dongle

With the arrival of the 0805 LED's, all the keyer parts that I have been waiting for have arrived. A couple of weeks ago, I started to populate one of the boards that I had with the parts on hand, which were the MMBT3904 transistors. So, work can now begin in earnest. More events as they happen.

UPDATED
A couple of years ago, I wote about a new keyer I was working on. What I meant by "working on" at that point was the software. I got a ways into that project and then essentially no farther. Life intervened and I got interested in other things and ran into some issues that I couldn't immediately overcome and a dozen other wimped-out excuses. So, it might come as a shock, assuming that there's anyone left who is paying attention, that I've not only continued to work on this project, but have actually made progress.

This year, my place of employment gave me an end of year bonus, and it was substantial. It was, in fact, the largest bonus I have ever received. So, I went a little nuts buying stuff, mostly electronics. I got a couple of things I've wanted to get for a while. An SDR receiver dongle that works for HF, and a device I've wanted to buy for a while, which is a HackRF One. A HackRF One is a software-defined transceiver that covers all the frequencies from 1 MHz (and possibly lower) up to 6000 MHz.

I've been working on an SDR (Software Defined Radio) receiver that I can control via computer so I can use my TV receiver dongle to work linear transponder satellites. It hasn't work or, rather, has kind of worked strangely so last night I took it apart, metaphorically, and experimented with locally-generated signals so I could try to figure out what was going on. Having identified the errors, corrected those errors, and tested the correction, I can now explain how to make one of those things that works. The receiver part, anyway.

While I'm waiting for new boards to come in for the Arduino-based memory keyer and while I'm waiting for NC4L to get my money order so he can ship my FT-102 back, I'm working on getting back on the satellites. I've decided to try my hand at the linear-transponder satellites. I've watched guys like Andy (W5ACM) operate linear satellites with nothing more than an FT-847 and some well-practiced skills, but I don't have any FT-847 equivalent, and the all-mode radio that I do have is computer-controllable so I can run computer-controlled.

Like I put in my Links Page, Owen Morgan has an article on using $20 TV dongle to do software-defined radio.