AmateurRadio.com

The little project I have to homebrew an Azimuth and Elevation rotator has moved on a little. After spending countless hours researching the project I came across a couple of really useful resources. Firstly the Radio Artisan website has simply done the hard stuff with the codes and secondly Anthony Stirk, M0UPU has made a shield / board for easy interfacing.

I’ve ordered a board and will see what I can do with it once it arrives. Next weekend is SOS Radio Week so I’ll be hamming it up at St Bees Lifeboat station so I doubt I’ll get a chance to do anything but we’ll see.

Shackbox is a Linux distro for us ham radio fans. So if you fancy using Linux in the shack (and why not) then after a long time in development (Which I understand from those in the know, that this means the developers had other things to do) there is a new release based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or Long Term Support.

I haven’t managed to download a copy as the servers were complaining but if you’re feeling lucky then head on over to http://shackbox.net/ and grab a copy.

I’m guessing but I’d image its a Live DVD that you can run on your normal machine without having to install anything. Like most Live versions you can install the distro after playing about either as a complete OS or as a dual boot.

Back when I had an easier job I decided that I’d attempt to make a really simple, lightweight rotator that used off the shelf servos or stepper motor’s driven by an Arduino. Either interfaced with a PC or as a stand alone device.

Well, things move when you’re not looking and it seems like my bright idea was also several others, and whilst I’ve been busy not doing anything radio, others have.

I’d managed to buy a couple of servos off eBay and managed to drive them with the standard examples. Although the movement wasn’t as smooth as I’d have liked. Perhaps a couple of large capacitors would have helped but as I didn’t have anything suitable to hand I thought I would have a go anyway.

Well it didn’t work out like that. After spending over an hour installing the Windows 8 drivers (how to turn you off an operating system!) I hooked up the Arduino and wrestled with the servos. Either they are knackered or there’s something missing…..

Time to take a step back and reflect, or buy a few caps

This rather grainy photo is probably going to be the last one of the Radio Shield. Mainly because of its un-christmas like behavior. the little monster has been misbehaving for a a while. It decides when and if it wants to decode any packets, which is pretty mean if you ask me and to cap it off a new fault has occurred, the LCD screen is very intermittent. The way it works is a bit like this.

1. Plug it in and watch it power up and display the splash screen – all good so far

2. Turn on the rig and tune into 144.800MHz

3. Send it a packet from my VX-8G and watch the LED flash green to say its happy listening and then display the callsign, SSID and associated data

4. turn it off and enjoy some dinner

5. Turn it back on. Get the usual start up message

6. Do nothing else regardless of what I throw at it.

The really annoying thing is that the serial monitor displays other messages that should go onto the LCD bu they stubbornly don’t bother to show themselves. There is definitely a fault somewhere on here so I’ve had to email Argent Data for a bit of a clue. Other little issues are that you can set the contrast or brightness by code (which you should be able to do).

It seems as though you get intermittent packet decoding and intermittent LCD displays, even if you wire up a few others to test. Hmmmm, perhaps I’ll tackle the other parts to the code enhancements later.

Humbug

Not strictly ham radio but parts of it are. For a while I’ve used rss readers to get the content I want into the reader of my choice. For a while that has been Google Reader. But since its demise I’ve lacked a concise and simple way of getting that information into a reader I use daily, MS Outlook. The annoying thing was that there are a bunch of ham radio news aggregators about that do a great job of popping content onto your virtual doorstep but most of them send out excerpt’s rather than the full text. Something that bugs me a bit.

So I decided to find a way of aggregating the rss data I want into a single feed, to remove duplicates and give me full text and photos of the news. So here’s how I did it.

1. Find the feeds you want http://g7kse.co.uk/feed (for a bit of shameless promotion)

2. See if the feed is chopped off by looking at the content. If its short all the time then chances are it is. Mine isn’t but many are

3. If it is, head on over to FullTextRSSFeed and plonk int the URL and let it do its thing

4. Login / Sign into yahoo to get to Yahoo Pipes

5. Pinch my pipe and make it work for you. They are fairly self explanatory and much underused. Replace the URL’s with yours. Run the pipe and get the RSS feed from that

6. Run the pipe and get the rss output (highlighted) and you should see something like this. The full URL is written there, bit of a mouthful. I tried to shorten it to something a bit more catchy and it didn’t work so just use the link above.

There seems to be more efficient ways of doing this but this method seems to work well enough for me. I’m sure there will be some aspects that don’t work for everyone, I’m not a developer so basically I don’t really know what I’m doing and this is the result of my fumbling about. I do hate it when computers don’t do the things I want them to though and spare a thought for my boss who gets a full rant every now and again when there isn’t a button to press to do a computers job !

No, I’m not expecting any new radio related ironmongery or a new rig. Especially as this week seems to have cost me a small fortune ( I had to buy a new car but that’s another story). Bust Christmas can give you a little bit extra, time that is.

I’ve only planned on doing 2 things, one is to activate the clubs callsign MX0WRC on Sunday, something that hasn’t been head on the air for a while. After refurbishing the shack the temporary antenna came down in the strong winds we regularly get so a Delta Loop will be helping us out. The plan is to show a few of the more novice operator how to use the clubs kit in the warmth. So if you hear a feint CQ from far off Cumbria then please call back. You may make a novice’s day.

The other little job will be to give away a few points in the RSGB VHF Christmas Cumulative contest. I’ve long lamented about the poor VHF signals that make it into St Bees but with a fair breeze I should work a few stations further afield than GD land (about 40 miles across the Irish sea). I’ll probably do it from the house so the QSO’s will be less than 10 but hey its only a bit of fun.

So If I don’t hear you or work you on Sunday then I hope to try again between 26th December and the 29th December for some armchair operating. Tea and biscuits at the ready!

1. A clicking noise from a hard disk doesn’t mean anything good.

2. This stack of part finished or finished bu not boxed up projects needs to be dealt with over the Christmas break if not beforehand or the XYL will go bananas.

3. Must not buy any more bits and pieces off Hans Summers, G0UPL (http://www.hanssummers.com/index.php) until I’ve completed all of number 2. Oh apart from the gps and replacement pa’s for my QRSS transmitter.

4. The UKAC contest series is short, enjoyable and keeping me close to a mic but isn’t helping with getting on HF.

5. No matter how much I think they’ve started, there are no builders in the back garden working on the extension. This is all very well as its not costing me anything but it means there is no tower up.