Needing to upgrade my spectrum analysis capability, I recently sold my trusty boatanchor HP 8558B to help finance a portion of a new Rigol DSA815-TG spectrum analyzer. Last week I was able to order the 815, and today it finally showed up on my doorstep. I first came across the 815 last year, at the… Read More Quick Impressions of the Rigol DSA815-TG
Last night, I had the very first 2x CC1 QSO with Dave AA7EE on 40 meters. Rather than try to blather about it, I’ll let the video do the talking. Needless to say, we were both quite stoked!
[pe2-image src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/-8gmHvJD2jyc/USH1uxHIu4I/AAAAAAAAC1I/ptVGYQdSylk/s144-c/IMG_20130218_012053.jpg” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/100175922620194527589/InstantUpload#5846223975109671810″ caption=”IMG_20130218_012053.jpg” type=”image” alt=”IMG_20130218_012053.jpg” ] I spiffed up my last bit of Minecraft Pi Edition code by making the Game of Life fit into a smaller area of the world, making the world grid and live cells easier to see (by making dead cells Obsidian and live cells Diamond Blocks), and even adding… Read More Fancier Minecraft Pi Game of Life
Also known as “The slowest implementation of the Game of Life in 2013″. This is what happens when you have insomnia. [pe2-image src=”http://lh3.ggpht.com/-pIMUUJNK__k/URzHojTQSAI/AAAAAAAACxQ/MCZeLIlpebE/s144-c/IMG_20130214_031548.jpg” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/100175922620194527589/InstantUpload#5844765915904755714″ caption=”IMG_20130214_031548.jpg” type=”image” alt=”IMG_20130214_031548.jpg” ] What I did was first clear out the entire world, then place a plane of glass across the entire world at y=1. The actual Life cells are… Read More Conway’s Game of Life in Minecraft Pi Edition
If you are a Raspberry Pi enthusiast, you may have seen that Minecraft Pi Edition was officially released yesterday. I don’t have the time to game like I used to, so I haven’t really played Minecraft, but this version looked intriguing since it’s free and it has an open API. So I downloaded it yesterday… Read More Exploring Minecraft Pi Edition
Last night after the rest of the family was in bed, I was hacking on the CC1 firmware to add the BFO calibration routine so that I could get an accurate readout of my receive frequency. After successfully completing that task at the late hour of 0130, I decided to cruise 40 meters to see… Read More The Thrill of QRP DX
A brief post to show you the CC1 prototype, now inside of its aluminum enclosure. This is the actual enclosure that will be used for production, but I will have the end caps custom cut and silkscreened, so you won’t have to do it yourself. Pardon my questionable metalworking skills, and please note the the… Read More CC1 #1
Two days ago, I received my pack of 10 CC1 prototype PCBs from Seeed Studio. The excitement was too much, so I immediately started building the first CC1 prototype as soon as my wife got home from work. Not surprisingly, I didn’t go to bed until I completed the build, sometime around 3 AM. I… Read More First RF
Yes, a belated Happy New Year greetings! It’s hard to believe that 2013 is already well under way. I figured it was about time to give you a quick update on what’s going on in the shack right now. First up is the discrete component grabber receiver for 14.141 MHz that I prototyped to be… Read More HNY
As I mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to try the Google+ Hangouts feature to attempt to do a video chat version of the old EchoLink chat that some of us used to have a few years ago on Saturdays. Today we took it for a spin, and I think I really like how… Read More Homebrewing Hangout