May 6, 2024. A Tale of Woe and Some Trouble Shooting

Why is it we like to read about tales of woe? Is it that we have a huge empathy with those afflicted or is it a simple "glad it is them and not me"! Well I had a tale of woe yesterday!

I had so much fun operating in the 7QP contest that I thought on Cinco de Mayo I would pull out the Prototype PSSST-20 and give a few "Q's".

Well the best laid plans thing struck and the PSSST-20 had some issues and these were caused by what I did in the build and what I did while powering up the unit.

Again my projects are always viewed as an experimenter's platform. Previously I ran several different configurations of the steerable Rx RF Amp/Tx Driver and the one installed when I powered it on yesterday was the AG303-86G MMIC.

I found two issues and the first was kind of a rookie mistake. I have a big if not huge junk box with some parts in the box like older that 25 years. Long ago I bought s stock of 15-60pF trimmer caps and as luck would have it the metal tabs had tarnished a bit. I thought no problem as the soldering process would clean things up. Well in one case it didn't, and we had a cold solder joint that actually came loose.

The second issue I over voltaged a MMIC amplifier and it was smoked.

Tales of woe touches everyone... even me.

73's

Pete N6QW

2019 ~ What is the simplest homebrew SSB Transceiver that can be built?

4/27/2019 The Future of our Hobby is Here! Forget those simple rigs with homebrew crystal filters, cranky IRF510's and the analog VFO's. SDR is the wave that is building strength just like a Tsunami. With the Soft Rock V6.3 SMD Version + RRPi2 With the Omnia SDR and RPi2 Pete N6QW How Simple & How Cheap can you build a Homebrew SSB Transceiver? 4/26/2019 --- I just converted my websites from an obsolete Windows Based Server with GoDaddy to their cPanel (Linux). This was a cost issue as a one year renewal of the Windows Server would buy three years on the cPanel. GoDaddy is discouraging the use of what they call the Obsolete Windows System. So I had to migrate and reload the whole pastapete.com, jessystems.com and the n6qw.com sites to the Linux based servers. Some files and links got lost in the translation --so you might not be able to see everything! Essentially I have to open every link to verify that it works --that may take some time

New Technology for 2020 ~ The Hermes Lite 2.0 SDR Transceiver

The Hermes Lite 2.0 SDR Transceiver. November 7th, 2020 ~ It's Settled! It is done! The stain of the Trump era is soon to be removed! Thanks to all who voted. The Voice of the People has been heard. Congratulations to President Elect Biden and Vice President Elect Harris. Pete N6QW November 3rd, 2020 -- IT WAS THE MOUSE We all know this is Dump Trump Day. Go out and vote! It was the mouse! Back in 1999 I stupidly was one of the very first to purchase a Ten Tec Pegasus. Never buy the first batch of a new model. Touted as the world's first computer controlled radio , actually I think the Kachina 505 was really the first. But the Pegasus was fraught with problems including a trip back to the Smokey Mountains. I was using an older Windows 95 machine to control the Pegasus and that may be a co-conspirator. Well after many calls to TT -- finally someone who has some smarts told me: Fix your station ground, Make all leads short and Buy stock in a ferrite bead company. I did all

The Next Project Updated 10/10/2022! The rubber has hit the pavement!

The Next Project... A 2022 Transceiver. 10/10/2022 My Apologies. It is with regret that I will be terminating any further work on this project. My caregiver duties have over time become a greater time sink and it is almost impossible to build something working only 10-15 minutes at a time spread out over a day. I apologize for not getting it from design ideas to complete hardware. Most likely I have built the last transceiver I will ever build. Thanks for riding along. My website https://www.n6qw.com/ has the pdf of the postings and I will leave this blog page as is. 73's Pete N6QW 10/05/2022 Still Alive! Regrettably my caregiver duties have overtaken any free time so not much progress. But I am hopeful yet this week I will cut at least one board. A PSA from N6QW. Think of it like Mary Jo has a "crink" in her back and unable to get in the backseat of the 57 VW Beetle. A bit of a setback but not forever. Seems like the hired caregiver had a small emergency and not able

N6QW -- Left Coast Radio

Search This Blog