The Si5351 library for avr-gcc that I’ve been promising for the last four posts is finally in a state where I feel comfortable releasing it, so I’ve posted it on GitHub. I think that the documentation posted on the README file and inside the code should be enough to get you going, but if you… Read More Si5351A Investigations Part 5
I’ve got a lot of project ideas rattling around my head. Got even more of them in my notebook. One of the projects floating around in there for years that seemed pretty cool, but not urgent, was an automated thermal chamber for oscillator stability testing, roughly based on the one seen at the end of chapter… Read More Si5351A Investigations Part 4
Since the previous Si5351 Investigations post, I’ve made quite a bit of progress integrating the Si5351 into a grabber receiver. First, let’s look at the grabber receiver architecture and how the Si5351 is used in it. Above you can see the basic block diagram of the receiver. The front end has two switchable plug-in bandpass… Read More Si5351A Investigations Part 3
About a week and a half ago, I received an email from Etienne K7ATN, asking me if would be able to participate in an event he organized called the Portland Urban S2S Party. In a nutshell, this was an effort to get activators on as many of the “urban” SOTA summits in the Portland area so… Read More SOTA After Action Report – Cooper Mountain
The final chapter of the Hi Juno event has arrived at the NT7S shack. After months of waiting and wondering if my reception report was received, I returned home from a SOTA activation to find the beautiful Hi Juno QSL in my mailbox. Thanks to the folks at JPL who coordinated this intriguing event and… Read More The Final Courtesy
It has been another productive weekend with the Si5351 here in the shack. Since the last report, I’ve made significant progress in confirming that the Si5351 may be a good candidate for use as a LO in a radio. After getting the most basic communications with the Si5351 going via the Bus Pirate, my next task was… Read More Si5351A Investigations Part 2
Sometime not too long ago, I was tipped off (sorry, I don’t remember by whom) to a potential rival to the popular Si570 called the Si5351. This PLL-based clock generator IC has a few points in its favor over the Si570: it is significantly less expensive (even with the required external crystal or clock) and… Read More Si5351A Investigations Part 1
Perhaps it’s because the good weather has finally arrived here in Beaverton, but I seem to have become a bit more sanguine about my difficult situation with Etherkit, as described in my last post. It’s in my nature to be more of a realist (others might call it pessimism), sometimes trending to a bit of… Read More Bitter Taste
There are times when one must face the reality of situations, no matter how painful it may be, because the alternative is even more destructive in the long term. This is one of those times for me. As I’m sure you have noticed, blogging here has dried up, I have done a horrible job in… Read More Red Pill
This has been a very unique Christmas for me. For most of my adult life, as someone without children, Christmas wasn’t exactly the exciting holiday that it used to be as a kid, of course. It was still nice to get together with the family to exchange gifts and have a dinner feast. But the… Read More Merry Christmas