Small, high performing and cheap, what’s not to love about bifilar wound common mode chokes (CMC). This article will walk through the process of building one (or two).
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EMR Safety Management Book – a, b, c
Does your amateur radio station comply with EMR safety guidelines? The WIA and RSGB tools enable you to quickly evaluate, mitigate and document your compliance. I expect that in most instances, it would take less than 10 minutes to complete. It really is as easy as a, b, c.
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CW Signals – What am I hearing
If I’m listening to a CW signal on 7.025 MHz, what magic transpires such that my receiver outputs a 500 Hz tone for me to listen to?
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ISS SSTV Expedition 73 – ARISS Series 27
I received this set with my Diamond X300 vertical -> Kenwood TM-V71 -> MMSSTV. There were of course a lot more decodes, which allowed me to select the best of each image.
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CW Key to Radio Switch
There was no issue when I had but one radio capable of CW. My straight key and paddles were plugged into their respective ports on the back of my TS-590SG. In time I acquired an all mode 2 m rig, so a second straight key went onto the desk. Then the TS-520S and FT-101E followed over a twelve-month period. Each additional radio increased the number of keys on my desk, and a corresponding decrease of available desk space.
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Programming a PRM80 radio with a modern computer.
There is much angst about programming Philips/Simoco PRM80 radios with modern computers lacking a real serial port. For many years I’ve kept an old laptop available for just that purpose. Today however, after getting grumpy with how slow the laptop was, discovered that it doesn’t need to be that hard.
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Setting up TinyGS on Heltech Wireless Tracker V1.1
TinyGS is a great project with a very simple installation. The documentation however is several years out of date, so prepare the pull your hair out. After installing it twice with a six month interlude, I forgot what I needed to do, so am documenting it here for future me.
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Building a USB PTT Interface
Many software packages deigned for encoding and decoding RF protocols have the capability of keying a transceiver via serial RTS or DTR lines. Here is a simple design to achieve this with a common USB to Serial TTL adapter.
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DIN connector pin numbering
Am I the only one who gets thoroughly confused when seeing DIN connector pin diagrams, having no idea which end of the connector you’re looking at? This is particularly bothersome when connectors don’t have the pin numbers indicated on the connector. I’ve put together some foolproof images to remind me the next time I find myself in such a pickle.
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Changing the PiPico boot mode from PowerShell
To put the Pi Pico into programming mode, you need to open a connection to it at its magic number port speed. This set of commands allows me to set the mode and upload an .ino file.
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