Musings on Radio, Computers, Technology, and Family
The Raspberry Shake has some nice software available with it. One of the nicest things to start out with is an app available for Android phones called “EQInfo“. It provides a list of recent earthquakes, as detected by various monitoring agencies. You can click on a quake, and see a seismometer’s trace of the Read More …
I live in Northern California, about halfway between the San Andreas and Hayward faults, in an earthquake-prone area. I’m also fascinated by science and computers. So when I saw the http://raspberryshake.org site, where you could get your own personal seismometer station and network it together with others to form a net capable of locating and measuring earthquakes, Read More …
My computers now know what time it is, to the millisecond, without using the Internet. I put together a stratum-1 ntp time server, based on a Raspberry Pi 3 model B with an Adafruit Ultimate GPS Hat. I put the whole thing into a C4 Labs Zebra GPS HAT Case, made of layers of shiny acrylic. Read More …
Every radio enthusiast in the Western hemisphere is familiar with radio station WWV, which will have been been steadily broadcasting time signals for 100 years in October of 2019, if it makes it that long. If it makes it that long? Yes, the world’s oldest continuously operated radio station may cease operations, if the proposed Read More …
The Astron RS-35A makes a distinctive “Thwap” sound when it is first turned on. This is because there is nothing to limit the inrush of current that initially charge the main capacitor. This inrush can be hard on the power switch. I found this article from the repeater-builder website describing how to install an inrush Read More …
Most ham radio transceivers do not run directly off of mains AC power, but instead operate from about 13.8VDC, using something in the range of ten to thirty amps or so. In home stations, this is usually supplied from the AC mains power via a “power supply”. Keeping the power supply in a separate unit Read More …
The result of building the Tecsun 2p3 is a nice looking portable AM transistor radio. If you made any soldering mistakes during the construction of the kit, they’re not going to be visible once things are inside the case. I’m going to compare this radio to the Sony ICF-S10MK2 AM/FM radio, a fairly common AM/FM Read More …
Last time, we completed the electrical assembly, and now, we’ll assemble things into the cabinet. I don’t have a lot of photos here, because I did things incorrectly so many times. I had to re-solder the speaker wires, as well as remove and re-insert the circuit board many times. Why? I didn’t study Read More …
Continuing from where we left off, we’ll proceed with the assembly of the Tecsun 2p3. Here we insert C8, C10, and C13 R12 Now we solder the volume potentiometer into the broken-off piece of the circuit board. Note that we leave the end terminals unsoldered at this time. Here, we lightly Read More …
Here I begin assembling the Tecsun 2p3 AM radio, which I told you about in this previous post. The Tecsun 2p3 has unusual instructions. They come on one sheet, approximately 20″ x 30″. It’s about the size of eight sheets of notebook paper. It’s not a booklet, but more of a two-sided poster. There is Read More …