AmateurRadio.com

The Raspberry Pi2 was delivered very quickly – thank you CPC! However, owing to a bit of silliness on my part I didn’t get it running until today. I’d assumed – always a dangerous thing – that the Pi2 used an SD card for its storage, like the Pi. Oh no it doesn’t! It uses a micro SD card. I didn’t discover this until I went to plug the SD card in!

Ah well. A quick Amazon order later and a micro SD card and an adapter was on the way. Those arrived here this morning, so I quickly prepared the micro SD card.

I had a bit of fun getting decent video on my rather old monitor in the shack and was starting to think I wasn’t going to find something better than VGA! However, a setting of hdmi_group=2 and hdmi_mode=16 gave me a reasonable compromise between getting a decent amount on the screen and being able to read it without green and yellow flashing in the background.!

The first bit of software I installed was the Gpredict satellite prediction program. It’s nice to have the map running in the shack. That went well and only seemed to be taking a very small percentage of CPU.

Then I installed RTLSDR and tested it, without any problems. I installed DUMP1090 – the ADS-B decoder as well as the Piaware software which uploads the ADS-B spots to Flightaware. Those programs run quite happily at the same time as Gpredict and use around 7% of CPU.

I fired up the Epiphany web browser and went to Twitter – again, the CPU was quite happy.

This looks very useful. I think I’d better order it a case!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Earlier last week I posted about how my solar banner seemed to stop updating and not showing the current day's condition. I emailed Paul N0NBH about the issue and he responded very fast asking for more information. We exchanged several emails and he was very helpful and wanted to get to the bottom of the problem that I was having with his solar banner. Paul explained to me that Chrome and Safari browsers seem to have issues with his banner. He went on to explain that on his site there are some other links one being  Marv (W4ZD) that may work better for me. For you Mac Safari users (like me) he also provided a great link to an article that deal with clearing Safari's cache using some simple short cuts. It would seem with Paul's solar banner when using Safari or Chrome the cache has to be cleared and the your page reloaded for the banner to update. On my desktop that runs Win7 I have not had this issue.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

 

• Radio Shack Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• The K-One-N, Nevassa Island DXpedition takes to the airwaves
• The ARRL makes public its legislative agenda for 2015
• The Raspberry Pi Foundation announces its latest system on a chip
• A popular ham radio-based radio program of the 1990's is coming back via an Internet archive.

      THIS WEEK'S NEWSCAST

      Script

      Audio

From my bank statement I see my 40m Pixie kit from China, that has shipped, cost a little over £7. This includes all parts including crystal and PCB. At this price it would be hard to buy the individual parts. I very much want to build this as it will be the first amateur radio construction here in a very long time.   It is sufficiently simple and low cost that I should manage it, even if I am a little clumsy still with the soldering iron.

 No doubt Andrew G6ALB (3km) will help with a first test.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Again, from Steve G1KQH, a link that may well be of interest to UK readers:

Did I send you this one Roger?

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

73 Steve
http://www.g1kqh.talktalk.net/

Many times we hear that closing old and polluting power stations is putting us at risk of power blackouts. Check the electricity capacity yourself.

In the left hand corner you can also check for France.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

My “first” KX3 during its early days at KG9DW.

I heard back from Elecraft yesterday, and my KX3 is officially toast. You see, it wasn’t ever designed to have 120VAC applied to the external power connector. As I feared, the current transitioned through the control board, wiped out some components, traveled across the leads to the RF board, took out multiple components, and then exited through the well grounded antenna connection.

Talking through the options, fixing it is cost prohibitive. The guys at Elecraft are working on an option for me, so I’m hopeful I’ll have a working KX3 back in the shack in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ve got a loaner radio from a buddy in the shack. It transmits fine but its receiver is so, so deaf compared to the KX3. It’s like going from an iPad Air to a Palm Pilot.

In the comments of my last post about this mistake, the suggestion of fusing along with a diode was brought up. I’ll definitely be putting more thought into my power supply cables after this costly error.

Michael Brown, KG9DW, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Illinois, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

To a novice it could sound worse. But to a seasoned operator I’ll bet is sounds like the equivalent of a rusty nail being used to score poorly formed tones in your ear hole. I’m referring to my CW style.

When I say amateurish I mean it in a couple of ways, firstly I am a radio amateur. This means I’m not getting paid for it (which, as my wife points out, is good as I would be bankrupt quickly). I’m also not a high performing (but talented amateur) mixing it with the pro’s. This means I’m somewhere down the peloton. Holding the latern rouge.

To carry on my cycling analogy. Mostly because I ride a bike as well. My gear isn’t a pinarello dogma, its not the latest shimano Di2. But its adequate, its circa 2007 and it works. My fitness is average but I can, when pushed, climb some steep hills.

The steepest hill I could find it morse code. So far I have spent nearly every lunch time since Christmas using LCWO to attempt to copy at 15wpm. This week marks the end of the letters. I can pretty much copy them all without too much trouble providing there is enough thinking gap.

I thought I’d have a go at sending tonight (Thanks Ian MW0IAN for the ear). CQ sounded like CQ in my head, but came out like QQ, T, K and a few other characters that I hadn’t intended to send but I’m hoping an operator on the other end will see through this. Just like when I hear bad practice or mistakes with SSB I hear operators ignoring their mistakes I’m hoping the same will happen with CW.

So forgive me. I have created some shocking characters. But stay with me because one day this year I will complete a QSO without making any mistakes. That much I promise! If you want to join me in rubbish CW then I can recommend it as a way to diet. I’ve enjoyed the learning so much I forgot to go for something to eat a couple of times. If you hear me calling CQ and respond only to get a seemigly random response, don’t worry its not you, its not me, its my novice brain not getting it right all the time.

 

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].