app.  You can view Nick’s listing of Apps from his website. 

As I mentioned, I’ve owned HamLog for a few years.  I believe Nick developed and released it in 2009.  I’ve watched Nick make many changes to the HamLog app over the years.  While I’ve tried using it to log contacts, I found I could log via pen and paper much faster.  Especially with operating SOTA, you can easily find yourself generating a large pileup.  The extra time it takes to manually key in all the info was just something I wasn’t interested in for my own operational setup.  Until now…

Please take a few minutes to watch this video.  Nick introduces some new enhancements to the HamLog App as well as a new piece of hardware called Pigtail Air.  Pigtail air will allow for true rig control through the HamLog app and of course will speed up the logging process. 

I believe the Pigtail Air device, coupled with my new KX3 (when it arrives) and my iPad will make a fantastic SOTA or portable logging setup.  I’ll now have an excuse to buy that Otterbox Defender iPad case.

Until next time…

73 de KD0BIK

Eldon WA0UWH posted yesterday on lessons learned about the Parallax Propeller programming language Spin. I too have been having fun and games trying to create a user interface for my multimode multiband beacon using the LCD module. Whilst some of my problems have been due to my failure to spot my own stupid mistakes, a couple were caused by the tools themselves.

A considerable amount of time was wasted recovering a working program after a change I made seemed to have messed it up. Eventually I discovered by accident that the program fails to run correctly on the Propeller board unless the main Spin source file is the foremost one in the Propeller Tool editor. I had begun splitting my code into separate objects with their own source files and because I had been editing or referring to one of these files I had tried running the code with one of these files in the foreground instead of the main one.

I wasted a couple of hours trying to backtrack what I had done and ended up installing one of those programs that archives each version of a file whenever you save it so that you can roll back to a previous state. The best program I have found for this is AJC Active Backup which comes with a diff tool that shows the differences between two files but unfortunately I have lost the licence key since the last time I installed it so as I was feeling tight-fisted I had to use something less good.

The other problem that caused a lot of lost time was an apparent error in the LCD UI Spin object. Specifically, the cursor method that is supposed to let you change the cursor to a flashing underscore or block just seems to clear the LCD and then crash. I had been hoping to use the cursor to show what bit of information the user was editing but I can’t get it to work.

I’m not sure exactly where I am going with the beacon project. Jeff KO7M has developed a WSPR encoder that generates the required code when you input your call, power and locator. However there is not much point in using it unless I provide an interface that allows you to input this information as text. If I choose to support Opera then the bit code will have to be programmed in as no-one other than Opera’s programmer knows the algorithm used to encode the callsign. As my beacon is unlikely to be used by anyone other than G4ILO in IO84 at however much dBm it produces I may as well hard code all beacon texts.

The other thing I’m not sure about is how to add the PA. The LCD UI module is now plugged into all the headers on the Gadget Gangster board and I don’t want to attach wires to the board itself. I could solder headers to the two rows of holes adjacent to the existing headers on the Gangster board and then plug a board to the bottom of it. That would be the probably be the neatest solution – unless anyone has a better idea?

Lately I’ve been thinking (again) about getting a new rig and replacing an older Kenwood.  I’ve actually cleaned up the shack a bit and have removed some little monoband rigs that I rarely use and have gotten down to the basics of just what I need.  I feel I need something new in the shack, I’m just not sure what.

The Elecraft K3 would be a no brainer choice.  While it’s a great rig, it somewhat has the makings of a fad for me, and I’ve never been a trend follower.

The KX3 is another option.  I kind of like the idea of a portable rig that has the potential for being a primary home shack rig at 100 watts.  But I still have concerns about the form factor, with the rig being so small and for portable backpack use it seems a bit fragile.  I don’t know if I could be satisfied with it as a home base rig.

I would love to try a Flexradio, however each day I’m leaning more towards Mac in the shack (gasps from the audience).  The last time I looked at Flex they still weren’t supporting Vista or Windows 7.  Perhaps that’s changed but support for OSX is likely light years away.

Nothing that Kenwood currently offers excites me.  Unfortunately I doubt I’ll ever buy a Kenwood HF rig again.

Maybe I should go with a Yaesu rig?  The FT-950 looks like a reasonable choice, though a bit uninspiring.  The price is right and it gets good reviews.  It appears to be a good performing rig without needless extravagance like multi-kilobuck contester rigs.  I’m quite pleased and familiar with the FT-817 and FT-897, so this rig would not be difficult to assimilate into the shack, though it doesn’t really get me into uncharted territory and it seems like a “safe” choice.

Perhaps it’s time I tried a Ten Tec?  The Ten Tec Jupiter is kind of spartan-looking, but interesting.  I like the clean look and under the hood it seems to have a lot of technology and power.  One downside I see is that the MARS mod is not readily available.  I modify all my rigs for DC to daylight transmit for emergency use and so I can use them as signal generators.  I’ve never used a Ten Tec but I know they are legendary performers.

I’ve used Icoms and I can’t say anything bad about them, they’ve just never been on my radar.  I’m not sure why.

Any thoughts from the studio audience on what’s a good $1K – $2K HF-6m rig these days?

The Black Sparrow Media mobile application which lets you see all kinds of content related to programs on the BSM Network, is now available in iTunes.  Simple search for “black sparrow” on your Apple mobile device and you can download it for free.  The application was previously released for Android and is available for any device with access to the Android Marketplace.  You can even use the app to listen to live stream shows of Linux in the Ham Shack! New programs are coming to the Black Sparrow Media Network in the very near future, so stay tuned for that as well.

I’ve mentioned before that some contacts really grab your imagination. This evening was one of those. Generally, over the last few weeks 10m has been closed by the time I have got to the car on the way home from work. However, this evening, when I switched on the 10m rig I could hear a station close to 28.400MHz where the rig was ‘parked’. As I drove over to the supermarket, I could hear W8ERN in Michigan working his way through a steady stream of callers. Driving through urban Didcot is quite noisy on HF, so I hadn’t really expected to hear any more on 10m by the time I had finished my shopping for a Valentine’s meal for Julie.

But as I drove away from the supermarket, with goodies in my shopping bag, I switched on the 10m rig and he was still there, if anything, stronger! To my surprise, Angelo, W8ERN heard ‘mobile’ as someone else called him and asked for the mobile. I called and was thrilled to get a 5/8 report from him.

We had a very easy QSO and I was able to explain that I was running around 10W from the Anytone AT-5555 to a CB whip on the car. Angelo told me about his website and I told him about this one!

Great to make my first inter-continental QSO from the car on 10m with the Anytone rig! Thanks Angelo!